3-Pillar Path To Emotional Fitness: Pillar 2 - Develop a Habitual Practice

When we think about fitness — whether physical or emotional — it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that intensity is the most important factor. But intensity alone isn’t enough. What truly matters, what creates real transformation and long-term well-being, is consistency.

Take, for example, the elite athlete. At the height of their career, they are in peak condition. Finely tuned, incredibly disciplined, the very embodiment of physical excellence. But fast-forward 10 or 20 years, and many of those same athletes look… ordinary. Sometimes even out of shape. Why? Because for many of them, fitness was a means to an end - a way to win, compete, and achieve. And when the competition ended, so did the commitment.

Now contrast that with someone who’s built physical fitness into the rhythm of their everyday life. Maybe they go for a run each morning, make thoughtful choices about what they eat, and see movement as a non-negotiable part of their day. They aren’t training for a medal. They’ve simply decided that well-being matters. That person likely maintains a consistent level of health and vitality over time, not because they trained like a pro, but because they’ve built a habit of physical fitness.

This difference illustrates a powerful truth: fitness, of any kind, is not a one-time project. It’s a lifestyle.

The same is true for emotional fitness. You don’t need to make it your full-time job or retreat to a mountaintop monastery. You just need to commit to a regular practice that’s sustainable, that fits into your life, and that you can keep returning to day after day. 

And importantly, no matter how much progress you make during an intensive period of self-work, if you stop practicing, you stop progressing and often begin regressing.

This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being consistent. Because emotional fitness, like physical fitness, is available to everyone, and it’s the people who commit to showing up for themselves every day, in small and steady ways, who will feel the difference most over time.

Emotional Fitness as a Lifelong Practice
The capacity for emotional change is available to everyone. While some of us may begin with more self-awareness or emotional regulation, long-term growth is determined not by natural disposition but by consistent practice over time.

The foundation of emotional fitness is a built on three core pillar that create real and lasting change. The first pillar is centered on learning how to untrigger ourselves from our outdated emotional responses. Using the Emotional Updating technique individuals can take the first, most critical step in overcoming their emotional challenges by not simply managing them, but clearing them entirely. But knowing the technique alone is not enough. For the benefits to accumulate and endure, that work must be anchored in daily life. What begins as a method must become a habit. Emotional fitness takes shape not only through skill, but through structure.

This is where having a habitual daily practice becomes central. Emotional growth is not a linear process, nor is it ever complete. As life continues to unfold, new experiences, relationships, and stressors introduce new challenges. Even those who have done significant emotional work in the past must remain engaged if they wish to maintain and expand their capacity. Emotional progress is not a one-and-done activity. Without ongoing practice, it loses stability.

Sustained change also requires that the work move beyond isolated efforts and become a part of how we live. It must be integrated. Emotional work should exist in the same category as sleep, hygiene, and nourishment — not as an emergency response, but as something built into the rhythm of daily life. Ten to fifteen minutes per day is enough to produce real progress, but only if it’s done consistently. This the second pillar for developing emotional fitness – having a habitual daily practice.

Importantly, the aim of emotional fitness is not simply to reduce discomfort or navigate stress more efficiently. The goal is to consistently confront reality and to respond to it positively. This means not managing emotional distress, but resolving it at the source. Through repeated application of techniques like Emotional Updating, emotional responses that no longer serve a purpose can be cleared. Once they are, they do not need to be revisited. This makes the work not only effective for the moment, but the impact is also cumulative, allowing the effects to compound over time.

The Role of Habit in Emotional Fitness
Developing emotional fitness is not simply a matter of intent. The willingness to engage is necessary, but it is not sufficient on its own. What allows emotional work to become consistent, sustainable, and ultimately transformative, is habit. Without habit, even the best tools and clearest insights will be used sporadically, often abandoned when stress increases or motivation declines. Habit is what enables the practice to continue regardless of changing conditions.

The value of habit lies in its automaticity. A well-established habit does not require daily deliberation or negotiation. It is not a question of whether the work will happen, it simply does. A useful analogy is brushing your teeth. Most people brush their teeth without much thought, even on difficult days, because the behavior has become fully integrated into their routine. It is no longer a decision. It is a default. Emotional fitness benefits from the same mechanism. When the work becomes habitual, it continues even during periods of low energy, distraction, or emotional disruption, and these are often the moments when it is most needed.

