Better Than Before - Book Summary

Unlock the Power of Good Habits and Leave the Bad Ones Behind

Mahatma Gandhi wisely noted that our actions shape our habits, which in turn, mold our values and ultimately, carve our destiny. If the prospect of influencing your destiny isn't compelling enough to encourage a change in habits, what is?

Indeed, every one of us is a bundle of habits — some we're proud of and some we wish we could shake off. The quest to amplify our beneficial habits while diminishing the unfavorable ones is a journey many of us embark on tirelessly. But the path to achieving this balance is often shrouded in mystery and frustration. How do we begin?

To navigate this terrain, a crucial first step involves a deep dive into self-awareness — identifying the type of person you are. With this insight, you can adopt tailored strategies, rooted in simplicity and applicability, capable of initiating change from this day forward. This narrative offers a compass for overcoming detrimental habits and nurturing positive ones, presenting a concise guide to transforming your daily routines.

In the journey through this discussion, you will discover intriguing insights such as:

- The intriguing case of a Swedish musical staircase that encouraged people to opt for the stairs over the elevator.

- The peculiar reason why some men tend to put on weight following a divorce.

- A fascinating anecdote about burglars who stumbled upon chocolate inside a millionaire's safe.

Each of these instances serves as a puzzle piece in understanding the complex nature of our habits and the multifaceted approaches required to reshape them. Through exploring these diverse scenarios, this guide aims to equip you with the knowledge and strategies needed to bid farewell to your bad habits and warmly embrace the good ones, setting the stage for a life where your desired values and destiny align.

Master Your Habits by Understanding Yourself

A timeless piece of wisdom from Aristotle — "Know thyself!" — holds the secret to conquering our habits. In the quest to shed the unwanted and cultivate the beneficial, the journey begins with a profound understanding of oneself. Everyone fits into one of four distinct personality types, each with its unique approach to handling expectations and habits.

If you are an Upholder, commitment and consistency are your hallmarks. Upholders meet both internal and external expectations without falter, relentlessly ticking off tasks from their to-do lists. Yet, without explicit expectations or rules, they may find themselves at a loss, procrastinating in the absence of clear direction. Imagine an Upholder and the gym; if it's scheduled, they're going, no matter the obstacles. But if it's not on the calendar, they'll likely pass, even on a perfect day for exercise.

Then, there are the Questioners, the inquisitive souls who scrutinize every expectation. They need reasons and will only follow through if something makes logical sense to them. This trait makes initiating new habits a slow process, as they seek assurance and proof before committing. For a Questioner pondering a gym habit, the turning point might come from apps or data showing tangible benefits, like weight loss, pushing them towards consistent exercise.

Obligers thrive on external expectations but struggle to meet their self-imposed goals. If you're an Obliger wanting to frequent the gym more, partnering with an exercise buddy could be your golden ticket. This companion will provide the external pressure needed to transform intention into action.

Lastly, Rebels resist expectations of all kinds, valuing authenticity and freedom above all. For Rebels, the traditional advice to schedule or plan might backfire. Instead, embracing spontaneity and framing gym visits as a choice fueled by desire, rather than obligation, aligns more closely with their disposition.

Identifying your personality type is not just an exercise in self-awareness — it's a strategic move towards habit mastery. Understanding whether you're an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel illuminates the path to forming and maintaining the habits that will lead to your ideal self. Who are you in this spectrum? Unraveling this mystery is your first step towards a life enriched by good habits.

Streamline Your Good Habits with a Calendar and Tracking

Imagine standing in a restaurant, scanning through a mouth-watering menu, unable to decide because everything looks incredibly tempting. This scenario illustrates a simple yet profound truth — decision making is inherently challenging for us. And when it comes to forming new habits, such as incorporating a gym routine into our daily lives, the complexity of decision-making can be a significant hindrance.

To counteract this, a pro-active approach involves removing the need for decision-making from the process. If you find yourself debating daily whether to head to the gym, chances are, motivation will wane, and the couch will win. The solution? Embrace a "set and forget" strategy — schedule your workouts in your calendar for the upcoming months. This way, the decision is made for you. All you need to do is adhere to the schedule, simplifying the commitment to your new habit.

But how do we ensure that this and other new habits stick?

Monitoring your behavior is a powerful strategy for habit formation. Take dieting, for example. With a staggering 70 percent of Americans being overweight in 2010 — a leading contributor to prevalent health issues like cancer and diabetes — it's clear why adopting healthier eating patterns is a common goal. One of the most effective tools at your disposal is a food journal. Logging everything you eat not only combats our poor judgment in estimating consumption but also challenges our tendency to consume single units, regardless of portion size. By keeping track, you gain a clearer perspective of your actual intake, which is instrumental in managing your dietary habits more effectively.

For those looking to ramp up their physical activity, a pedometer serves as a practical gadget. By counting your steps, it offers tangible data on how much — or how little — you move daily. With studies showing the average American only takes about 5,117 steps per day, half of what's recommended for maintaining health, a pedometer can motivate you to increase your daily step count, pushing you towards a more active lifestyle.

