My idea of this is the kind of person I am is so bound up in my habits and actions that it’s hard for me to see. But eventually, I realized that my sense of identity makes it easier or harder to chang...
My resolution to Embrace good smells has developed into a full-blown obsession. A few of my favorite perfumes: CB I Hate Perfume Demeter Fragrance Library Frédéric Malle To See a Flower Firep...
What am I waiting for? What would I do if I weren’t scared? What steps would make things easier? What would I do if I had all the time and money in the world? If I were looking back at...
Jamie has a transition habit when he comes home from work. He gives everyone a hello kiss, then disappears for twenty minutes or so. He changes out of his suit, sends one last round of emails, glances...
A stumble may be helpful, because it shows me where I need to concentrate my efforts in order to do better next time.
By mindfully shaping our habits, we can harness the power of mindlessness as a sweeping force for serenity, energy, and growth.
When it comes to fake food, I’m like Samuel Johnson, who remarked, Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
I’m not getting any sleep, she said. I’ve already given up caffeine. What else can I do? Lots of things, I said, prepared to rattle off the tips that I’d uncovered in my research. Near your bedtime, d...
William Butler Yeats. Happiness, wrote Yeats, is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.
For this reason, we should pay close attention to the convenience of any activity we want to make into a habit.
The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends.
Generally, I’ve observed, we seek changes that fall into the Essential Seven. People—including me—most want to foster the habits that will allow them to: 1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sug...
There are times in the lives of most of us, observed William Edward Hartpole Lecky, when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, though that yesterday had passed over us unap...
There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it's not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up.
I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can’t DO EVERYTHING I want.
Moral Licensing Loophole: In moral licensing, we give ourselves permission to do something bad (eat potato chips, bust the budget) because we’ve been good. We reason that we’ve earned it or deserve it...
He gave his assistant a stamped, addressed envelope with a check he’d written to an anti-charity, an organization whose policies he passionately opposes, with the instruction to mail the check if he h...
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...
The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren’t those from a particular Tendency, but rather they’re the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract...
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