Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin Read Free Book Online Page B

it. But I forced myself to post every day so that the foreign became familiar, and the difficult became automatic.
    Novelty lovers may embrace habits more readily when they seem less … habit-like. A guy told me, “I feel stale when I go to work every day and see the same faces all the time, so once a week I work in a different satellite office, to shake thing up.”
    In fact, novelty lovers may do better with a series of short-term activities—thirty-day challenges, for instances—instead of trying to create an enduring, automatic habit. One reader commented, “I love planning routines and planning to create habits as if it’s going to work, but the follow-through is rarely there, almost as if I have some inner repulsion to doing the same things in the same way. On the other hand, the buzz I get from trying new things is brilliant.”
Am I Promotion-Focused or
Prevention-Focused?
    In their thought-provoking book Focus , researchers Tory Higgins and Heidi Grant Halvorson argue that people lean toward being “promotion-focused ” or “prevention-focused” in their aims.
    Promotion-focused people concentrate on achievement and advancement, on making gains, on getting more love, praise, pleasure. They eagerly and optimistically pursue their goals. By contrast, prevention-focused people concentrate on fulfilling their duties, on avoiding losses, and on minimizing danger, pain, or censure. They’re vigilant against possible drawbacks or problems.
    A good habit and a bad habit are the mirror images of each other; a person might want to “quit eating junk food” or “eat better,” or to “get more sleep” or “stop staying up too late.”
    A promotion-focused person recycles in order to make the environment cleaner; a prevention-focused person recycles in order to avoid getting a fine. Different arguments resonate with different people, and it’s helpful to frame a habit in the way that suits each individual.
Do I Like to Take Small Steps or Big Steps?
    Many people have better success adopting a habit when they start with modest, manageable steps . A series of minor but real accomplishments gives people the confidence to continue. In what influential behavior researcher B. J. Fogg calls “ tiny habits ,” a person may begin a habit by doing a single sit-up or reading one page, and by taking these tiny steps start on a path toward keeping that habit. The slow accumulation of small triumphs is encouraging—and very sustainable. Keeping changes modest can make it easier to stick to a new habit and to avoid the burnout that can hit when we try to make big changes all at once.
    Also, by taking little steps, we gradually become accustomed to including a new habit in the pattern of our days. The habit of the habit is even more valuable than the habit itself; for instance, the habit of tracking expenses each day is more valuable than any one particular calculation. Keeping a habit, in the smallest way, protects and strengthens it. I write every day, even just a sentence, to keep my habit of daily writing strong. In high school, when I was trying to acquire the habit of running, I ran down the block until I’d passed three houses, then I turned back. After a few runs like that, I ran past four houses. Over time, I worked up to a few miles. By taking small, manageable steps, I managed to stick with running long enough to turn it into a habit.
    Nevertheless, it’s also true that some people do better when they’re very ambitious . Sometimes, counterintuitively, it’s easier to make a major change than a minor change. If a habit changes very gradually, we may lose interest, give way under stress, or dismiss the change as insignificant.
    A big transformation generates an energy and excitement that helps to foster habits. As Steve Jobs reflected, “ I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that