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What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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A habit requires no decision from me, because I've already decided.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill ("I"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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another reason not to say critical things about other people: "spontaneous trait transference." Studies show that because of this psychological phenomenon, people unintentionally transfer to me the traits I ascribe to other people."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Siblings Without Rivalry and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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from Lewis's brilliant essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children": When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Obligers may struggle to monitor unless someone is checking on them.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I should monitor whatever is essential to me. In that way, I ensure that my life reflects my values.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I suggested that he write from 11:00 to 1:00 every weekday. During that time, he was to write or do nothing. No email; no calls; no research; no clearing off a desk; no hanging out with Jack, my adorable, three-year-old, train-obsessed nephew. Write, or stare out the window. "Remember," I added, "working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination. You want to use your writing time for writing only. Nothing else, including no othe..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Lewis's brilliant essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children":"
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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. Habits have a tremendous role to play in creating an atmosphere of growth, because they help us make consistent, reliable progress.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Progress, not perfection, is the goal. I'm a gold-star junkie,
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Procrastinators may resemble Sprinters, because they too tend to finish only when they're against a deadline, but the two types are quite different. Sprinters choose to work at the last minute because the pressure of a deadline clarifies their thoughts; Procrastinators hate last-minute pressure and wish they could force themselves to work before the deadline looms. Unlike Sprinters, Procrastinators often agonize about the work they're not d..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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One of the best ways to make myself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy myself.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blue Bird.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Perfection may be an impossible goal, but habits help us to do better. Making headway toward a good habit, doing better than before, saves us from facing the end of another year with the mournful wish, once again, that we'd done things differently.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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We often learn most about ourselves by learning about other people,
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Gretchen Rubin |
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It's a Secret of Adulthood: What we assume will be temporary often becomes permanent; what we assume is permanent often proves temporary.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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One study estimated that people spend about one-fourth of their waking time resisting some aspect of desire--most commonly, the urge to eat, to sleep, to grab some leisure, and to pursue some kind of sexual urge.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I've learned to resist my inclination to meet an expectation unthinkingly, and to ask, "Why am I meeting this expectation, anyway?"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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The reward for a good habit is the habit itself.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations. Questioners question all expectations, and will meet an expectation only if they believe it's justified. Obligers respond readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations (my friend on the track team). Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Behind our unremarkable front door waits the little world of our own making, a place of safety, exploration, comfort, and love.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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many people decide to improve their habits, they don't begin by looking where their keys are; they begin by looking in an easy spot.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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I'm not getting any sleep," she said. "I've already given up caffeine. What else can I do?" "Lots of things," I said, prepared to rattle off the tips that I'd uncovered in my research. "Near your bedtime, don't do any work that requires alert thinking. Keep your bedroom slightly chilly. Do a few prebed stretches. Also--this is important--because light confuses the body's circadian clock, keep the lights low around bedtime, say, if you go to..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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According to current research, in the determination of a person's level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts. In other words, people have an inborn disposition that's set within a certain range, but they c..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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The Habits Manifesto What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while. Make it easy to do right and hard to go wrong. Focus on actions, not outcomes. By giving something up, we may gain. Things often get harder before they get easier. When we give more to ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves. We're not very different from other people, but those differences are very important. It's easier to change our surroundings tha..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Plainness was not necessarily simplicity," Frank Lloyd Wright cautioned. "Elimination, therefore, may be just as meaningless as elaboration, perhaps more often is so. To know what to leave out and what to put in; just where and just how, ah, that is to have been educated in knowledge of simplicity." My"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Pierre Reverdy: "There is no love; there are only proofs of love."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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The bus was hardly moving, but I could hardly keep pace with my own thoughts. "I've got to tackle this," I told myself. "As soon as I have some free time, I should start a happiness project." But I never had any free time. When life was taking its ordinary course, it was hard to remember what really mattered; if I wanted a happiness project, I'd have to make the time. I had a brief vision of myself living for a month on a picturesque, winds..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Studies show that in a phenomenon called "emotional contagion," we unconsciously catch emotions from other people--whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we're infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy. As"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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the marriage expert John Gottman calls the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" for their destructive role in relationships: stonewalling, defensiveness, criticism, and contempt. Well,"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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couldn't just jump into this happiness project. I had a lot to learn before I was ready for my year to begin. After my first few weeks of heavy reading, as I toyed with different ideas about how to set up my experiment, I called my younger sister, Elizabeth. After
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Gretchen Rubin |
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It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously--and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about..
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Gretchen Rubin |
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a quotation from Lewis's brilliant essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children": When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Jamie is a funny mix. He has a sardonic side that can make him seem distant and almost harsh to people who don't know him well, but he's also very tender-hearted. (A
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Gretchen Rubin |
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My home is a place of unconditional belonging, which is part of its pleasure, part of its pain--as Robert Frost wrote, home is "Something you somehow haven't to deserve." At home, I feel a greater sense of safety and acceptance, and also of responsibility and obligation. With friends, my hospitality is voluntary, but my family never needs an invitation. Although"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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colorful tin trays from my grandmother? A friend confided
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Gretchen Rubin |
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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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I sat on that crowded bus, I grasped two things: I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change. In that single moment, with that realization, I decided to dedicate a year to trying to be happier.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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My resolution to "Embrace good smells" has developed into a full-blown obsession. A few of my favorite perfumes: CB I Hate Perfume Demeter Fragrance Library Frederic Malle To See a Flower Fireplace Lys Mediterranee Hay Pure Soap En Passant Tea/Rose Baby Powder Gardenia de Nuit On the Beach 1966 Memory of Kindness (for the Fleur Mecanique) The"
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Gretchen Rubin |
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It's a Secret of Adulthood: I give myself limits to give myself freedom.
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Gretchen Rubin |
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Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship." You"
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Gretchen Rubin |