Better Than Before / Gretchen Rubin
After I finished reading Better Than Before, I reviewed all the strategies in this book; then, I thought: Habit forming is a huge project. It’s impossible to use only one strategy to solve all the problems that we met when we foster a habit. Each strategy is used to solve part of the problems.
However, does these strategies have any commonalities? Or, what are their differences? How these strategies solve our problems? Specifically, what variables does each strategy adjust to help us foster our habits more easily?
Therefore, after observing and reexamining these strategies, I organized three main causes that commonly make us fail to form a habit: (1) Ignorance (Unclear thinking) (2) Ability to conquer difficulties (3) Weak and Negative thoughts (Feeling hard, difficult, bored…)
And then, I categorized the strategies in a new way, according to ‘how they help us solve the problem’.
1. [ Clear thinking ] Clear thinking defeats Ignorance.
1-1 Monitoring
"When we guess what we’re doing, we often wildly inaccurate."
→ By monitoring the activities that I want to foster, I get an accurate picture of what I’m doing, which helps me see what I want to do differently.
4-1 Clarity
"When it’s not apparent that a habit has value, people are less likely to follow it.
→ When we push ourselves to get clarity, when we identify the problem, sometimes we spot new solutions.”
3-4 Loophole-Spotting
“When we try to form and keep habits, we often search for loopholes, for justifications that will excuse us from keeping this particular habit in this particular situation.”
Loopholes make us to deceive ourselves. If we recognize them, we can judge them and stop kidding ourselves.
3-8 Distraction
Strategy of Distraction is deliberately shifting attention. Research shows that with active distraction, urges---even strong urges---usually subside within about fifteen minutes.
But, what’s the connection between Strategy of Distraction and Clear thinking?
We have stronger willing to do something when our goal and motivation is clear. Conversely, Strategy of Distraction makes thought about temptation becomes vague in our mind.
We make the things we want to stay clear in our mind, and make the things we don’t want become vague in our mind.
2. [ Health Condition ] (boost energy)
Our physical and mental health is the basic foundation to do anything.
1-2 Foundation
Foundation habits including sleep, move, eat and drink right, and uncluttered. It will be easier to foster good habits if our Foundation was strong, because they can strengthen our self-control and improve our mental health and physical health.
→ EX: Lack of sleep leads to dithering. Procrastination expert Piers Steel reports that being” too tired” is the most common reason people give for procrastination.
3-6 Treats
When we give ourselves treats, we feel energized, cared form and contented, which boosts our self-command----and self-command helps us maintain our healthy habits.
3. [ Power of thoughts ] (boost energy)
Thought, although invisible, is the strongest tool you can use.
2-1 First step: start with a small step
When we try to do something that seems overwhelming, we often feel hard to start.
However, telling ourselves:” I can just do a little. Doing a little may not be hard for me.” can let taking the first step become more easier. Then, magically, after we take that first step, we can usually keep going.
→ In fact, taking the first step is not difficult. It is our thought and imagination make us feel difficult.
2-2 Clean state
When we are on the first day of a new semester or a new year, we often have a strong feeling that it is time to have some change; we can be different with a new start; and every change seems possible in this clean state.
→ The clean state evokes strongly hopeful and optimistic thought in our brain, making us feel energetic to make any change or start any new habit. The power of a new start means the power of hopeful and optimistic thought.
3-2 Convenience/ Inconvenience
“To a truly remarkable extent, we’re more likely to do something if it’s convenient, and less likely if it’s not.” It is a kind of nature of thoughts: If a habit is convenient to us, we tend to stick to it faster.
4-2 Identity
“Research shows that we tend to believe what we hear ourselves say, and the way we describe ourselves influences our view of our identity, and from there, our habits.”
‘What you think, you become.’ The belief of our identity and personal nature has great influence on our action, sometimes it can even become our limitation. However, we often neglect a hidden truth: belief can be changed.
4. [ Automatic Function ] (less effort)
With less decision, our brain and bodies do things automatically
1-2 Scheduling
Scheduling helps us to eliminate decision making. We don’t need to make a decision at the moment because we have scheduled something to happen; then, we can get on track faster.
3-1 Abstaining
Sometimes, It is far easier to give up something altogether than to indulge moderately. The reason is that when we deprive ourselves totally, we conserve energy and willpower, because there are no decisions to make and no self-control to muster.
3-3 Safeguards
With “if-then” planning, we try to plan for every habit challenge that might arise, so we don’t make decisions in the heat of the moment--we’ve already decided how to behave.
EX: If I’m invited to dinner, I eat a snack before I go, so I won’t be too hungry.
5. [ Assistance ]
Sometimes, its wise to take advantage of external assistance.
They don’t come from yourself and the habit you want to form, but they can give you a big help.
3-7 Reward
“We’re extrinsically motivated when we do an activity to get an external reward (a carrot)”
3-9 Pairing
“ I want to cultivate a habit of working out→ I decided to watch certain TV shows only while I work out, so I want to go to the gym; then I can have all these shows I’m addicted to.
1-3 Accountability
“If we believe that someone’s watching, we behave differently.”
4-3 Other people
“Associate to people who are likely to improve you.”
“Other people’s actions and habits exert tremendous influence on me, as mine do on them.”
