Lesson 3 – What You’ll Achieve in Foundations

In the previous two lessons (Lesson 1 – Why Foundations? and Lesson 2 – What’s Your “Good Enough”?), I explained what foundations are, why they matter, and how you can improve yours. I also discussed how you can find your “good enough” and why you can often sustain much better habits than you initially think you have time and energy for.

Today, I’d like to walk through the specifics of Foundations itself: what I’m teaching, what you’ll work on, and why it matters. If that’s something that interests you, we’ve also opened registration for the next week, so be sure to check it out.

How Foundations Works

Foundations is unlike many other courses. We start with action, then follow-up with lessons and support, inverting the usual approach of having a bunch of material to wade through followed by some tepid homework.

Each month begins with a new keystone habit. Each habit is drawn from expert advice in each of the fields I studied to maximize for impact while also being sustainable in a busy life.

At the start of each month, you will work through a video-guided worksheet in which I walk you through the essential, step-by-step process for getting started with the month’s keystone habit—in your life, as it exists today. (This includes a lot of the not-so-obvious steps that trip people up!)

This is followed by research-based lessons spread throughout the month. Each lesson gives key insights to support the habit, deepen your knowledge of the domain, and review helpful books (48 in total, over the year). Collectively, there are more than 160 lessons in the program, not including worksheets, FAQs, community coaching and other resources. There are a lot of lessons, but each one is designed to fit into your life, even when you are busy.

In our first session we offered coaching separately, but our experience showed that community coaching access made such a difference in success rates that we’ve made it part of the core program. Ultimately, it’s community and solidarity, not just advice, that transform insights into habits.

The Twelve Foundations

As mentioned in the previous lessons, Foundations is designed to be flexible. Success looks different for each person.

Given the breadth of the course, it is difficult to summarize everything that is covered. So here, very briefly, I’ve outlined some of the curriculum goals, backed up by specific lessons in the course and implemented through the keystone habit and supplemental worksheets:

1. Fitness. Make regular exercise an enjoyable part of your life, improving your health, mood and energy levels. Know which kinds of exercise are most important and how to make them an automatic part of your life.
2. Productivity. Adopt a full-capture productivity system, so you can stay on top of your tasks, meetings and commitments. Understand how to get work done with less stress.
3. Money. Know exactly where your money goes each month. Cultivate a savings plan to steadily grow your wealth. Understand what experts say is the best way to invest, and the psychological strategies needed to sustain it.
4. Food. Change your food environment to sustain healthy eating without diets or deprivation. Take the hassle out of cooking, making food something you look forward to, rather than feel bad about.
5. Reading. Become a person who regularly finishes dozens of books per year. Understand the principles behind reading speed, retention, and critical thinking.
6. Outreach. Build lasting friendships and community bonds. Overcome social anxiety and isolation. Understand how to keep up with friends—even when busy.
7. Sleep. Put in place the sleeping habits you need to keep your energy levels high throughout the day. Learn the science for overcoming insomnia and surprising factors that impact your rest.
8. Reflection. Train yourself on new tools to get past emotional blocks and negative beliefs. Understand the strategies behind successful therapy, meditation, journaling and self-talk.
9. Connection. Cultivate higher quality one-on-one time with people you care about. Learn how to defuse conflict, create relationship harmony, and the surprising research about what makes marriages last.
10. Focus. Make better choices about how to spend your limited time. Quiet external distractions and internal impulses from derailing your thoughts. Find alignment between your daily activity and your ultimate values in life.
11. Organization. Complete a full-home declutter, creating an easy-to-use physical space with just the things you need. Undo the psychological mistakes that lead to a chaotic home environment.
12. Service. Become a more generous person. Understand how to help others more without feeling burned out or taken advantage of. Find a mission for your work and meaning in your life.

Chances are some of your foundations are already strong. For those, the program will provide you with knowledge and practice to reaffirm a commitment to what is already solid in your life. 

Other foundations you probably already recognize as being a little weak. Perhaps it’s a habit that has lapsed, or a domain of life you’ve always struggled with and never seemed to get a good grasp on. For those, you’ll make sustainable, incremental steps to a better life.

However, to me, the biggest benefit of this program comes from exposing you to upgrades to your life that aren’t even on your radar right now. Not the habits you follow or the habits you know you need to build, but the insights and behaviors that you weren’t even aware you were missing.

I had this experience numerous times in my own project, and it was common among people who undertook the course. Very often, the foundation they benefited most from upgrading wasn’t one they had thought much about before starting the program.

Come Join Me For a Second Round of Foundations

I’m going to be starting a second round of my own Foundations project. Many of our past students liked the approach so much, they’re also joining me for a second lap.

I’d love it if you could join us too:

join.ingeniumcourses.com/foundations

I’ll hold registration until next Friday, October 24th at midnight Pacific Time.