The Two-Minute Rule

The Promise

Stop trying to perform the habit. Lower the bar to showing up. Commit only to the first two minutes, and the full habit follows on its own.

How It Works

• Define the entry ritual, not the habit. The habit you want is "exercise daily." The entry ritual is "put on workout clothes."
• Permit yourself to stop after two minutes. This is the load-bearing rule. If the entry ritual is not actually allowed to be the whole thing on hard days, it is not an entry ritual. It is a warm-up to the real demand, and the brain knows it.
• Let momentum decide the rest. Most days, having shown up, the rest of the habit happens by default.

In Practice

Habits collapse at the gate, not at the performance. Resistance is concentrated at the entry point; once across it, the activity has its own momentum. Making the gate trivially easy routes around the resistance. Identity-grade consistency is built on the showing-up side, not the performance side.