Log #5

The book named “better than before” is the one we chose for our final project. To be honest, we stood in front of the bookshelves for a long time, hardly making any decision; however, instead of choosing a novel, a book related to psychology seemed to paint a brighter picture for us. The main idea of it is to master the habits of our everyday lives. In addition, teaching readers how to get happier is the expertise of Gretchen Rubin, who is the author, but now she’s tackling another question: How can people make good habits and break bad ones?

To tell the truth, many experts suggest one-size-fits-all solutions for habit changes, but we all know that there's definitely no single answer. From the very first sixty pages we’ve read and discussed, the author shows us how to understand habits and to change them for good, telling readers her theories on stories of her family and friends. She mentioned four tendencies of people, including upholders, questioners, obligors, rebels. After understanding the four tendencies, I consider myself as an obligor because I can hardly form a habit if others don’t schedule for me beforehand. I admit that I’m somehow passive, not finding any momentum to push myself to form a habit if there’s a goal for me to follow.

When we were having our group discussion, we brainstormed for hours talking about which genre we were in and what good habits we were going to form. I found out that one of our group members fell in the same category as I did－an obligor. Both of us had exactly the same problem, which was not having enough determination to form a habit. Compared to us, another member, Joy, was typically a questioner. She always questioned herself before scheduling or making decisions. Honestly, I hope I could be a person following schedules instead of fooling around, doing nothing meaningful. Although my category is not good enough, I do embrace it wholeheartedly.

Lacking momentum to form habits is completely the main reason why we read this book. Hoping that Better than Before will make us eager to start working on our own habits －even before we've finished it.