Quotes About Habit

One of my most helpful Secrets of Adulthood is "What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.

I agree with writer Gertrude Stein: "Anything one does every day is important and imposing." I love repetition. Doing the same thing over and over makes me feel grounded in my life and makes my actions feel more meaningful.

One thing that continually astonishes me is the degree to which we're influenced by sheer convenience. The amount of effort, time, or decision making required by an action has a huge influence on habit formation.

Gertrude Stein remarked, "Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.

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

And there's one reason, in particular, that habits help to preserve our self-control. In ordinary terms, a "habit" is generally defined as a behavior that's recurrent, is cued by a specific context, often happens without much awareness or conscious intent, and is acquired through frequent repetition.

Research suggests that people feel more in control and less anxious when engaged in habit behavior.

When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it's crucial to understand how we respond to expectations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A "routine" is a string of habits, and a "ritual" is a habit charged with transcendent meaning.

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 at a magazine, and then he's ready to join the family.

Consistency, repetition, no decision—this was the way to develop the ease of a true habit.

Habit makes it dangerously easy to become numb to our own existence. For

Overbuyers, by contrast, find excuses to buy. They accumulate large quantities of office supplies or kitchen gadgets or travel paraphernalia with the thought "This will probably come in handy someday." When trying to shape a habit, overbuyers tend to load up on equipment or services that they imagine will help them keep their good habits.

In fact, novelty lovers may do better with a series of short-term activities—thirty-day challenges, for instances—instead of trying to create an enduring, automatic habit.

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.

One-Coin" Loophole: Whether we choose to focus on the single coin or the growing heap will shape our behavior.

A reader posted about a more modest change: "I dreaded my dentist appointment because I knew they'd ask how often I floss. It occurred to me that I could just floss every day, and then that question would never bother me. It puzzles me why the solution suddenly became so obvious and so easy in that moment.

This was exactly what I had noticed about the "stopping" aspect of First Steps. When we try a new habit for the first time, it feels full of promise, even if it's arduous. But most of that excitement is gone the second time, and the habit's drawbacks are more apparent. Plus, there's the discouraging feeling of having lost ground, of going backwards. "Hang in there," I said.

Eventually I learned to reject this advice. Somehow, I figured out that it was easier for me to resist certain temptations by never giving in to them.