This orientation  toward systems rather than sporadic effort  is grounded in the behavioral model popularized by James Clear in Atomic Habits. One of the key insights from that framework is the recognition that motivation is unreliable. It fluctuates, often unpredictably. If emotional fitness depends on motivation, it will be inconsistent by definition. Habit removes that dependency. Once a pattern is installed through repetition, it can function with little cognitive effort. The result is not just greater consistency, but greater resilience. A person is more likely to continue their emotional practice during difficult periods if they are not relying on short-term willpower to maintain it.

However, developing this kind of habit takes time. It does not emerge from a single decision, but from repeated execution of the same behavior over a sustained period. In most cases, it takes two to three months of regular practice to establish a functional habit. During this time, repetition matters more than intensity. The primary objective is not to have deep or dramatic sessions, but to perform the practice regularly, under varying conditions, until it begins to anchor itself in daily life.

Because the early stage of habit formation is the most vulnerable to interruption, accountability plays a critical role. While the long-term goal is autonomy, external structure and support can be essential in the beginning. Having someone or something to help reinforce the behavior increases the likelihood that it takes hold. The aim is not to make individuals dependent on external support, but to help them reach the point at which the practice is self-sustaining. Once the habit is fully formed, the routine begins to reinforce itself. But until then, guidance and accountability serve as useful scaffolding.

Over time, the practice shifts from something one does deliberately to something one simply does. That shift — from effort to structure, from intention to habit — is what makes emotional fitness viable in the long term.

The Value of Consistency
Progress in emotional fitness often comes quickly at the beginning. With even a small amount of effort, it’s possible to clear one or two triggered responses and experience a real sense of relief. But those initial changes — while important — are just the beginning. They represent the most accessible material, the low-hanging fruit. To go further requires more than short-term effort. It requires sustained commitment.

As the work continues, it’s normal for visible progress to slow. Emotional reactions that are more deeply embedded take longer to surface and longer to resolve. That doesn’t mean nothing is happening. In many cases, change is taking place beneath the surface, even when it’s not immediately perceptible. 

A useful way to understand this is through the analogy of heating a block of ice. If the ice starts at -40°C, the temperature can increase significantly before any melting becomes visible. If you stop at -10°C, the shift never happens — even though you're close. But if you keep going, eventually the structure changes and you hit the melting that. That’s when the breakthrough comes. But it only comes from staying with it.

This is the point where many people drop off. When progress feels slow, or when things start to feel better, the practice is often abandoned. But stopping too soon cuts off the deeper work. Emotional wellbeing isn’t static. They require consistent care. If the practice stops, people stagnate. Vitality decreases. What was previously moving starts to stall out. Over time, reactivity returns, and the weight that had been lifted starts to rebuild.

It’s important to recognize that motivation will not always be present. That’s why the practice has to become a habit. Without that structure in place, it’s easy to fall back into old patterns — not because the work wasn’t effective, but because it wasn’t sustained. Even the right tools don’t make a difference if they’re not being used.

One of the most common reasons people stop is because they’re feeling better. Ironically, that’s also the most dangerous time to stop. Feeling better isn’t a signal that the work is finished — it’s a result of the work that’s already been done. And it can just as easily fade if the practice is left behind.

This is why momentum matters. Even when you can’t see immediate results, continuing the practice allows the benefits to accumulate. It builds toward something more stable and lasting. But only if you keep going.

Identity Transformation
One of the most significant shifts in emotional fitness is moving from a focus on individual outcomes to a focus on identity. People often begin this work because of a specific issue they want to resolve — a fear, a block, a recurring emotional reaction — and in many cases, that issue can be resolved. But lasting change doesn’t come from clearing one or two emotional responses. It comes from building a life where the practice of working on your emotional fitness becomes part of who you are.

This is not about trying to fix a shortlist of issues. It’s about no longer identifying with being someone who is emotionally stuck, anxious, reactive, or avoidant. These emotional patterns may have shaped past behavior, but they are not fixed aspects of a person’s character. Holding onto them as part of one’s identity — “I’ve always been like this,” “This is just how I am” — makes them harder to change. The more deeply someone identifies with their emotional limitations, the more difficult it becomes to move beyond them.

The work is to shift that identification. To stop relating to yourself as someone who has a permanent emotional condition, and to start relating to yourself as someone who is a work in progress reaching for your full, bottomless well of potential.

