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

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding

The most important thing I’d learned during my study of how we change our habits? We can build our habits only on the foundation of our own nature.

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 opportunities—but not keeping a good habit also has its cost

“Yes, it helped,” she said. “You talked to me in a nonthreatening way, you gave me ideas I could adjust, you followed up—and that helped.

Before I started, I hadn’t been making the most of my opportunities to create the life I wanted. Now, all that I’d learned about habits was helping me to make my life better than before, and step by step, to make my life more nearly my Utopia.

People fall into three gears when it comes to supporting (or opposing) other people’s healthy habits. Drive: People in “drive” mode add energy and propulsive force to our habits. They can be very helpful as they encourage, remind, and join in. However, if they’re too pushy, they may be a nuisance, and their enthusiasm can rouse a spirit of oppositi

I imagine myself as the client, a fabulous celebrity—and like all fabulous celebrities, I have a manager. I’m lucky, because my manager understands me completely, and she’s always thinking about my long-term well-being. These days, when I struggle with a habit, I ask myself, “What does my manager say?” I was considering scheduling an hour a day to

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

With children and adults alike, when people are strongly warned not to do a particular thing, they often want to do it more than ever (the lure of the forbidden); when they get milder suggestions, they react with less resistance over the long run.