Stoic practice.

The exercises

• Morning · 3 min

  The morning preparation

  Before the day starts, picture the difficult people and moments you're likely to meet, and decide now how you want to behave when you do.

  1. Before you check your phone, name three things today that could go wrong or annoy you.
  2. For each, say what's in your control: your words, your effort, your response.
  3. Pick the one quality you want to bring to the day (patience, honesty, focus) and say it out loud.

  Watch out: This isn't expecting the worst. It's deciding in calm what you'll do in a hurry.

  From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1

• Evening · 5 min

  The evening review

  Seneca describes going over his whole day each night once the lamp was out: what he did badly, what he did well, and what he'd do differently, without beating himself up.

  1. Run through the day from morning to now, like a film.
  2. Ask three questions: what did I do well, where did I fall short, what will I do differently tomorrow?
  3. Write one line for each. Then close the notebook and stop.

  Watch out: The tone is a fair coach, not a prosecutor. If you end up angrier at yourself, you're doing it wrong.

  From Seneca, On Anger III.36

• Any time · 2 min

  Sort it: yours or not yours

  The dichotomy of control

  Whatever is worrying you, split it into what's up to you (your judgments, choices and actions) and what isn't (other people, results, the past). Put your effort only into the first list.

  1. Write the worry at the top of a page.
  2. Draw a line. Left: what's up to me. Right: what isn't.
  3. Circle one thing on the left you can do in the next 24 hours. Do it. Leave the right side alone.

  From Epictetus, Enchiridion 1

• Morning · 2 min

  Remember you will die

  Memento mori

  A short, plain reminder that your time is limited, used to sort what matters today from what doesn't. Marcus Aurelius comes back to it again and again in the Meditations.

  1. Ask: if this were one of my last ordinary days, what would I make sure to do?
  2. Ask: what am I putting energy into that wouldn't matter at all?
  3. Do one thing from the first answer today.

  Watch out: If thinking about death makes you anxious or low rather than clearer, skip this one, and talk to someone if that feeling stays.

  From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.11 and 4.17

• Any time · 3 min

  The view from above

  Zoom out: picture yourself from the ceiling, then the city, the country, the whole earth and all of history. The thing that felt huge takes its real size.

  1. Close your eyes and picture the room you're in, from above.
  2. Rise slowly: the building, the town, the country, the planet.
  3. Look back at the problem from there. Ask: how much of me does this deserve?

  From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.30 and 12.24

• Morning · 5 min

  Rehearse the setback

  Premeditatio malorum

  Before something important, imagine it going wrong in a specific way, and plan your response. Seneca recommends it so that bad news finds you ready rather than shocked.

  1. Pick one thing you care about today or this week.
  2. Imagine one realistic way it could go wrong, in detail.
  3. Write what you would do next. Then let it go and get on with your day.

  Watch out: Do it once, briefly, then stop. Replaying the worst case over and over is worry, not practice.

  From Seneca, Moral Letters 24 and 91

• Any time · 10 min

  Practice being without

  Voluntary discomfort

  Choose a small hardship on purpose: a cold shower, a plain meal, a day without the thing you lean on. Seneca suggested a few days a month of the cheapest food and roughest clothes, to find out what you actually fear losing.

  1. Pick one comfort to go without today: coffee, the car, your phone after 8 p.m., a warm shower.
  2. Notice what you thought would happen, and what actually happens.
  3. Ask: is this the thing I was afraid of?

  Watch out: Small and safe. This is training, not punishment: skip anything that risks your health.

  From Seneca, Moral Letters 18

• Morning · 1 min

  Add 'if nothing prevents me'

  The reserve clause

  Make your plans with a quiet condition attached: I'll do this, if nothing prevents me. You give full effort while accepting the outcome isn't yours to guarantee.

  1. Write today's main goal.
  2. Add: 'if nothing prevents me.'
  3. When something does, ask what the next best action is, instead of what went wrong.

  From Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 13; Epictetus, Enchiridion 4

• Any time · 1 min

  The pause

  When you feel anger rising, delay. Seneca calls delay the greatest remedy for anger: the first rush passes if you don't act on it.

  1. Notice the signal: heat, a tight jaw, the reply already forming.
  2. Say nothing for a full minute. Leave the room if you need to.
  3. Then ask: what's in my control here, and what do I want to happen next?

  From Seneca, On Anger II.29

• Any time · 3 min

  Turn the obstacle

  When something blocks you, ask what it lets you practice instead. Marcus writes that what stands in the way of action can itself become the way forward.

  1. Name the obstacle in one sentence.
  2. Ask: what virtue does this give me a chance to practice (patience, courage, fairness, self-control)?
  3. Take the next step that practices it.

  From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20

• Any time · 3 min

  Draw the circles closer

  Picture yourself at the center of circles: family, friends, neighbors, your city, everyone. The Stoic Hierocles suggested pulling each circle one step inward, treating strangers a little more like friends.

  1. Name one person in an outer circle you've been treating as a stranger or an obstacle.
  2. Do one thing today you'd do for a friend: a kind word, a fair hearing, a favor.

  From Hierocles, preserved in Stobaeus

• Evening · 10 min

  Write to yourself

  The Meditations were never meant to be published: they were Marcus writing to himself, reminding himself how he wanted to live. A notebook is the oldest Stoic tool there is.

  1. Write one thing that bothered you today.
  2. Write what a wise person you respect would say to you about it.
  3. Write one sentence you want to remember tomorrow.

  From Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (the whole book)