Adapting Jesse Itzler's "Three Things To Change Your Life" For Writers
Practicing The Write Stuff Issue #53
I first posted the short Jesse Itzler ‘Three Things’ video two or three weeks ago. Note that I posted it because:
I thought it was worth watching.
It meant that I didn’t have to bookmark it, I knew it was at the end of a previous issue.
I hoped someone would watch it and comment how they would adapt the principles to their writing. (Sadly, no-one did.)
Here’s the video I’m talking about:
In this issue, I want to talk about how you could adapt these ideas to your writing.
So let’s dive in.
#1 First….For Those Who Don’t Want To Watch The Video
Here’s a detailed summary of the video with timestamps:
1. The Misogi Principle ==> 🔗 0m03s
Based on an ancient Japanese ritual
Core concept: Do one year-defining thing annually
Purpose: Create memorable milestones you can look back on
Examples provided: Launching a podcast, quitting smoking
Key insight: Most people can't remember what they did 8 days ago, but should be able to point to one significant achievement each year
2. Kevin's Rule ==> 🔗 0m27s
Named after Jesse's friend Kevin, described as "the happiest guy"
Core principle: Every other month, do something you normally wouldn't do
Mathematical impact:
6 mini-adventures per year
Over 40 years = 240 unique life experiences
Real example shared: Climbing Mount Washington in winter with 8-year-old kids
3. Quarterly Winning Habits ==> 🔗 0m59s
Framework: Add one new positive habit every quarter
Examples provided:
10-minute daily meditation practice
Never being late to meetings
Annual impact: 4 new positive habits per year
Key insight: Combining all three principles (misogi + mini-adventures + new habits) creates a formula for "winning at life"
Now I found the video inspirational…and wish I’d seen it 20 years ago when my kids were younger. Hey-ho. But my immediate thought was:
This could be a good framework for writers to build their writing year around. And aim for improvement.
One thing to bear in mind: every writer is different and unique in their own way. So ideas I suggest are just that….suggestions. Take this framework and see how you can marry it to your goals and targets and come up with a plan that works for you.
#2 The Three Focus Points
There are three focus points if you are adapting this framework to guide/plan your writing activities in 2025. We’re close to year end which is when people tend to think about what they’re going to try and achieve in the next year. Those three focus points are:
The Misogi Principle. One significant thing to achieve.
Kevin’s Rule. Every two months, do something new. Possibly experiential.
Quarterly Habits. Every quarter, do something positive.
The idea is to stack these three ideas together to create a great writing year. Let’s look at each one in turn, starting with Quarterly Habits.
#3 Quarterly Habits - For Writers
Note that in Jesse’s video these were simple ideas. And quick to implement. The two suggested examples were 10 minutes meditation or never being late to meetings.
There are a number of ideas that immediately suggest themselves for writers. Remember that for YOU, what you choose will be different than me.
The meditation habit suggested in the video….was 10 minutes a day.
So each quarter you could pick a sub-topic depending on your writing goals and make this a learning slot.
Each week, your learning slot involves 10 to 15 minutes of focused, deliberate practice based learning. At least 5 times a week. Maybe 6.
For my writing goals, this would be learning slots based around improving my fiction writing. I’m content with the level of my writing for non-fiction - for sure there are always improvements that can be made - but finally writing and publishing fiction is my long term goal.
So the four fiction writing topics I would work on - one per quarter - for a year could be: Motivation Reaction Units (or MRUs), Scene and Sequel Construction, Sequences and The 7 Core Tools for Show/Tell.
As noted: your choices as a writer will be different than mine. Identify what your goals are, and then identify the sub-skills that you need to move forwards on your journey to hitting those goals. Pick the four that will have the most impact on those goals….and block out the 10 to 15 minutes a day of study and keep some kind of tracker to keep yourself accountable.
One final thing on this one: if you don’t do some kind of ‘morning pages’ then doing this 10 minutes a day will change your writing life. Especially if you go back to the source - which is Dorothea Brande - and start from there. Once you’ve got going…cross reference with The Accidental Genius and adapt from there. Also cross reference with Issue #50: Another Sneaky Trick In The Resistance Playbook.
#4 The Misogi Principle
This principle is to aim to do one defining thing each year. So when someone says what was your biggest writing accomplishment last year, this is your answer.
For writers, this should be a simple answer.
It should be some kind of book.
Not just any book though. It should be the book that you’ve been putting off through resistance/fear or just writer procrastination for years.
