Better Than Before: How to Make and Break Habits - and Build a Happier Life from the no.1 New York Times Bestselling Queen of Self-Help

by Gretchen Rubin

I often learn more from one person’s idiosyncratic experiences than I do from scientific studies or philosophical treatises.

Same here! 🙋🏼‍♀️

but I had to

divide the astronomy from the astrology.

not to see what no one has seen, but to see what’s in plain sight.

for reasons that I don’t quite understand;

While I’m not much different from other people, those differences are very important.

Or perhaps I’d created a habits Sorting Hat.

Questioners resist rules for rules’ sake. A reader posted on my

The weight of outer expectations can make Obligers susceptible to burnout,

I felt that 😬

because they have trouble telling people “no.”

For them, the key is external accountability.

The more we push, the more a person may resist.

We all must pay, but we can choose that for which we pay.

I don’t like competition.

They say the world is made up of two types of people: those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. I’m clearly in the former category.

The habit of the habit is even more valuable than the habit itself; for instance, the habit of tracking expenses each day is more valuable than any one particular calculation. Keeping a habit, in the smallest way, protects and strengthens it.

A reader quoted a phrase from James Collins and Jerry Porras’s book Built to Last: “BHAG—Big Hairy Audacious Goals, all the way. I resisted this for years, thinking that to shoot too high only meant I would fail. What I didn’t realize was that shooting high motivated me much more.”

working late into the night (like Tom Stoppard);

Toulouse-Lautrec);

of working amid a bustle of activity

(like Jane Austen);

Monitoring is valuable, but it’s also time-consuming and a bit tiresome, so I monitor only the aspects of my life that

really matter.

partly out of vanity.

I’ve always been focused on my weight.

For people who want to eat and drink more healthfully, keeping a food journal4 can be extremely effective. For instance, one study showed

people who stick to a program of exercise also show better health- and work-related behaviors.

I often remind myself, “First things first.” That is, begin by addressing big, obvious problems.

Furthermore, somewhat mysteriously, Foundation habits sometimes make profound change possible. A friend once told me, “I cleaned out my fridge, and now I feel like I can switch careers.”

For this reason, Foundation habits deserve special priority.

exercise doesn’t promote weight loss.

7 It seems to help people

maintain their weig...

active people are less likely to gain or regain weight than inactive people—but it’s not a...

There are many compelling reasons to exercise, but study after study shows that weight loss isn’t one of them. The way to los...

But while I still sometimes eat when I’m not hungry, I always eat when I’m hungry.

Nevertheless, although I’m not convinced there’s any special magic to breakfast, I always do eat breakfast.

Not letting myself get too hungry is part of my Foundation.

In one study of dieting women,11 the women who didn’t skip meals lost almost eight more pounds than those who sometimes did skip.

Alcohol isn’t the only drinking issue that gets attention, however. Some people worry about drinking enough water.

I wished that I could tell her not to bother, that water drinking is credited with vastly greater health benefits than it actually provides. Contrary to popular belief, we’re not likely to mistake thirst for hunger, and we don’t have to try to drink water, because if we’re dehydrated, we’ll feel uncomfortably thirsty. And we don’t have to drink eight glasses12 of water a day; a person

who doesn’t feel thirsty and produces a good amount of slightly yellow urine is probably getting enough water.

Keeping up is easier than catching up.

(I love to throw in research—it’s more convincing to people if I cite a study.)

know people who tried meditation who haven’t stuck with it. But I don’t know anyone who thought it was a waste of time.”

Deadlines help us keep the habit of working.

to work harder at tasks,

For this reason, it’s often worthwhile to invest in systems of accountability.

For Obligers, most of all, this kind of external accountability is absolutely

essential.