It's so easy to wish that we'd made an effort in the past, so that we'd happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is m...
It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously—and als...
In one study, when subjects made a shopping list for what they’d eat in a week, more chose a healthy snack instead of an unhealthy snack; when asked what they’d choose now, more people chose the unhea...
In fact, the Upholder commitment to meeting expectations can sometimes make Upholders seem…cold. There’s a relentless quality to Upholders. They’re going to do what must be done even, sometimes, if th...
If we want something to count in our lives, we should figure out a way to count it.
I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You'll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You'll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate...
I pegged her as a highly considerate UPHOLDER/Obliger. She’s able to meet inner expectations without outer accountability, but only when outer expectations don’t interfere.
I have an idea of who I wish I were, and that obscures my understanding of who I actually am.
How can I deprive myself of something without feeling deprived? When it comes to habits, feeling deprived is a pernicious state. When we feel deprived, we feel entitled to compensate ourselves—often,...
Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn’t-fair results, it turns out that the happy outperform the less happy. Happy people work...
Getting in control of our possessions makes us feel more in control of our fates. If this is an illusion, it's a helpful illusion--and it's a more pleasant way to live.
Fake Self-Actualization Loophole: Often, a loophole is disguised as an embrace of life or an acceptance of self, so that the failure to pursue a habit seems life-affirming—almost spiritual.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld advised aspiring comedian Brad Isaac that, because daily writing was the key to writing better jokes, Isaac should buy a calendar with a box for every day of the year, and ever...
By finding my reward within the habit itself, with a reward that takes me deeper into the habit. If I look outside a habit for a reward, I undermine the habit. If I look within the habit for the rewar...
Both money and health contribute to happiness mostly in the negative; the lack of them brings much more unhappiness than possessing them brings happiness.p 169
At certain points in our lives, it may not be possible to be happy, but it is possible to try to be happier—as happy as we can be, under the circumstances—and by doing so, fortify ourselves against ad...
As the weeks wore on, along with keeping a food journal, I added a new monitoring habit: No seconds. When people preplate their food and eat just one helping, they eat about 14 percent less than when...
As Samuel Johnson said, To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.
As Michel de Montaigne observed, The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.p 233
Any beginning is a time of special power for habit creation, and at certain times we experience a clean slate, in which circumstances change in a way that makes a fresh start possible—if we’re alert f...