Back when I had a full-time job, I’d always do some music practice first thing in the morning. It would vary from day to day, but I usually managed about 30 minutes before leaving for work.

This was certainly helpful. But it never delivered amazing results.

Until – about a decade ago – something incredible happened…

I clocked up a period of more than two years where I consistently practiced for two hours a day.

Not only that…

Minute for minute, my practice was more effective than when I’d only been doing half an hour.

As a result, I saw more musical growth during those two years than in the previous ten years put together!

Even better…

Practice also felt easier than before – even though I was getting up earlier in the morning and doing more work!

What caused all these changes?

I made the decision to deliberately design a specific and consistent practice habit.

This was a massive breakthrough. But there was still one problem…

I didn’t really understand how I’d been so successful.

I wasn’t aware of the research into how to design effective habits. (And a lot of it didn’t even exist back then)

So I’d created my approach purely by instinct... and got lucky.

I didn’t know which of the things I’d done were crucial to my success. And I’d missed other aspects that could have made my results even more spectacular...

Also, I didn't realise that well-designed habits can do so much more than just help you practice consistently. (I’ll explain all the possibilities later on)

Since then, I’ve gone deep into learning about the science behind habits. And I’ve tested lots of ways to apply them to music.

Now I’ve finally understood exactly HOW my successful approach from years ago worked so well. I’ve discovered how to make it something repeatable that anyone can do.

(And you don’t need two hours a day. Habits allow you to accelerate your progress even if you can only spare a few minutes)

And if I was to go back in time and do my own thing again, I could make it several times better.

I want to share everything that I’ve learned so that more people can experience the joy of effortless progress... and achieve results they’d never though were possible.

In case you don’t know me already, I’m Mark Morley-Fletcher – a jazz guitarist and educator. I'll show you the system I’ve created in just a minute.

Before we get into that, though, I need to explain a bit about why I’d failed to get results for so many years before my breakthrough. It’s the reason most other people fail too…

As Jesse Itzler said: "Discipline is easy. Sustained, consistent discipline is hard."

This is because evolution has hardwired humans to be lazy and conserve energy. The “Law of Least Effort” says that when choosing between two similar options people naturally pick the one that requires the least amount of work. This is what allowed our ancestors to survive when times were hard and resources were scarce.

If you try and use willpower to apply maximum effort all the time you’re literally fighting human biology.

Good luck with that!

But there’s a way around this…

You can deliberately design things to minimise the amount of self-discipline you need to be successful. And habits are the way to do this.

Scientists estimate that 40% to 50% of our actions on any given day are done out of habit. This is precisely because habitual actions use less energy.

One you’ve installed a habit it becomes the easy option. Now you’re in a situation where it’s EFFORTLESS to do the right thing.

Not only that…

As long as you install it solidly (I’ll say more on this in a bit)… once a habit is established it will run automatically in the background – upgrading your life without any effort from you!

But even if you take the approach of using habits rather than relying on willpower, there’s another issue that means most people fail before they’ve even got started…

"Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I've ever done. I've done it hundreds of times".

The reason Mark Twain’s comment is funny is because it contains a profound truth.

Starting a new habit – or breaking an old one – is HARD if you don’t know what you’re doing.

You have every intention of building a genuine habit. But most people merely use willpower to repeat an action on a regular basis.

And as we’ve already seen… that’s fine until the willpower runs out.

True habits work differently. They’re embedded so completely in your mind and routine that it’s harder to avoid them than to do them.

The science of creating new habits is now clear. If you get all the components in place (and in the correct order) then your habit will stick.

If you miss something vital then you’re left just applying willpower again.

But even if you’ve failed in the past… ANYONE can embed habits successfully when they use the right approach …

Probably the most important thing you need to do is to make the habit really small to start with (I’ll explain how small it needs to be later).

There’s another great benefit of creating tiny habits like this. If you’re one of the many people who struggles to find as much time for music as they’d like, this allows you to achieve progress whenever you have a spare minute or two.

At this point you might be asking yourself: “But if I only ever create tiny habits, can they lead to massive progress?”

Luckily, the answer is a resounding YES!

Let’s look at exactly HOW small changes lead to big transformations…

When the British cycling team hired Dave Brailsford as a new performance director in 2003 their record wasn’t good. They’d only ever won one Olympic gold medal at Olympics. And no British rider had ever won a Tour de France.

What followed was nothing short of incredible…

Shortly after Brailsford took over, there was a 10-year period where the British team won 178 world championships, 66 Olympic or Paralympic gold medals, and notched up 5 Tour de France victories.

It is widely regarded as the most successful run in world cycling history.

But the really interesting part is HOW Brailsford achieved this.

He didn’t make any big, sweeping changes. Instead, his focus was on a relentless commitment to the "aggregation of marginal gains". He found ways to increase everything possible by just 1%.

