Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives (11 page)

“Did she stick to it?”

“Yes, and it was funny to hear my nephews beg her, ‘Come on, Grandma! Have a glass of wine. You deserve it!' ”

This kind of commitment device is probably more useful for hitting a limited goal, such as giving up drinking for sixty days or finishing a big report, rather than for tackling a habit change that's intended to last indefinitely. However, used wisely, it might help to jump-start a long-term habit.

All Four Tendencies (even, under certain circumstances, Rebels) find Accountability to be useful for developing habits. Obligers, however,
require
structures of external accountability to meet expectations. Therefore, when trying to form a habit, they benefit enormously from oversight, deadlines, and consequences, and from the involvement of accountability partners, such as coaches, trainers, personal health navigators, financial planners, personal organizers, friends—or, often, their own children. Many Obligers feel a powerful sense of obligation to be good role models.

From the vantage point of our own Tendency, it can be hard to remember how different the world looks to people in the other categories, and how important the Strategy of Accountability can be. While I was waiting to speak at a conference, I fell into conversation with a computer science professor. A thirty-second conversation established that he was, beyond any doubt, a fellow Upholder.

“I've been thinking about how to help my grad students be more productive,” he told me. “During our weekly meetings about their papers, they often don't have much progress to show me. It's a waste of everyone's time. So I'm thinking they might do better if I get rid of the weekly meetings and just meet with them when they have progress to report.”

“No, no,
no
!” I said, before I stopped myself and tried to make my tone more reasonable. “I'm not sure that would be helpful.” I gave him a quick overview of my taxonomy and suggested, “Getting rid of that meeting is something that would appeal to Upholders like us, because we don't need much supervision and don't struggle with deadlines. But very few people are Upholders, and many of your struggling students are probably Obligers, which means they need
more
accountability, not less. Or else they're Questioners, who may be thinking, ‘Why do I have to work on this now? Why not next week? My paper isn't due for such a long time.' Don't worry about the Rebels. They'll do the work in their own time, in their own way.”

“So what could I do?”

“Provide external accountability. Tell them you expect to see substantial new progress each week. Give them milestones to hit and hold them to it. The more accountable they feel, and the more they believe you expect to see consistent progress, the better they'll do. “

“Then there's the problem of deadlines,” he added. “One of my most brilliant students does great work, but his grade drops because he's always late.”

“Well, that may be something different. Failing to hit a deadline may be plain old procrastination—‘a due date is a suggestion, not a deadline'—or it may be self-sabotage. Instead of doing his best work and being judged, he does it at the last minute. That way, if he does well, he can say, ‘I'm so brilliant that I do well even when I throw something together,' and if he does poorly, he can say, ‘What do you expect? I did that work in two days.' ”

It was time for me to give my presentation, but as we said good-bye, I couldn't help adding one last word. “Remember, Upholders like you and me don't need a lot of external accountability because we're accountable to ourselves, but other people don't see the world the way we do.” I was reminding myself of this truth as much as I was reminding him.

A
ny beginning presents an important opportunity for habit formation because a beginning allows two powerful elements to combine:
novelty
and
habit
. The novelty of a new start wipes out our previous habits, and that absence allows new habits to crowd in. With a little effort, we can take advantage of this window of possibility to shape the habits we want. This section explores three strategies that take their power from new endeavors, new circumstances, and new ideas: First Steps, Clean Slate, and Lightning Bolt.

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
Wind, Sand and Stars

S
ome habit-formation strategies are familiar and obvious—like Monitoring or Scheduling—but others took me more time to understand. As I studied habits, I slowly began to recognize the tremendous importance of the time of beginning.

The most important step is the
first step
. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don't get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that's never started, and strangely,
starting
is often far harder than
continuing
.

That first step is tough. Every action has an ignition cost: getting myself to the gym and changed into my gym clothes can be more challenging than actually working out. That's why good habits are a tremendous help: they make the starting process automatic.

Without yet having a name for it, in fact, I'd invoked the power of the Strategy of First Steps as I was starting to write this book. I'd spent months reading and taking copious notes, and I had a giant document with a jumble of material about habits. This initial period of research for a book is always exhilarating, but eventually I have to begin the painstaking labor of actual analysis and writing.

What was the most auspicious date to start? I asked myself. The first day of the week, or the month, or the year? Or my birthday? Or the start of the school year? Then I realized that I was beginning to invoke tomorrow logic.

Nope.
Begin
now.
I was ready. Take the first step. It's enough to begin.

Now
is an unpopular time to take a first step. Won't things be easier—for some not-quite-specified reason—in the future? I have a fantasy of what I'll be like tomorrow: Future-Gretchen will spontaneously start a good new habit, with no planning and no effort necessary; it's quite pleasant to think about how virtuous I'll be,
tomorrow
. But there is no Future-Gretchen, only Now-Gretchen.

