4 Basic Habits to Help You Get Out of a Slump

Whenever you feel unhappy, do the basics first

Stephan Joppich
6 min readMar 18, 2021
A desk with three books and an apple stacked on top of each other. Next to it are colored pencils and “ABC” building blocks.
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Every activity in life has certain underlying basics.

We’re experiencing the neuroscience behind it daily. Consider the fact that you’re reading this article. It shows that you have mastered the basics of the Latin alphabet and English vocabulary. Reading this is easy for you because you’re applying the underlying basics every single day.

When developing skills in life, we are thereby not surprised to hear things like “let’s start with the basics” or “let’s get back to the basics.” Internalizing the most crucial elements of an activity lays the foundation for mastering it.

But why are we not applying this mindset in the bigger picture —habits, projects, or even life itself?

Periods of long-lasting discontentment or sluggishness are inevitable in life. That especially applies during a pandemic. Yet, following four of the most basic habits has helped me to escape that downwards spiral many times. As a consequence, everything else required much less effort and strain. Like in smaller tasks, having basics we can return to provides us with security and strength.

How to Set a Foundation for a Happy Life

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Stephan Joppich

Engineer turned philosophy student • I write about loneliness, transformative books, and other pseudo-deep stuff that keeps me up at night • stephanjoppich.com