Quotes from Gretchen Rubin

Reflecting on the Four Tendencies often makes it clear why we're not getting along with someone else. We often madden one another with our Tendencies.

Unlike a reward, which must be earned or justified, a "treat" is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it.

We all know the secret of dieting - eat better, eat less, exercise more - it's the application that's challenging.

the Strategy of Pairing, I couple two activities, one that I need or want to do, and one that I don't particularly want to do, to get myself to accomplish them both. It's not a reward, it's not a treat, it's just a pairing.

The Strategy of Safeguards requires us to take a very realistic—perhaps even fatalistic—look at ourselves. But while acknowledging the likelihood of temptation and failure may seem like a defeatist approach, it helps us identify, avoid, and surmount our likely stumbling blocks.

I feel too anxious to tackle my bad habits, but my bad habits are what make me anxious.

Of the Four Tendencies, Obligers struggle most often against the temptations of loopholes. Rebels don't make excuses to justify doing what they want; Upholders and Questioners feel a greater pressure from their own inner expectations to resist loopholes. Obligers act when they're held externally accountable, so they look for loopholes to excuse them from that accountability.

As novelist Anthony Trollope observed, "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Research supports his observation: It's not goal attainment, but the process of striving after goals—that is, growth—that brings happiness.

it doesn't matter what we think a person (or ourselves) "should be able to" do—what matters is only what works for each individual. To help people change their habits or behavior, we should help get them what they need to succeed, whether that's more clarity, more information, more outer accountability, or more choices.

I should tailor my habits to the fundamental aspects of my nature that aren't going to change. It was no use saying "I'll write more every day if I team up with another writer, and we race to see who can finish writing a book faster," because I don't like competition.

Tomorrow Loophole: As part of my investigation of First Steps, I'd identified "tomorrow logic." Now doesn't matter, because we're going to follow good habits tomorrow.

Physical activity is the magical elixir of practically everything.

To craft a sign that works for all Four Tendencies we should provide information, consequences, and choice.

Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography

I was reminded of Lord Kelvin's observation, overbroad but nevertheless thought-provoking: "When you cannot express it in number, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.

False Choice Loophole: This is the loophole-seeking strategy I most often invoke. I pose two activities in opposition, as though I have to make an either/or decision, when in fact, the two aren't necessarily in conflict.

People who feel less guilt and who show compassion toward themselves in the face of failure are better able to regain self-control, while people who feel deeply guilty and full of self-blame struggle more.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

Aaron Beck, founder of cognitive behavioral therapy, maintains that people find it easy to notice what their partners do wrong, but not what they do right, so he suggests keeping "marriage diaries" to track partners' considerate behavior; one study showed that 70 percent of couples who did this tracking reported an improved relationship.

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 they take smaller servings and return for more helpings.

Arranging to Fail Loophole: It's odd. Instead of fleeing temptation, we often plan to succumb.

The Four Tendencies can help us . . . to give other people what they need-not what we would need. And then we can work together more harmoniously.

leisure must be entered on the schedule as its own activity; it's not something I get only when I have nothing else to do. Because I always have something else to do.