14 Stoic habits to quit in 2025 for a better year

Executive overview

Most new year thinking focuses on what to add. Stoic philosophy inverts this: what you eliminate shapes who you become as much as what you start.

Ryan Holiday draws on Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus to identify 14 habits that drain energy, cloud judgment, and keep people stuck. The case for quitting is rooted in self-command — the Stoic view that ruling yourself is the precondition for everything else.

Elimination is not subtraction; it is the clearing that makes growth possible.

Habits of mind to quit

• Quit sleeping in — Marcus Aurelius wrestled with this himself; the morning is when deliberate work happens
• Quit complaining — Marcus never complained in his private diary; he saw no upside, even in venting to yourself
• Quit forming opinions on everything — Marcus: events don't ask to be judged; withholding judgment is the path to peace and clear action
• Quit the know-it-all stance — Epictetus: you cannot learn what you think you already know; approach everything with Socratic humility
• Quit imagining worst-case social scenarios — using creativity to generate anxiety and self-doubt is a waste of a powerful resource
• Quit looking for the third thing — doing good and someone benefiting are enough; seeking recognition or credit on top is the trap Marcus Aurelius warned against

Habits of behavior to quit

• Quit holding grudges and regrets — what's done is done; clinging to past wrongs serves neither you nor the world
• Quit chasing specific outcome goals — focus on effort and process; specific metrics put an artificial ceiling on what you can become
• Quit responding to everything — not every unsolicited message demands a reply; the urgent crowds out the important (Eisenhower matrix)
• Quit doing less than your best — the Jimmy Carter story: the question "why not?" should haunt you into giving full effort to whatever you're doing
• Quit delaying — Seneca: fools are always getting ready to start; the time that passes belongs to death and cannot be recovered

Habits of environment to quit

• Quit addiction and the loss of self-command — Seneca: no one is fit to rule who is not first master of themselves; substances and codependency hand that command away
• Quit a bad information diet — "our soul is dyed by the color of our thoughts"; what you consume shapes who you become as much as who you spend time with
• Quit competing against others — Epictetus: run races where winning is up to you; the real race is against your own inertia and the desire to quit