Supritha S

Our homes — and consequently, our lives — get messy because we have fearful and unhealthy relationships with our possessions. Where you keep your things is important, but it’s less important than which things you keep, how you feel about them, and why you have kept them.

Think of it as developing a certain respect for the character of the present moment just as it is, the same way we learn to respect a person despite their faults and imperfections. Essentially, your whole life is a progression of such meetings: a moment will present itself, warts and all, and you can either respect and welcome it as the imperfect... See more

Exercising willpower is painful, and we can’t rely on having enough of it to sustain us for the months it takes for the new standard to become easy to meet. From the start, we can’t wait to be done with our campaign of self-restriction, so we fall (or dive) off the wagon, and maybe try again in a few months.

Emotions really do work like sets of spectacles. Your “fear goggles” might sharpen and magnify images of future trouble and pain, while images of future joy and relief become faint, or don’t appear at all. Your “admiration goggles” might give a particular person and their ideas a blinding glow, and obscure the appearance of their faults.

But it would help us to remember that what we really want isn’t the thing itself. What we want is the experience of ease and unfettered enjoyment that is promised, falsely, by the thought of acquiring the thing—the restaurant meal, the cruise, the raise, the loving relationship—even though everything comes with its own pains and complications and... See more

Visual cues remind you to start a behavior. We often lie to ourselves about our ability to remember to perform a new habit. (“I’m going to start eating healthier. For real this time.”) A few days later, however, the motivation fades and the busyness of life begins to take over again. Hoping you will simply remember to do a new habit is usually a... See more

This is important, so let me repeat: developing a specific plan for when, where, and how you will stick to a new habit will dramatically increase the odds that you will actually follow through, but only if you focus on one thing.

These three motives stem from the most basic and ancient parts of our brains — they are what promises a creature its best chance of survival and prosperity. They tend to trump everything else, and the behavior it creates is often so unconscious that we don’t realize quite what it is we’re after. Logic can’t compete with these drives, not without... See more

Keeping aware of dollars actually spent, hours actually worked, miles actually run—changes what you want to do. You can easily spot the places where it’s easy to make progress, and where it’s too difficult to force things right now. The high cost of certain habits becomes too obvious for them to remain very tempting.