Drastic actions like crash diets almost always end in failure. But specific and meaningful gradual shifts in behaviour will always succeed if given enough focus.

There’s nothing wrong with taking bold action. Sometimes it's necessary.

But remember that you hear stories about big changes because they’re the exception, not the rule. Bold action simply makes a better story rather than the reality that incremental progress is what leads to sustainable success.

As the legendary basketball coach, John Wooden said:

"Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens - and when it happens, it lasts."

For example, if you could get just 1% better every day, you’d end up more than 37 times better at the end of one year.

But there’s more…

You only need to start off small. Once the habit is solidly embedded then you can scale it up later if you want. (You just need to know when it’s ok to start scaling things up, and how fast to increase it – I’ll discuss that later)

So you’ll eventually end up with the best of both worlds. Your habits will be big actions and they’ll still give you that incredible acceleration from compounding over time!

Most people think that habits are only about helping you practice consistently. That’s certainly what *I* used to think.

But they can do so much more than this.

Habits improve the effectiveness of your practice. And they boost vital areas for musicians which have nothing to do with physical technique.

Your confidence… Your ability to focus… WHO you play with and learn from… What you choose to work on… And much more…

These all have a huge impact on the music you’re capable of playing and your ability to share it with others.

Although those abilities seem to be fixed, carefully designed habits allow you to change them in bigger ways than you’d believe possible.

Here’s just one quick example of other benefits from habits:

You might be wondering:

"That all sounds great... But how can I get all these benefits for myself?"

Well, I’ve combined my years of experience using and teaching habits with the latest research and turned it all into a step-by-step system. Any musician can use this system to accelerate their progress.

I’ve put together everything you need to design, install and strengthen the most important habits for you into a course called “Effortless Habits for Musicians”.

It works for any instrument (including singers) and any style of music. Musicians at all levels – from occasional amateurs through to teachers and full-time pro performers – have all taken the material in the course and used it to get outstanding results.

By the end of the course you’ll have implemented your first few habits so they’re already moving your playing forwards every day. And you’ll know how to add more habits quickly and effectively in the future.

Other musicians will be scratching their heads trying to work out how you’ve accelerated your progress so rapidly without seeming to do any extra work. And you’ll have that feeling of satisfaction and certainty from knowing that you’re effortlessly executing on the most important actions EVERY day.

Check out what these musicians have to say about the course:

Maybe. It's possible but I doubt it...

Sure, there’s a ton of general information out there about how to form effective habits – but that’s not what gets you results.

As Derek Sivers says:

“If more information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

The key to success comes from going through a carefully designed step-by-step process of learning by doing. You need to install the right habits for your music, in the right order.

And you need to avoid the traps that most people fall into:

• Feel overwhelmed by the number of potential habits and never get started…
• Build habits that aren’t actually helpful for their music – so they give up because it feels like a waste of time
• Take on too much to start with – so they give up after a few weeks because it’s too challenging to keep going

The course achieves all this in three stages:

In Part 1 you’ll learn the fundamentals of good habit design through the action of installing four key habits. I’ve chosen each habit carefully to have three important properties:

1. Every musician will benefit from having the habit in place
2. The process of installing the habit gives the perfect opportunity to learn a key concept by putting it into practice
3. The habit is straightforward to install and easy to stick with. This means you’ll be successful straight away and feel motivated to go further

(If you already have these habits in place, then going through the lessons will allow you to tune them up. This will make them easier, more effective, and more enjoyable)

This is done in a carefully planned order. Each part builds on the one before to make it as quick and easy as possible for you to learn and apply the concepts.

By the end of this section you’ll have four useful habits already in place and working for you. So you’re guaranteed to get results right from the start.

Here's just a small taste of what’s included:

Habits live or die by how they work in the real world – not in theory. You can’t expect to get things perfect at the design stage. Instead, you need to put them into practice first and fine tune them later.

In Part 2 you’ll learn a complete system for tracking, reviewing and scaling up your habits. This increases their impacts and makes them easier to stick with in the long run.

As always, the focus is on learning it as you APPLY these ideas.

By the end of this section you’ll have solidified, refined and scaled up the habits you installed in Part 1. Your firm foundation of essential habits will be in place and happening effortlessly on autopilot – no need for you to “do” anything.

Here are a few of the things we'll cover:

Ultimately, you want to select the habits that are most important for your situation. That allows you to carve away the inessential, double down on what matters, and achieve your goals effortlessly through simple repeated actions.

In Part 3 you learn how to choose your own set of desired habits and how to prioritise them. And you’ll see me guide previous students through this process for real in the recording of a live implementation workshop.

By the end of this section you will have a complete step-by-step system for identifying the right new habits to add, designing them to be effective, and implementing so that they stick.

Here's some of what’s included:

How do I join Effortless Habits for Musicians right away?

How do I join Effortless Habits for Musicians right away?