Better Than Before Quotes

“Overbuyers, by contrast, find excuses to buy. They accumulate large quantities of office supplies or kitchen gadgets or travel paraphernalia with the thought “This will probably come in handy someday.” When trying to shape a habit, overbuyers tend to load up on equipment or services that they imagine will help them keep their good habits.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“Sprinters call Marathoners “plodding,” and Marathoners call Sprinters “irresponsible,” but there’s no right way. Procrastinators, however, are happier when they change their work habits to work more steadily.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“Novelist Jean Rhys observed, “One is born either to go with or to go against.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand how we respond to expectations.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“Generally, I’ve observed, we seek changes that fall into the “Essential Seven.” People—including me—most want to foster the habits that will allow them to: 1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol) 2. Exercise regularly 3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget) 4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car) 5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog) 6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle) 7. Engage more deeply in relationships—with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services)”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“Habits speed time, because when every day is the same, experience shortens and blurs; by contrast, time slows down when habits are interrupted, when the brain must process new information.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“This freedom from decision making is crucial, because when I have to decide—which often involves resisting temptation or postponing gratification—I tax my self-control.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“A habit requires no decision from me, because I’ve already decided.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“Upholder, I see its dark side, too”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath describe”
― Gretchen Rubin, 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

“leisure must be entered on the schedule as its own activity; it’s not something I get only when I have nothing else to do. Because I always have something else to do. Having”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Same person, same activity, different habit.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“We manage what we monitor.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Studies suggest that we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily. So if we change our habits, we change our lives.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“a Secret of Adulthood: things often get harder before they get easier—but”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Physical activity is the magical elixir of practically everything.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Habit makes it dangerously easy to become numb to our own existence. For”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Now that I know I’m an Upholder, an Abstainer, a Marathoner, a Finisher, and a Lark, and have spent a lot of time thinking about what is, and isn’t, important to me, I’m much better able to shape my habits.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Also, as I discovered when I took the Newcastle Personality Assessor, which measures personality according to the Big Five model (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, or OCEAN),”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“In The First 20 Minutes, Gretchen Reynolds notes, “I stand on one foot when I brush my teeth at night.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“My idea of “this is the kind of person I am” is so bound up in my habits and actions that it’s hard for me to see. But eventually, I realized that my sense of identity makes it easier or harder to change a habit.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Clarity of values also makes it possible to identify red-herring habits. A red-herring habit is a habit that we loudly claim to want to adopt, when we don’t actually intend to do so.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“I’ve noticed that some people are serial goal setters, rather than habit formers.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Finally, it became perfectly obvious. A finish line marks a stopping point. Once we stop, we must start over, and starting over is harder than continuing.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“One study showed that children who got a reward for coloring with magic markers—an activity that children love—didn’t spend as much time with markers, later, as children who didn’t expect a reward. The children began to think, “Why would I color if I don’t get a reward?”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“Waiting fifteen minutes proved effective against my growing “checking habit.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“In other words, even though one coin certainly isn’t sufficient to make a man rich, a man only becomes rich by adding one coin after another.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“gave up Nutella in December 2011. A few years later I thought I would be able to handle the Nutella once more so I bought two jars on sale. I ate 4,000 calories of Nutella over 36 hours.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life