A friend told me about how she used tomorrow logic: “I use a kind of magical thinking to procrastinate. I make up questionable rules like ‘I can't start working at 10:10, I need to start on the hour' or ‘It's already 4:00, it's too late to start working.' But the truth is that I should just
start
.” It's common to hear people say, “I'll start my new habit after the holidays are over/I've settled into my new job/my kids are a little older.” Or worse, the double-remove: “I'll start my new habit once I'm back in shape.”

Tomorrow logic wastes time, and also it may allow us to deny that our current actions clash with our intentions. In an argument worthy of the White Queen, we tell ourselves, absolutely, I'm committed to reading aloud to my children, and I will read to them tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—just not today.

The same tendency can lead us to overcommit to responsibilities that take place in the comfortably distant future—but eventually the future arrives, and then we're stuck. My father-in-law has a mental habit to correct for that kind of tomorrow logic. He told me, “If I'm asked to do something—give a speech, attend an event—I always imagine that it's happening next week. It's too easy to agree to do something that's six months off, then the time comes, and I'm sorry I agreed to do it.”

When taking the first step toward a new habit, a key question from the Strategy of Distinctions is “Do I prefer to take small steps or big steps?”

Many people succeed best when they keep their starting steps as small and manageable as possible; by doing so, they gain the habit of the habit, and the feeling of mastery. They begin their new yoga routine by doing three poses, or start work on a big writing project by drafting a single sentence in a writing session.

As an exercise zealot, I was pleased when my mother told me that she was trying to make a habit of going for a daily walk.

“But I'm having trouble sticking to it,” she told me.

“How far are you going?”

“Twice around Loose Park,” she told me, “which is about two miles.”

“Try going just
once
around the park,” I suggested. That worked. When she started smaller, she was able to form the habit.

Small steps can be particularly helpful when we're trying to do something that seems overwhelming. If I can get myself to take that first small step, I usually find that I can keep going. I invoked this principle when I was prodding myself to master Scrivener, a writers' software program. Scrivener would help me organize my enormous trove of notes, but I dreaded starting: installing the software; synchronizing between my laptop and desktop computers; and most difficult, figuring out how to use it.

Each day gave me a new opportunity to push the task off until tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'd feel like dealing with it. “Start
now
,” I finally thought. “Just take the first step.” I started with the smallest possible step, which was to find the website where I could buy the software. Okay, I thought. I can do that. And then I did. I had a lot of hard work ahead of me—it's a Secret of Adulthood: things often get harder before they get easier—but I'd started. The next day, with a feeling of much greater confidence and calm, I watched the tutorial video. Then I created my document. And then—I started my book.

However, some people do better when they push themselves more boldly; a big challenge holds their interest and helps them persist. A friend was determined to learn French, so he moved to France for six months.

Along those lines, the
Blast Start
can be a helpful way to take a first step. The Blast Start is the opposite of taking the smallest possible first step because it requires a period of high commitment. It's demanding, but its intensity can energize a habit. For instance, after reading Chris Baty's book
No Plot? No Problem
—which explains how to write a novel in a month—I wrote a novel in thirty days, as a way to spark my creativity. This kind of shock treatment can't be maintained forever, but it's fun and gives momentum to the habit. A twenty-one-day project, a detox, a cleanse, an ambitious goal, a boot camp—by tackling
more
instead of
less
for a certain period, I get a surge of energy and focus. (Not to mention bragging rights.) In particular, I love the retreat model. Three times, I've set aside a few days to work on a book during every waking hour, with breaks only for meals and for exercise. These periods of intensity help fuel my daily writing habit.

However, a Blast Start is, by definition, unsustainable over the long term. It's very important to plan specifically how to shift from the intensity of the Blast Start into the habit that will continue indefinitely.

There's no right way or wrong way, just whatever works.

I'd noticed something perverse in myself. If I feel anxious about the fact that I haven't started, I become even more reluctant to start, which just makes me more anxious. When I fretted about the fact that I hadn't sent out Eleanor's birthday party invitations, I felt an almost irresistible urge to put off dealing with them. When I took too long to reply to an irksome email, I kept putting it off for another day.

That's the trap of procrastination, and taking the first step is a way to escape. If I dread starting a task, just making a plan for beginning—jotting down a to-do list, finding the right link (as I did for the Scrivener website), locating the instructions—helps me start. This first step almost feels like cheating, because I'm not actually doing the task I'm avoiding. But taking this first step makes taking the second and third steps much easier, because I've already started.

For me, it's hard to make phone calls. Except to speak to family members, I put off making phone calls, which makes daily life more difficult.

