About Author
Gretchen Rubin is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into over 30 languages. In addition to her books, Gretchen also has her own app called “Batter” and a podcast called “Happier with Gretchen”. In which there are some strategies, insights and stories that can help anyone to live a happy life.
About Book
Whether it is a matter of a new study technique or a work-out routine or adopting a different mindset, it definitely takes some time to adapt to every new thing. Actually we get so accustomed to our old habits that we find it difficult to maintain any new habits, but from this book you will learn that keeping the expectation from yourself and others can help in changing your life. By reading this book, you will learn that the use of timing and strategy is a powerful tool for adopting new habits.
Introduction
Do you want to learn that how to adapt good habits ? When and from where to start it ? Things which we do daily becomes our habits. Initially it is hard to adapt a habit but gradually after some time you become habitual of it. This book will help you to change your bad habits to good habits from your daily routine. Habits can make your life and can change your life in such a way that you can’t imagine. For example if you didn’t adopt the habit of calorie counting than how you will know that how much you have consumed. When we talk about habit than this book will help you to know which type of man you are. From this book you will learn how to change your bad habits to good habits by using the strategies which are discussed in this book.
Chapter 1 : The Fateful Tendencies we bring into the world
In this world you are unique and perfect. The ability and potential which you have is un-comparable. You are unique and you have to believe it . If you are thinking , the techniques which is applicable for others is not working on you . Then don’t blame yourself and don’t create self-doubts. For example many people prefer to take notes in class with their laptop because it is easy for them. But for you it is easy to take notes on a paper rather than laptop. Habits are our routines which we do on a daily basis. And the technique to adapt habits is depend upon person to person.
Any habit is difficult or easy to practice, it all depends upon the level of expectation. Expectation is of two type. First one is outer expectation that comes from others. And second is inner expectation that comes from inside you. If the level of expectation is high with any habit than you will give a positive response to it.
People who response according to habits is off four types. They are Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Upholders try to stand on their inner and outer expectation because they like it, now no matter how much it sounds . They always try to avoid mistakes as much as possible. They have very high level of expectation. This is the reason why upholders adopt any habits very fast. They have a to-do list which they complete as soon as possible. They have a very strong commitment.
Next type is Questioners . They have doubt on their expectation. They respond on their expectation only when they see logic in it. Questioners live by the logic that every action must have a purpose.
When the questioner finds a habit to be reasonable, then they adopts it. But if they does not find any logic in any habit or rule, then it is very difficult for them to adopt that habit.
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Next come the obligers, who always want the happiness of others. These people find it difficult to fulfill their inner expectations. Like taking a healthy diet. The mindset of obligers is such that these people can break promises for themselves but not for others. And this is the region that obligers depend on others to form new habits for themselves because they need some external source for motivation. Now because obligers depend on others, so these people often live under a lot of pressure. They never say no to others.
And then comes the Rebels who can avoid both Outer and Inner Expectations. For them, their freedom is the most important, no matter what the work is. Such people like to work on their own terms. They can’t be forced for any work, if someone does, they will do always the opposite.
Chapter 2 : Different Solutions For Different People
As mentioned earlier, what works for you may not work for others, so pay attention to yourself to find out what technique is best for you. We cannot limit ourselves by saying that I can’t travel or I don’t like spicy food because we can change our mind. But you know that for you What is important then you adopt good habit quickly . If you will be able to do it, you will also be able to maintain them. Here are some factors that will help you to adopt any new habit effectively.
Lark or night owl: These are the people who work more better at night than during the day. And it is hard to change when you’re most productive, because there is also an important role of jeans and edge. Most college/Hostel students are night owls while older people are larks. That means their day starts early. If you are a night owl then you should get up early in the morning and put in the habit of reading. And if you are a lark If so, then you have to do your projects till 10 o’clock in the night.
Marathoner, sprinter or procrastinator: It’s important to know what comfortable paces you can adopt any of the habits with in building your habit strategy. Like the author of this book, Gretchen. And love working with steady paces. If you take a long time to finish a project then you are a marathoner. But if you perform under pressure better and start any work only when the deadline is passed then you are a sprinter. A sprinter prefers to focus more on short duration projects
Chapter 3 : Pillars Of Habits
There are four Crucial Strategies to adapt to New Habits and to change Old Habits. This is monitoring, scheduling and accountability in the foundation. Although it sounds simple, it is quite important to form any new habit. Again, let us remind that the individual difference also matters a lot in these strategies. As now schedules don’t work on Rebels type peoples whereas Accountability fits right on Obligers.
