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For instance, if it's 9 a.m. and I have an appointment at 11 a.m., I'll think 'Oh, I have to go somewhere in two hours, so I can't really start anything serious' and then end up wasting my whole morning waiting for one thing to happen.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I've noticed that some people are serial goal setters, rather than habit formers.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Habit is a good servant but a bad master.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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In an interview in the Paris Review, novelist and Rebel John Gardner made an observation that I've never forgotten: "Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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We manage what we monitor.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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In particular, I'd realized that although I possessed all the elements of a happy life, too often I took my circumstances for granted and allowed myself to become overly vexed by petty annoyances or fleeting worries. I'd wanted to appreciate my life more, and to live up to it better.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Same person, same activity, different habit.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Studies suggest that we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily. So if we change our habits, we change our lives.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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and the
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Gretchen Rubin |
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In The First 20 Minutes, Gretchen Reynolds notes, "I stand on one foot when I brush my teeth at night."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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We can build our habits only on the foundation of our own nature.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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habits eliminate the need for self-control.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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),
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I am living my real life, this is it. Now is now, and if I waited to be happier, waited to have fun, waited to do the things that I know I ought to do, I might never get the chance.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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When I think of myself in the third person, many things become clearer.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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The very words we choose to characterize our habits can make them seem more or less appealing. "Engagement time sounds more interesting than than "email time"; "playing the piano" sounds more fun than "practicing the piano";"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Unlike a reward, which must be earned or justified, a "treat" is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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perhaps the most acute source of happiness from writing was the happiness of expressing a very complicated idea-the kind of idea that takes hundreds of pages to capture.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Some habits become completely automatic; others require some effort, always. What matters is to be moving in the right direction. There's a great satisfaction in knowing that we've made good use of our days, that we've lived up to our expectations of ourselves. The true aim is not to break bad habits, but to outgrow them. With the bright light of attention, we can recognize and acknowledge them, and leave them behind.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Often, when we try repeatedly to form a habit that we desire, we fail because we want to reap its benefits without paying the price it demands. I think constantly of that stark line from John Gardner, so significant for habits, when he observed, "Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay." Keeping a good habit costs us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunit..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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It struck me, in fact, that all of my work on habits and happiness was meant to help us construct, as much as possible, just that: everyday life in Utopia. Everyday life with deep, loving relationships and productive, satisfying work; everyday life with energy, health, and productivity; everyday life with fun, enthusiasm, and engagement, with as little regret, guilt, or anger as possible.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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These small, everyday actions had their own value; the pressure of my daily habits would mold my future. These habits were little things on their own, but their combined weight was massive. I thought again of one of my favorite lines from Samuel Johnson: "It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Things often get harder before they get easier.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography
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Gretchen Rubin |
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do once in a while.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Perhaps--like writing, leadership, and a sense of humor--good habits are something that must be learned, but can't be taught.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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My ambition, however, was also a factor in leaving the law. I'd become convinced that passion was a critical factor in professional success... "I could see that in my co-clerks at the Supreme Court: they read law journals for fun, they talked about cases during their lunch hours, they felt energized by their efforts. I didn't."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Keeping a good habit costs us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunities--but not keeping a good habit also has its cost. So which cost do we want to pay?
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can't DO EVERYTHING I want.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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The Levity Effect,
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Gretchen Rubin |
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One flashy kind of commitment device is the "nuclear option." A friend who enjoys experimenting with strategies of personal productivity used this approach to quit drinking for sixty days. He gave his assistant a stamped, addressed envelope with a check he'd written to an "anti-charity," an organization whose policies he passionately opposes, with the instruction to mail the check if he had a drink before the time was up."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I've learned to put great store in my own observations of everyday life, because while laboratory experiments are one way to study human nature, they aren't the only way.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I was comforted by the words of my model Benjamin Franklin, who reflected of his own chart: "On the whole, though I never arrived at perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet as I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man that I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Any single happy experience may be amplified or minimized, depending on how much attention you give it.
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happy
happiness
mindfulness
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I'd asked myself, "Why do habits make it possible for people to change?" and now I knew the answer. Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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For a happy life, it's important to cultivate an atmosphere of growth--the sense that we're learning new things, getting stronger, forging new relationships, making things better, helping other people.
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Gretchen Rubin |