I’ve got two projects that meet this criteria. One is a non-fiction book that I came up with a concept for in around 2014/15. And should definitely have written in 2019. It’s been started three separate times.
The second project is a fiction book. Big scale - 150K words. Historical fantasy. The author whose works it’s perhaps most similar to is Canadian fanstasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay.
This has been on the back burner since the early 90s. (Yes, I shit you not.)
I’ve set myself targets for 2025…when those targets are hit then I’ll start writing fiction. So this one is likely to be my Misogi Project for 2026.
For 2025….it’s the non-fiction project. I’m superstitious, so won’t reveal much here. Other than to say that I shared the title and sub-title with my friend Andre and he emailed back to say he couldn’t wait to read it.
So. That’s my Misogi Project for 2025.
Sidebar: the writing of this book won’t actually be that demanding…60 days of writing will get most of it down. But it’s a ‘year project’ because it will need to be promoted as well. See Issue #52 My Amazon Experiment for what happens if you publish a book with no audience and no promotion. And yes, I have a small audience. But it IS small. So as well as writing and publishing my Misogi Project book….I need to build an audience too and promote the book.
#5 Kevin’s Rule (6 Times A Year)
This was the hardest one for me to adapt to me writing goals.
But after some work in my morning pages….these ideas floated to the top:
In the original video, this was about creating experiences/memories. That’s gold dust right there.
Adapting to writing…every two months I could visit somewhere for writing inspiration. E.g. Croatia for the Game Of Thrones Tour. Also, one of Guy Gavriel Kay’s books was based around a fictional version of Dubovnik.
Maybe these ideas will be for 2026 when I’m transitioning to writing fiction and working on my Misogi Book for 2026. (See above.)
For 2025, ‘Kevin’s Rule’ could be used to create focused periods of learning that could help with future fiction projects.
I stopped my morning pages after that, walked the dog, came back and then did another freewriting session based on that idea. (See The Accidental Genius’ for more on stacking freewriting sessions.)
The idea that bubbled up from that freewriting session came from this idea chain:
My fiction outlining needs to be developed and systemized.
Currently I’ve been using The Hero’s Journey for ‘high level’ outlinine and have just stumbled on combining this with sequences to go from 10,000 feet down to 500 feet.
Every two months I could assign three days to watching a film. On day 1, I create a hero’s journey overview of the film. On day 2 I rewatch the film and map out the sequences. On day 3 I rewatch the film and identify clues, reveals, payoffs and foreshadowing. And then I’ve got 2 months before the next 3 day intensive to write that all up and cross reference with previous analysis.
By the end of the year that’s six films analysed in this manner which should be enough to build a robust and detailed outlining system that combines all of those elements.
Note - The films chosen are all films that scored highly at the box office, are connected to the fictional genres I want to write in, and are stories that I love. And I chose films over books because I can watch/make notes in around 4 hours. Whereas most books require multiples of that to read…and to read and make notes is even more time intensive.
#6 Summing Up
This turned out to be a really useful exercise for me, that I conducted over the course of several freewriting sessions. It clarified both what I want to be working towards and what I want to be writing.
The most interesting fact is what was omitted: not once in my freewriting did I mention anything about writing more music books or working on that business. Even though there is more work to do on that business (including finishing a book that’s at 30% and writing a book that finishes a five book series).
Hopefully that will inspire you to run a similar exercise to get clarity on your goals, targets and dreams. Just ask yourself these three questions:
What’s the one big thing that I want to achieve with my writing in 2025?
What topics could I study for 10-15 minutes a day, 5 or 6 days per week, for each quarter?
The 6 Times A Year Thang: what experiences could I create to inspire my writing? Or what subjects could I study in three day blitzes that will boost my future writing.
Freewrite/journal on these….see where it leads.
#The Ride Out
This week I’ve started adding notes and expansions on various writing videos to my website. Here are the first two:
Jeffrey Deaver’s 13 Rules For Commercial Fiction: https://deliberate-practice.com/jeffrey-deavers-13-rules-for-writing-commercial-fiction-with-detailed-notes/
The Writer Speaks With William Goldman: https://deliberate-practice.com/the-writer-speaks-wi-william-goldman/
I’ll be publishing more on my Deliberate Practice website in the upcoming months, currently I have a stack of poorly organized book marks and notes and doing this will help me keep track of stuff. Plus might be of interest to other writers!
Issue 54
I’m hoping that by this time next week I’ll have published my first book as Paul T Wolfe. If so….I’ll be writing about that here!