In essence, the combination of preemptive scheduling and diligent monitoring equips you with a robust framework to foster and sustain good habits. By minimizing the need for daily decision-making and keeping a close watch on your progress, you pave the way for a smoother transition into healthier, more consistent routines.

Embrace Life's Chapters to Forge New Habits

Have you ever set your sights on breaking a stubborn habit, such as biting your nails, only to find yourself falling back into old patterns? It's a common struggle. Our daily routines and habits are deeply embedded in our lives, making significant changes challenging.

However, there's a silver lining. Life's pivotal moments—moving to a new city, embarking on a new career, falling in love, or even experiencing the end of a relationship—present unique opportunities to rewrite our habit scripts. These changes disrupt our normal routines, creating a perfect setting for introducing new and improved habits.

A compelling study highlighted how relocating played a significant role in dietary changes. An impressive 36 percent of individuals who successfully transformed their diet had recently moved. Similarly, another study shed light on students aspiring to exercise more or cut down on television time. Those who had just started at a new university found it considerably easier to adopt these healthier habits.

Marriage and divorce also play a significant role in altering our habits, especially concerning diet and exercise. For instance, it's observed that men often gain weight after a divorce, while women are more prone to weight gain after marriage.

So, what makes these transitional periods so conducive to habit change?

New beginnings offer a refreshed outlook on life, making it easier to establish new routines and alter existing ones. Consider a single parent dedicated to ensuring their children's education and well-being. Once the children are grown and tuition is no longer a concern, a vast expanse of possibilities opens up. This transition can be the ideal moment to explore new hobbies or passions that were previously sidelined due to parental responsibilities, such as taking up rock climbing.

Life's transformative events not only challenge our current view but also provide fertile ground for nurturing new habits. It's these chapters in our lives that invite us to pause, reassess, and perhaps choose a path less traveled or one we’ve always longed to explore. Embracing these opportunities can lead to the formation of habits that enrich our lives in unforeseen ways.

Make Good Habits Accessible and Bad Ones Less Tempting

It's a universal truth that we're inclined to follow the path of least resistance, especially when it comes to our habits. If we're serious about embracing positive habits, the key is to design our environment and routines in a way that makes these habits the easiest and most appealing choice.

Consider the desire to enhance your social life. The prospect of having to reach out and plan every detail can be daunting enough to deter you from socializing altogether. But what if there was a simpler solution? Joining a club or a group with regular gatherings, such as a book club, dramatically reduces the effort required on your part, making the habit of socializing easier to maintain.

Injecting fun into the equation can also powerfuly tip the scales in favor of better habits. Take the example of a subway station in Sweden where the stairs were converted into a giant piano keyboard that played music when stepped on. This creative twist led to a remarkable 66 percent increase in the number of people opting for the stairs over the escalator, proving that enjoyment can be a significant motivator.

On the flip side, making undesired habits inconvenient can lessen their hold on us. Sometimes, even a minor obstacle can significantly impact our choices.

Consider the influence of utensil choice on portion control. Studies have shown that opting for tongs over serving spoons led individuals to choose smaller portions, illustrating how a slight inconvenience can sway decisions.

Similarly, an experiment involving an ice cream cooler in a café revealed that leaving the cooler's lid open resulted in 30 percent of customers choosing ice cream. However, when the lid was closed, requiring a bit more effort to open, this number dropped to 14 percent.

These insights can be leveraged to our advantage, especially when it comes to diet. The story of Anne Bass, a millionaire, showcases a clever application of this principle. Upon realizing her chocolate consumption was spiraling, she placed her chocolates in a safe — adding a layer of inconvenience that effectively curbed her habit.

By strategically making beneficial habits more accessible and undesirable ones harder to indulge in, we can gently steer our daily choices towards outcomes that positively shape our lives. This approach doesn't rely on willpower alone but on designing our environments in a way that naturally encourages the habits we want to cultivate.

Building a Fortress Against Temptation and Excuses

The battle against temptation is a constant endeavor for many of us, consuming a significant portion of our daily lives. It turns out, our triumphs and failures in cultivating good habits or discarding deleterious ones are intricately linked to our prowess in resisting these siren calls.

But how can we fortify ourselves against these constant temptations?

The first line of defense involves anticipating and limiting our exposure to temptation, a crucial step in habit reformation. The wisdom of the saying "out of sight, out of mind" is profound in its simplicity and effectiveness. For example, Jacob Tomsky, a hospitality expert, notes that individuals combating alcohol dependency often request the removal of all alcohol from their hotel room minibars to avoid temptation.

The timeless tale of Odysseus and the Sirens from Homer’s "Odyssey" also illustrates an ingenious method of temptation resistance. Forewarned about the Sirens' enthralling song, Odysseus protects his crew by filling their ears with wax, ensuring they are immune to the perilous enticement.

This concept of resistance is equally pivotal in maintaining good habits, as we are inclined to conjure excuses to shirk them.

Surprisingly, even when our routines encompass activities we enjoy and benefit from, we can still find ourselves seeking loopholes to evade them.

