" DAILY STROKES OF EFFORT Of course, this is where the phrase “easier said than done” has particular relevance. Good habits may be the answer, but how do we create them in the first place? William James had a prescription for that, too. He called it “daily strokes of effort.” This is hardly revelatory, basically a reworking of the old dictum “practice makes perfect.” Still, he was on to something far more sophisticated than he could possibly have known at the time. “A tendency to act,” he wrote, “only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain ‘grows’ to their use.”5 In other words, habits form because our brain actually changes in response to frequent practice. "

― Shawn Achor , The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work