You’re only warning for this post is this:

Don’t scroll past Kamron’s video.

Click the video thumbnail.

Chances are you’re reading this while on the toilet anyways, so just watch the full 5 minute video. 😉

You’ll thank me.

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My brother Kamron has taken a photo of himself (almost) every day for the last 12 years and 10 months straight.

Last week he published a new video on YouTube where you can watch 4,685 days of his life quite literally flash before your eyes in just 5 minutes:

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Have you ever had a single habit you repeated for that long?

Can you imagine what it would take to stick with it?

Don’t you wish you could ask him how he pulled it off?

I knew he must have some interesting wisdom and insights from it, so after a little begging he agreed to answer some questions!

Here’s the highlights from our texting thread:

Answer: We were all sitting in the living room watching tv when the show we were watching started talking about this guy named Noah who had made a 10 year time lapse video of a picture of his face every day. I thought that would be a cool thing to do so I started doing my own a short time after that.

Answer: Over 13 years there have been many small struggles, going out of town or vacation being one. Or the thought of “oh it’s to late I can do it tomorrow”.

In these kinds of things I have a lot of patience, so motivation to keep doing it has been pretty consistent.

After doing it for so long it actually feels weird to not do it. Like it’s out of character.

Answer: Oh I have missed tons of times, I bet I have easily missed a whole year’s worth of pictures.

But I haven’t let it be a devastating thing if I have missed, the art of the project is to keep going even with mistakes. I can’t rewind time.

When you watch the video you don’t go “ah right there Kamron missed a day” haha you would have no idea at all when I did or didn’t miss a day.

Answer: The thing that really made this for me was the strategy with my brain. I know that I have a tendency toward doing the easiest thing. There was no way that I would go back and edit photos to align my face in the same place, and there is no way that I would go to a location to take the picture.

So my camera sits 3 feet away from my tooth brush, in an obvious place I would see every night when I go to brush my teeth. And when I take a picture I put the camera against the mirror and stretch my arm out. The right position every time!

Either it’s easy enough for me to do that I want to do it or I’m motivated enough to get past how hard it is to do.

Answer: Make remembering the habit stupid easy to remember.

If you’re thinking of the habit all the time it’s going to be much easier to do it

Kamron inspires me with his dedication to this habit and lifelong project. It’s not easy to get yourself to do something for 7 days straight — let alone 13 years.

So whatever habit you’ve been considering, just start.

Take that first photo.

Do that first workout.

Read that first page.

You don’t get to 4,685 without starting at 1.

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Try it

The key insights I take from what Kamron shared with me are:

1. Pick something you care so much about, that you hope you’re still doing it 13 years from now.

2. Make your habit so simple, it’s almost hard NOT to do it. Put physical reminders in plain view where you’ll see them everyday, and associate it with something you already do daily (like brushing teeth).

3. Don’t freak out when you miss a day. Just get back on track. Looking back, nobody notices if you miss one day at the gym, or one day of reading, or one day of anything for that matter. It’s what you do most of the time that compounds and becomes your normal.

What other questions do you have for Kamron? Hit reply and I’ll ask him for you!

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- Kody

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P.S. These take 5 hours to research, write, and design. It only takes you 5 seconds to share.