Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin
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Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin
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New York Times Bestseller Washington Post Bestseller The author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, tackles the critical question: How do we change? Gretchen Rubin's answer: through habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives. So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits? Better than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better than Before explains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation. Along the way, Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers readers’ most pressing questions—oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore: • Why do I find it tough to create a habit for something I love to do? • Sometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can’t change a habit, no matter how hard I try. Why? • How quickly can I change a habit? • What can I do to make sure I stick to a new habit? • How can I help someone else change a habit? • Why can I keep habits that benefit others, but can’t make habits that are just for me? Whether readers want to get more sleep, stop checking their devices, maintain a healthy weight, or finish an important project, habits make change possible. Reading just a few chapters of Better Than Before will make readers eager to start work on their own habits—even before they’ve finished the book.From the Hardcover edition.
Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin - Amazon Sales Rank: #8712 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-03-17
- Released on: 2015-03-17
- Format: Kindle eBook
Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin Review
"If you're struggling to make changes to your routine, this is a book that will help get you there." --The New York Times
About the Author
GRETCHEN RUBIN is the author of several books, including the blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project. Rubin started her career in law and was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when she realized that she really wanted to be a writer. Raised in Kansas City, she lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters. Visit Gretchen at gretchenrubin.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. A NOTE TO THE READER Better Than Before tackles the question: How do we change? One answer—by using habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life. We repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily, so our habits shape our existence, and our future. If we change our habits, we change our lives.But that observation just raises another question: Okay, then, how do we change our habits? That’s what this book seeks to answer. But while Better Than Before explores how to change your habits, it won’t tell you what particular habits to form. It won’t tell you to exercise first thing in the morning, or to eat dessert twice a week, or to clear out your office. (Well, actually, there is one area where I do say what habit I think is best. But only one.)The fact is, no one-size-fits-all solution exists. It’s easy to dream that if we copy the habits of productive, creative people, we’ll win similar success. But we each must cultivate the habits that work for us. Some people do better when they start small; others when they start big. Some people need to be held accountable; some defy account- ability. Some thrive when they give themselves an occasional break from their good habits; others when they never break the chain. No wonder habit formation is so hard.The most important thing is to know ourselves, and to choose the strategies that work for us. Before you begin, identify a few habits that you’d like to adopt, or changes you’d like to make. Then, as you read, consider what steps you want to try. You may even want to note today’s date on your book’s flyleaf, so you’ll remember when you began the process of change. To help you shape your habits, I regularly post suggestions on my blog, and I’ve also created many resources to help you make your life better than before. But I hope that the most compelling inspiration is the book you hold in your hands.I see habits through the lens of my own experience, so this ac- count is colored by my particular personality and interests. “Well,” you might think, “if everyone forms habits differently, why should I bother to read a book about what someone else did?”During my study of habits and happiness, I’ve noticed something surprising: I often learn more from one person’s idiosyncratic experiences than I do from scientific studies or philosophical treatises. For this reason, Better Than Before is packed with individual examples of habit changes. You may not be tempted by Nutella, or travel too much for work, or struggle to keep a gratitude journal, but we can all learn from each other. It’s simple to change habits, but it’s not easy.I hope that reading Better Than Before will encourage you to harness the power of habits to make change in your own life. Whenever you read this, and wherever you are, you’re in the right place to begin.IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO BEGINSome habit-formation strategies are familiar and obvious—like Monitoring or Scheduling—but others took me more time to understand. As I studied habits, I slowly began to recognize the tremendous importance of the time of beginning.The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don’t get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.That first step is tough. Every action has an ignition cost: getting myself to the gym and changed into my gym clothes can be more challenging than actually working out. That’s why good habits are a tremendous help: they make the starting process automatic. Without yet having a name for it, in fact, I’d invoked the power of the Strategy of First Steps as I was starting to write this book. I’d spent months reading and taking copious notes, and I had a giant document with a jumble of material about habits. This initial period of research for a book is always exhilarating, but eventually I have to begin the painstaking labor of actual analysis and writing. What was the most auspicious date to start? I asked myself. The first day of the week, or the month, or the year? Or my birthday? Or the start of the school year? Then I realized that I was beginning to invoke tomorrow logic. Nope. Begin now. I was ready. Take the first step. It’s enough to begin. Now is an unpopular time to take a first step. Won’t things be easier—for some not-quite-specified reason—in the future? I have a fantasy of what I’ll be like tomorrow: Future-Gretchen will spontaneously start a good new habit, with no planning and no effort necessary; it’s quite pleasant to think about how virtuous I’ll be, tomorrow. But there is no Future-Gretchen, only Now-Gretchen. A friend told me about how she used tomorrow logic: “I use a kind of magical thinking to procrastinate. I make up questionable rules like ‘I can’t start working at 10:10, I need to start on the hour’ or ‘It’s already 4:00, it’s too late to start working.’ But the truth is that I should just start.” It’s common to hear people say, “I’ll start my new habit after the holidays are over/I’ve settled into my new job/my kids are a little older.” Or worse, the double-remove: “I’ll start my new habit once I’m back in shape.” Tomorrow logic wastes time, and also it may allow us to deny that our current actions clash with our intentions. In an argument worthy of the White Queen, we tell ourselves, absolutely, I’m committed to reading aloud to my children, and I will read to them tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—just not today. The same tendency can lead us to overcommit to responsibilities that take place in the comfortably distant future—but eventually the future arrives, and then we’re stuck. My father-in-law has a mental habit to correct for that kind of tomorrow logic. He told me, “If I’m asked to do something—give a speech, attend an event—I always imagine that it’s happening next week. It’s too easy to agree to do something that’s six months off, then the time comes, and I’m sorry I agreed to do it.” When taking the first step toward a new habit, a key question from the Strategy of Distinctions is “Do I prefer to take small steps or big steps?” Many people succeed best when they keep their starting steps as small and manageable as possible; by doing so, they gain the habit of the habit, and the feeling of mastery. They begin their new yoga routine by doing three poses, or start work on a big writing project by drafting a single sentence in a writing session. As an exercise zealot, I was pleased when my mother told me that she was trying to make a habit of going for a daily walk. “But I’m having trouble sticking to it,” she told me. “How far are you going?” “Twice around Loose Park,” she told me, “which is about two miles.” “Try going just once around the park,” I suggested. That worked. When she started smaller, she was able to form the habit. Small steps can be particularly helpful when we’re trying to do something that seems overwhelming. If I can get myself to take that first small step, I usually find that I can keep going. I invoked this principle when I was prodding myself to master Scrivener, a writers’ software program. Scrivener would help me organize my enormous trove of notes, but I dreaded starting: installing the software; synchronizing between my laptop and desktop computers; and most difficult, figuring out how to use it. Each day gave me a new opportunity to push the task off until tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’d feel like dealing with it. “Start now,” I finally thought. “Just take the first step.” I started with the smallest possible step, which was to find the website where I could buy the software. Okay, I thought. I can do that. And then I did. I had a lot of hard work ahead of me—it’s a Secret of Adulthood: things often get harder before they get easier—but I’d started. The next day, with a feeling of much greater confidence and calm, I watched the tutorial video. Then I created my document. And then—I started my book. However, some people do better when they push themselves more boldly; a big challenge holds their interest and helps them persist. A friend was determined to learn French, so he moved to France for six months. Along those lines, the Blast Start can be a helpful way to take a first step. The Blast Start is the opposite of taking the smallest possible first step because it requires a period of high commitment. It’s demanding, but its intensity can energize a habit. For instance, after reading Chris Baty’s book No Plot? No Problem!—which explains how to write a novel in a month—I wrote a novel in thirty days, as a way to spark my creativity. This kind of shock treatment can’t be maintained forever, but it’s fun and gives momentum to the habit. A twenty-one-day project, a detox, a cleanse, an ambitious goal, a boot camp—by tackling more instead of less for a certain period, I get a surge of energy and focus. (Not to mention bragging rights.) In particular, I love the retreat model. Three times, I’ve set aside a few days to work on a book during every waking hour, with breaks only for meals and for exercise. These periods of intensity help fuel my daily writing habit. However, a Blast Start is, by definition, unsustainable over the long term. It’s very important to plan specifically how to shift from the intensity of the Blast Start into the habit that will continue indefinitely. There’s no right way or wrong way, just whatever works.
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395 of 410 people found the following review helpful. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives By Bradley Bevers I guess I am a sucker for books on habits, because all of a sudden I realized I've read a lot of them. This one is unique - I wouldn't say its the best for actually forming habits, but there are plenty of valuable insights here that make it well worth the read. And its might be the first one that I recommend to anyone else who asks, because it is very accessible and relatable. The author strikes a perfect balance of information and anecdote, and you will learn a lot without even realizing it.Things I Loved About This Book:* The 4 Tendencies: For most of this book, I thought these were not too impressive - I felt like all of them fit me somewhat. However, by the end of the book, I realized just how helpful they were. The quiz at the end to determine which tendency you fall in is very helpful, and you might want to skip ahead after the first chapter if you aren't sure what category you fall in. (I'm a questioner).* Habits are different for different people. Rubin is the first author I've read who captures this concept well, and it makes complete sense once its presented. I have a 'lightning bolt' habit approach where habits are often formed overnight, but its helpful to see that many people aren't wired that way.* Loved the section on abstinence being easier than moderation (for some people some of the time). Great insight, and a unique observation.* The loophole spotting chapter is very helpful as well. Helps correct some of the self-defeating loopholes we often build into our habits.* The danger of rewards and the benefits of treats was very good as well. External rewards that combat the habits we want to set are bad, internal treats that reinforce our habits are good. Simple . . . but hard to implement. And it turns out I was handling rewards very poorly.* Rubin's story of reading Why We Get Fat and changing overnight was fascinating to me. I loved reading about a 'lightning bolt' habit, the effect it had on family, etc. One of the real benefits of this book are all of the personal insights you will pick up on.Thing I Didn't Love:* The recommended reading list includes 60 books! I love books on habit, but a better breakdown here would have been great. Here are my own suggestions: The Power of Habit (very good, love the 'habit loop' model) and one that Rubin didn't mention, The Four Hour Chef, by Tim Ferriss (if you really want to learn or change something, his method is about as powerful as it gets - Rubin actually mentions some of the same techniques, but its distilled here in a very clear way)All in all, this is a great book. It's entertaining, you will learn something, and it has the potential to be life-changing. Hard to ask for anything more from a book - highly recommended."How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." Annie Dillard