So I decided to make a new habit: make the call today. I have to call eventually, and postponement just makes it worse. I note any calls that I need to make, and as soon as possible, I follow through. The call to the eye doctor about Eliza's dry eyes. The call to my accountant. The call about the leaky pipe in my home office.

“Make the call today” helped me start a new habit of donating regularly to a thrift shop. I want to keep our apartment clutter free, and I'd accumulated a cabinet full of things we no longer wanted. I live in a neighborhood with several thrift stores, and since we moved here
eleven years ago
I'd been meaning to stop in to ask the store's policies on donations.

Because I didn't know exactly what to do, the discard pile kept growing. Somehow—even though I knew it was ridiculous—I worried that the shops would scoff at my donations, or tell me I was doing something wrong (Upholder concerns). But I knew that if I found a place where I could easily drop things off, I'd get in the habit of doing so.

I'd never been able to get started. Okay, start now, make the call.

I got the number of the closest thrift shop, just three blocks away, and steeled myself to pick up the phone—and I spoke to a very nice man at the Arthritis Foundation. Yes, they accepted VHS tapes and shoes, but not books.

Making this phone call had a surprising effect on me. Suddenly, I could envision myself dropping things off at the thrift store. And what was the worst they could do? Reject my box of VHS tapes? The next Saturday, I walked the three blocks to the store, spotted a “Donations” sign at the back, and deposited my box under the sign.Done.

Taking the first step is hard, and every first step requires some kind of transition. Adults help children to manage transition—by giving them bedtime routines, cleanup reminders, and warnings of “Five more minutes!”—but we adults often expect ourselves to careen effortlessly from one activity to the next. I'm in the habit of writing a blog post every day, yet every day I have to gear up to start. Running activities too closely together makes me feel harried and irritable, and habits of transition help me to switch gears more calmly.

I love my morning transition from sleep to family time. I wake up early, even on the weekends, because I never want to miss that time to myself.

Other people have their own transition rituals. A friend said, “I drop my son off at school, then I buy myself coffee and read celebrity gossip from 9:15 to 10:00, then I start work.” Another friend explained: “When I was working on my daily writing habit, I didn't think about writing, I thought about my prewriting ritual. I sat down at the computer, put on my headphones, and turned on my Writing Music mix. By the second or third song, I wouldn't even hear the music anymore, but it was a clear signal that it was time to write. I've listened to it 267 times.” Another friend said, “I can't just show up at the gym and work out. There's a cafe there, so I take my laptop and work on my thesis. After an hour or so, I'm ready to exercise.”

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. Because I'm always eager to cross things off my to-do list, I often want to hit him with scheduling issues or chore requests as soon as I see him. Thinking about the importance of transitions made me realize that I should respect his habit and save my questions until he'd settled in.

A friend's husband has a more idiosyncratic transition. He sits on a sofa that faces a built-in bookcase, and, one arm flung over the sofa back, looks at the bookcase. “He calls it ‘staring at the bookcase,' ” she told me. “He's not meditating or anything like that, and I can talk to him, but he wants fifteen minutes to stare at the bookcase when he gets home.”

Regular bedtime habits can ease the challenging transition from waking to sleeping, and help us fall sleep faster and sleep more deeply. A friend who works in finance and travels all the time, and who definitely doesn't seem to be the bath type, needs a bath before he can get into bed, no matter how late his day ends.

I wish Jamie had a habit like that, because he really struggles to fall asleep. Habits cheerleader that I am, I kept pointing out good sleep habits, such as “Don't watch TV before bedtime,” “Don't check your email before bed, it gets you all riled up,” “Don't stare into a glowing screen, the light will make you more alert,” and “Let's open a window, because cooling the body down helps to prepare for sleep.” He ignored all these suggestions—except for the open window.

Finally, though, I dropped the issue. If Jamie didn't want to change his habits, I couldn't change them for him. I remembered a joke that a psychiatrist friend told me, “How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.” My lightbulb didn't want to change.

I had a problem nighttime habit myself. For me, and for many people, transitions often trigger the urge to snack or drink—and choices are generally not of the celery or chamomile tea variety. I'd fallen into the habit of wandering into the kitchen around 9:00 to forage, because even though I wasn't hungry, I craved a snack. The evening felt incomplete without it. But I didn't like this habit, so I decided to quit eating after dinner.

I'd often heard the advice to brush my teeth after dinner, as a way to quit night snacking. I doubted that this could make a difference, but decided to give it a try. Instead of brushing my teeth right before I went to bed, I started to brush my teeth after I finished tucking in Eleanor, around 8:30.

To my astonishment, this simple habit proved highly effective; my urge to snack drops after I brush my teeth. As I brush, I think, “No more eating for today, that's finished,” and that thought, along with the clean feeling in my mouth, helps to end the eating portion of my evening. Also, many years of nightly brushing have made me connect the experience of toothpaste with the transition to bedtime.