Quotes About Self-improvement

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

Then I wonder if some people need a coach more than a therapist," I said, thinking of Obligers.

Perhaps—like writing, leadership, and a sense of humor—good habits are something that must be learned, but can't be taught.

Scheduling makes us far more likely to convert an activity into a habit (well, except for Rebels), so for that reason, I schedule even some slightly ridiculous habits, such as "Kiss Jamie every morning and every night." Habits grow strongest and fastest when they're repeated

We should make sure the things we do to feel better don't make us feel worse.

course it's not enough to sit around wanting to be happy; you must make the effort to take steps toward happiness by acting with more love, finding work you enjoy

when we give more to ourselves, we can ask more of ourselves.

Clarity of values also makes it possible to identify red-herring habits. A red-herring habit is a habit that we loudly claim to want to adopt, when we don't actually intend to do so.

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.

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 change a habit.

Studies suggest that we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily. So if we change our habits, we change our lives.

When we give more to ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves.

It takes work to be happier, but it's gratifying work.

It's a Secret of Adulthood: If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn't selfish.

We all know the secret of dieting—eat better, eat less, exercise more—it's the application that's challenging. I had to create a scheme to put happiness ideas into practice in my life.

It was interesting to have a better sense of my daily habits

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 reward, I strengthen the habit.

Obligers, however, often dislike their Tendency. They're vexed by the fact that they can meet others' expectations, but not their expectations for themselves.

The reward for a good habit is the habit itself.

For this reason, it's all the more important to try to shape habits mindfully, so that when we fall back on them at times of stress, we're following activities that make our situation better, not worse.

For an extensive and fascinating discussion of the use and pitfalls of rewards, see Edward Deci, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation (New York: Penguin, 1996); Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999); Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead, 2009).

Now that I know I'm an Upholder, an Abstainer, a Marathoner, a Finisher, and a Lark, and have spent a lot of time thinking about what is, and isn't, important to me, I'm much better able to shape my habits.

I was comforted by the words of my model Benjamin Franklin, who reflected of his own chart: On the whole, though I never arrived at perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet as I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it.

When we change our habits, we change our lives. We can use decision making to choose the habits we want to form, we can use willpower to get the habit started; then—and this is the best part—we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. We take our hands off the wheel of decision, our foot off the gas of willpower, and rely on the cruise control of habits. That's the promise of habit.