Thread by @justinkan

Founders spend too much time building products and not enough on good habits.

Good habits saved my life:

I spent a majority of my life battling bad habits, including an alcohol addiction for over 20 years.

I didn't know it at the time, but it was slowly killing me.

I had this idea in my head that habits, skills, and attributes developed as a child would remain permanently even through adulthood.

Looking back, this sounds ridiculous

At a particularly low point in my life, I discovered
@JamesClear’s book, Atomic Habits.

It helped me realize that while I couldn't change a lot of things externally, I could still develop habits that would improve my life and make me happier.

Habits that saved my life:

1. Keeping a daily gratitude journal
2. Meditation
3. Improving my diet and exercise routine
4. Quitting alcohol
5. (most importantly) downloading a habit tracking app

The tracking app helped me build momentum, and making it undesirable to break my habit streaks.

As the streaks grew, my good habits became part of my new formed identity, which made relapsing even harder.

Aside from tracking, social accountability was really powerful.

Making your habits a commitment to someone else doubles the stakes; you are not only letting yourself down now.

There was nothing more I hated than being seen as a hypocrite, which is why social accountability was a particularly effective tool for me

You should focus on creating a system instead of a one time goal.

Use accountability to maintain consistency.

Over the past year, my friends and I decided to build a social habit tracker app of our own: @KinHabits

It's designed to help you input any habit you want to track, schedule them, and create groups with your friends to hold each other accountable.

Don't have friends to keep you accountable? The app has an automatic matching system with like-minded accountability buddies

Building this app means a lot to me, and something that I truly wanted to share with the world.

The goal is to help others discover the power of building good habits and build a community support network for anyone trying to improve their lives

I have found that it is much easier to grow and stick on the right path when you are surrounded by positive people in your life.

@KinHabits is free to download on both Android and iOS. Check it out at: kinhabits.com

Let me know which habits you're trying to break/build! I'm always curious to hear your stories!

Check out the full video I made about my journey to good habits, and the story behind Kin: