The muscle theory

What if every characteristic of our personality, whether good or bad, is amplified by how much we practice it?

In other words, if we are jealous a lot of the time—even if we’re doing it unconsciously—we’re exercising our jealousy muscle. The more that we do it, the more natural it becomes and the more we feel jealous.

This applies to all our personal traits: appreciation, compassion, empathy, creativity, discipline, or being self-critical.

Our brains are a soup of neurochemicals that form pathways. Pathways are created when these chemicals move in the same direction over and over, forming a habit.

Lets take a disciplined author as an example. Many authors sit and write at the same time every single day. It doesn’t matter if they feel inspired, or don’t have any motivation: they do it anyway. They’re building a habit. They’re exercising their creativity muscle. It gets easier the more they do it so they keep doing it.

Exercise the traits you want to be known for and starve the ones you don’t.