202 of 214 people found the following review helpful. Change your habits to change your life By Leanne I wasn't familiar with Gretchen Rubin before ordering an advanced copy of this book as part of the Vine program, but I love self-help books and thought that this book would help me with some New Year's resolutions that, two weeks into 2015, I still haven't been able to make happen. Eat better? Exercise more? Stop procrastinating on certain work projects? Cut back on my internet addiction? Yes, I have a long list of things I need to work on, and this book is a great first step in making those things happen.The premise of this book is we can establish and then use habits to affect change in our lives. "Habits," Rubin states in the book's introduction, "make change possible by freeing us from decision-making and from using self-control." What Rubin means by this is that we can learn how to modify our behaviors so that we automatically do those things that we might otherwise not want to (like exercise, clean up after ourselves, avoid junk food, etc.). In the same way that we automatically brush our teeth without thinking about it, we can learn how to make other desirable behaviors (like eating better, avoiding time wasters, etc.) into "no brainers" that become folded into our everyday lives.As Rubin further explains in the opening section, we have to choose strategies that will work for our specific personality type. To accomplish that, the book opens with a section that has you figure out what your main "tendency" is: are you an Upholder, Questioner, Rebel, Obliger, or perhaps a combo of these four types? From there, Rubin puts the principles in action by providing twenty-one strategies for helping you establish the habits that you want to create in your own life.Since Amazon doesn't yet have the "Look Inside" feature available for this book, here is an overview of the main sections:* Self-Knowledge -- gives an overview of the Upholder, Questioner, Rebel, and Obliger tendencies; at the back of the book is a short quiz to help you determine your type* Pillars of Habit -- covers the strategies of Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability* The Best Time to Begin -- emphasizes the importance of when you begin a habit and explains why that beginning moment is so crucial in getting a habit to stick* Desire, Ease, and Excuses -- explores the reasons why we avoid hard tasks and enjoy rewarding ones* Unique, Just Like Everyone Else -- looks at how we define our sense of self when compared to other peopleSo far, I have read through the book (with pencil in hand -- there's a lot of useful information I've been underlining!) and am just beginning to formulate how I want to use her strategies, so I will definitely update my review as I use the ideas from this book more. For now, though, I'll say that the book was interesting to read, and Rubin backs up all of her ideas with current research.In a lot of ways, this reminds me of Stephen Covey's classic First Things First or David Allen's more recent Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity in that Rubin's book also taps into the area of time management. What separates it from those other books, though, is that Rubin focuses not so much on how to budget your day, but rather how to instill and keep alive habits that will improve your life. As such, I picked up a lot of new strategies that I hadn't read in other time or self-management books.The only thing that could be difficult for readers is that most of the in-depth examples that Rubin gives are drawn from her experience as an Upholder. Since I'm an Upholder, too, I got a lot from her scenarios/suggestions, but I felt like she could have given more time to how the other Tendencies could utilize some of her strategies. Besides just using herself as a guinea pig, she does call on friends with different Tendencies to try out some of what she suggests, but it seems like Rebels especially get short-changed in her discussions of how to build habits into your everyday life.I'm excited to see where this book will take me in 2015! (And, with that being said, it's probably time to get off of Amazon right now . . . which just might be another one of my unhealthy habits that I need to break! ;-) )
245 of 264 people found the following review helpful. Mixed - Some helpful insights w/ too many anecdotes By ESBeesting I have mixed feelings about this book. On the upside, there are a lot of interesting insights and helpful 'customizable' frameworks that can help you build healthy habits... Such as the Upholder/Obliger/Rebel/Questioner and Abstainer/Moderator concepts. However, all this could be summed up in a dozen pages or so and the takeaway messages would be much more clear and crisp.Unfortunately, personal examples and anecdotes are (over)used for every point. I know way more about Gretchen's life, thoughts, and feelings than I want to... In fact, sometimes it felt like I was reading her personal diary (at one point she reminded herself of her Number One Commandment: "Be Gretchen"... Come on!) which was uncomfortable and a huge waste of time... so I ultimately had to scroll through pages at a time to just get back to the core messages that could help the READER work on their habits -- and not waste time on hearing how Gretchen and her friends and family were so successful in forming/maintaining their own habits.Not sure if I'd recommend buying the book and wasting your time reading all of it or if I'd just recommend reading reviews and articles that cut through the cr*p and just explain her basic but very helpful habit forming frameworks, which are truly insightful and applicable to everyday life.
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Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin
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Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin
Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life, by Gretchen Rubin