The concept here is drawn directly from the framework of identity-based habits: you don’t stop smoking by trying harder; you stop when you stop seeing yourself as a smoker. The behavior must change, yes, but the deeper shift is in who you believe you are.

The same applies to emotional work. The goal isn’t to be someone who “should do more emotional work,” or someone who “sometimes works on their issues.” The goal is to become someone who is emotionally fit. Someone who does the work not just when it’s urgent, but as a part of how they move through the world.

This is where sustainability begins. Not in isolated efforts, but in identity. When the practice becomes something you do because it reflects who you are, the work no longer requires constant effort. It becomes integrated.

The Hurdles to Growth
Even with a clear method and a consistent habit, emotional fitness can be difficult to sustain. Not because the work itself is inaccessible, but because of the pressures that come with change. Emotional growth is not only an internal process. It also shifts how a person relates to the people around them, and how they see themselves. These shifts often create friction, both externally and internally, that can challenge a person’s commitment to stay engaged.

One of the first barriers to sustaining the work is negative external feedback. When a person begins to change — when they become clearer, less reactive, or more grounded — the people around them notice. Sometimes that change is welcomed. But in many cases, it disrupts familiar dynamics. Families, social groups, and close relationships often operate on implicit emotional agreements. When one person begins to change, it can make others uncomfortable, even if that change is positive. Reactions like “you’ve changed” or “you’re being different” may not be spoken with hostility, but they signal a disruption. And that disruption can lead to withdrawal, criticism, or subtle forms of distancing, especially from people who are not doing their own emotional work.

This creates a choice. In order to continue growing, a person may have to tolerate losing some degree of belonging, at least temporarily. The emotional patterns that kept them connected to others may have been based on appeasement, or conflict, or poor boundaries. Changing that pattern means changing the role they’ve played in the group. And that change is not always welcomed.

Alongside this external tension is the internal resistance that often emerges with growth. Self-doubt and negative self-talk can be just as disruptive as any external force. These reactions are often strongest just as the person is about to break through. The part of them that has stayed safe by staying small will often push back hardest when expansion is near. And without support or a solid structure, that pushback can derail the work.

What often needs to be released in order to move forward are old comfort zones; ways of being that may no longer be functional, but that feel familiar. Sometimes that means letting go of behaviors or beliefs. Sometimes it means letting go of relationships that only worked because of who we used to be. These are not small decisions. But they are often necessary ones. Growth, by definition, requires the willingness to change not just what you do, but what you’re willing to no longer do.

This process is not unnatural. It is the emotional version of what happens everywhere in life: people grow, evolve, change form. The same way we change physically over time, we are meant to change emotionally. And the fact that it can be uncomfortable, or lonely, or uncertain, does not mean something is wrong. The difficulty of sticking with emotional work is not a reason to avoid it. It’s a signal that the work is taking hold. And that’s exactly where it needs to go in order to last.

The Rewards of Consistency
Emotional fitness is not reserved for a particular kind of person. It’s not only for those who are naturally introspective, or for those in crisis, or for those who feel like they’re already doing well. It is a practice that anyone can take on. With the right tools and consistent application, the ability to change our emotional responses is accessible to anyone willing to do the work.

The process is not always fast, and it’s rarely linear. There are stretches where very little seems to be happening, and then a sudden shift emerges — a noticeable lightness, a release, a sense of clarity that wasn’t there before. These moments don’t come out of nowhere. They are the result of the work that came before, often at times when it felt like nothing was moving. That’s why consistency matters.

It’s also important to remember that emotional fitness is not about solving everything at once. There is no requirement to be fully clear, completely regulated, or perpetually self-aware. The work is done one piece at a time. You begin where you are. You work with what’s present. That’s enough. The rest builds over time, as a result of practice.

There’s no perfection to reach. No ideal state to maintain. What matters is staying continuing to show up, even when the progress is subtle. Especially when the progress is subtle. Because that’s when the deeper change is taking shape. 

Over time, the daily practice becomes the architecture of emotional growth. It is what allows the work to continue, not through force or motivation, but through rhythm. As the habit takes hold, the changes deepen and it becomes a way of life. The person practicing is no longer simply troubleshooting discreet challenges, they’re building a daily practice towards life-long self-actualization.