One such commonly exploited loophole is "Moral Licensing." This loophole manifests when we compensate ourselves with indulgences, such as a candy bar or a shopping spree, following a virtuous act. It's a scenario many might recognize — rewarding oneself with a lavish meal post-exercise, for instance. However, when the goal is weight loss, this practice can prove self-defeating since dietary habits play a more significant role than exercise alone in achieving weight reduction.

For those identified as Obligers — individuals motivated by external accountability — the challenge of sidestepping excuses can be particularly daunting. Without an audience or external expectations, the temptation to succumb to excuses becomes markedly stronger.

Understanding and acknowledging these inherent challenges in our quest for better habits is vital. By equipping ourselves with strategies to anticipate, resist, and navigate around temptation and excuses, we build a robust foundation for a life enriched by good habits, insulated from the erosive effects of bad ones.

Leveraging Distractions and Moving Beyond Rewards to Foster Good Habits

In a world where distractions are often seen as the enemy of productivity, it's time to reassess their role, especially when it comes to habit formation. Distractions, when chosen wisely, can serve as powerful allies in steering clear of bad habits.

The next time you find yourself wrestling with unwelcome cravings or thoughts, consider the strategic deployment of distractions. Rather than attempting to suppress those cravings, which can unintentionally intensify them, redirecting your focus can be a more effective strategy.

Research underscores the effectiveness of this approach, revealing that shifting attention away from a craving can diminish its intensity in as little as 15 minutes. It's not just about diverting your attention but doing so with activities that are engaging and enjoyable — selecting Kung Fu Panda over Schindler’s List, for instance, maximizes the effectiveness of distraction as a tool for stress relief and breaks the cycle of worrisome thoughts.

Equally intriguing is the counterintuitive role of rewards in habit formation. While rewarding good behavior might seem beneficial, it can introduce complications that make habits harder to maintain over time.

The common belief that rewards facilitate the adoption of new habits doesn't always hold water. The allure of rewards can become a fixation in itself, leading to a dependence on these incentives for motivation. When the rewards cease, the motivation can dwindle, prompting the question: without the reward, what's the incentive for continued adherence to the habit?

Evidence of this phenomenon is observed in studies involving children and rewards. In one particular study, children were given Magic Markers to play with. Those promised a reward for using the Markers showed decreased interest in the activity afterward, contrasting with their non-rewarded counterparts who continued to engage with the Markers with undiminished enthusiasm.

This suggests that intrinsic motivation — engaging in an activity for its own sake rather than for an external reward — may be a more sustainable driver for habit formation. Shifting our focus towards distractions that bring us joy and reevaluating the role of rewards offers a fresh perspective on how to cultivate positive habits effectively, ensuring they are built on a foundation of genuine interest and self-motivation.

Combine Enjoyable and Challenging Habits, and Don’t Shy Away from Occasional Treats

While rewards may not always be the most effective way to maintain good habits, we have at our disposal alternative strategies that can offer significant help. One such strategy is known as "pairing."

Pairing involves linking two activities together: one that brings you joy and another you wish to do more of but find challenging. By making these activities interdependent, you enhance your ability to stay consistent with your good habits.

Consider a scenario where your goals include both increasing the amount of running you do and reading more books. A practical application of pairing could be to allow yourself to listen to audiobooks exclusively while running. Thus, your eagerness to discover what happens next in your book propels you to lace up those running shoes!

Another example could be integrating medication intake with your morning coffee ritual. Placing your medication next to your coffee machine and having coffee only after taking your medicine is an excellent way to ensure you never forget your meds, provided that breaking the coffee habit isn’t on your agenda.

Shifting focus to treats, it's imperative to recognize the importance of self-care in the journey towards forming new habits, such as exercising more, eating better, or quitting smoking. Treating yourself occasionally plays a crucial role in this process by offering a morale boost without the expectation of a prize for your efforts.

The concept of treats is distinct from rewards in that treats aren’t earned — they are spontaneous acts of self-kindness. Whether it’s taking a brief walk in the sunshine or enjoying the scent of a fragrant flower, treats are about giving yourself something delightful for no reason other than you deserve it.

In sum, by creatively linking habits, you want to cultivate with tasks you already enjoy, and by allowing yourself the occasional treat, you can navigate the path of habit formation with a little more ease and enjoyment. These strategies not only make the process more palatable but also reinforce a positive and sustainable approach to personal growth.

Forge a Path to Lasting Habits with Simple Strategies

Cultivating good habits and distancing yourself from the undesirable ones doesn't have to be a daunting challenge. By embracing a handful of straightforward strategies, you can significantly enhance your journey towards a life enriched with positive routines. Start by leveraging distractions to divert attention from temptations, embracing treats as spontaneous acts of kindness to yourself rather than relying on rewards, understanding your unique personality to tailor habits accordingly, and, importantly, making the pursuit of good habits as effortless as possible. Armed with these tactics, you're well-equipped to tread the path towards creating and maintaining habits that uplift and transform your daily life.