Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

Rewards pose these dangers, and to make matters worse, we often choose a reward that directly undermines the habit—as with my friend’s reward of chocolate cake. When I told her that I thought rewarding herself with cake was a bad idea, she protested, “But what will be my reward for losing ten pounds?” I laughed. “Losing ten pounds!”

If they want the new behavior to become a habit, they should use if-then planning from the Strategy of Safeguards to decide, in advance, how to proceed after hitting the finish line—perhaps by continually setting themselves new goals, just as my friend with the bad knee replaced one goal with another, or by deciding what the everyday habit should b

A Rebel wrote on my blog: “For me, the most important characteristic of a Rebel is the freedom to be authentic to the person I am at this moment. My desires and needs shift, and I want the autonomy to pursue that. But I also have a strong sense of self—certain values and characteristics that define who I am and that don’t change. For example, I’ve

Although I love hearing what other people consider treats, I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.” Just because an activity is a treat for someone else doesn’t mean it’s a treat for me—and vice versa.

The third category of dangerous treats? Screen time, particularly television (however viewed). Americans spend about half their leisure hours watching TV.

the less we do, the less we feel like doing. If my office is a wreck, I don’t feel like cleaning up.

Not everyone (e.g., certainly no Rebel) is attracted by the idea of having each day ordered, but I love the monkish horarium, or “table of hours,” the highly specific routine that runs on an annual cycle, with variations for the days of the week and the seasons. Every part of the day has its own character and purpose, with time set aside for prayer

Once again, I saw that when people frame their habits in the way that makes the most sense to them, they succeed better. It would never occur to me to characterize exercise as “an obligation to diabetes,” but I could immediately see why that formation resonated with her.

Sprinters choose to work at the last minute because the pressure of a deadline clarifies their thoughts;

me pause: was he “raising the bar”? People raise the bar when they consider starting a new habit, and then, from an impulse that’s either enthusiasm or unconscious self-sabotage, they suggest refinements that make the habit prohibitively challenging.