Monitoring strategy is effective only when you are clear about which action to monitor when. But where you are not sure about something, this strategy will not work. As if you thought that you will improve your knowledge. However, sometimes we tend to under or over-estimate things. But doing the right major is very important. For example, In a study found that we tend to underestimate our food and overestimate it when it comes to exercise. In this study, the participants were told that they have to walk four miles, whereas in reality everyone walked only two miles.
Strategy of foundation means tackling one habit at a time. It has often been seen that when one good habits are formed, the rest of the habits also improve themselves. As your exercise habits can also improve your health related and work related problems.
A common mistake people make is that we don’t tackle our most problematic habits first. Let’s take an example of this. Suppose there is a heavy drinker who reaches his office late, always feeling tired and keeps spitting on the streets. Instead of focusing on his main problem which is drinking, that person promises not to spit in the streets, which will be easier for him than giving up alcohol. Therefore, to make your foundation strong, put such habits which will also improve your other habits.
Scheduling strategy means setting a time when you will practice the habit. This strategy will get you used to your habit very quickly because it will keep on repeating. With this you will also know how little time we get in a day. Therefore, such a habit should be put which is productive. For example, if you want to do meditation after waking up at 5 in the morning, then you should keep this time only for meditation.
In the last, let’s talk about the strategy of accountability, in which the help of others is also involved. Because these people will give you outer expectations, you can’t adopt those habits until you feel accountable for a new habit, because you know it won’t matter. For the strategy of monitoring, the author gives his own example. Gretchen was always skeptical about his weight. With great difficulty, she was able to be comfortable about her size. Now that weight was an important factor for her, she developed new habits of diet and exercise that helped her lose weight.
The Foundation Habits for the Strategy of Foundation are Sleep, Move, Eat and Un-cultivate. Moving is a Foundation Habit because after exercise you fall into a deep sleep. And when you get good and full sleep then your mood is also good. In fact, by getting enough sleep, we can adopt more good habits. When you sleep early, you will have enough time to wash your face and wear night pajamas, but when you sleep late, you do not have time for these things.
Chapter 4 : It’s Enough To Begin
If you know what your trend is upholder, questioner, obliger or Rebel, then you will also understand which technique will be best for you. Now we will talk about when you should start your new habits. There are three strategies to start any new habit, first steps, clean slate and lightning bolt. There are some difficulties in starting a new habit, such as suddenly starting to go to the gym, because if it has not become an automatic process of your routine yet, then going to the gym properly ready may be more difficult than working out. It is one thing to plan a new habit in excitement, but to bring it into practice is a completely different thing. There is another strategy to form a new habit which is called clean slate strategy. This happens when there is a significant change in your life, such as a new partner, a new home or a new job. People often start eating healthy as a New Year’s resolution, then it will be considered as a clean slate strategy because New Year brings new beginnings. We will consider this as the magic of the new year because many people feel very motivated at the beginning of the new year and stick to their new habits. However, adopting a new habit means repeating the same thing and some habits easily apply in our lives. These habits can be adapted through the lightning bolt strategy. We can use them as on demand because they are the turning point of our life like a big loss or a great failure.
The first step that the author used here means the beginning of a new habit. When Gretchen started writing this book, she was applying the strategy of the first steps. It was fun and exciting for him to come up with ideas and plan the structure for the book, but when it came to actually writing, Gretchen got stuck. She was not able to decide when to start writing the book? Which date or day would be correct? Before she could think any further, Gretchen realized that she was using the “tomorrow” logic. That is, postponing today’s work for tomorrow, and she decided that she would have to take the first step immediately to write the book.
Conclusion :
Sometimes we get frustrated thinking that what works for others, why doesn’t it work on us. Dealing with individual differences can be a bit tricky. But if you come to know that you are an upholder or questioner, obliger or rebel, then you can apply such techniques accordingly, which will make it very easy for you to maintain the habit.
Apart from knowing what type you are, you will learn about the power of using the strategies given in this book which help you in maintaining good habits. These strategies are monitoring, foundation, scheduling and accountability. Last in this book, the author also mentions different times to start new habits such as First Steps, Clean Slate and Lightning Bolt,
It may be that even after reading this book completely, you have a problem in inserting and maintaining new habits, even then there is no tension. It will take some time to develop new habits and some mistakes will definitely happen. It will take a lot of self-exploration to know which strategy will work for you. Short cuts do not work for good habits, rather it is a difficult journey, but in front of the result you will get, this hard work is nothing.