Studies show that people tend to persevere longer with problems they’ve been told are difficult as opposed to easy.
Questioners... can add tremendous value to relationships and organizations by ensuring that they-and the people around them- don’t unthinkingly accept expectations that aren’t well justified.
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.
Also, there was a Princeton study that found that visual clutter reduces your ability to focus and process information.
Keep a sense of humor. Over and over, I see that levity helps diffuse practically any difficult situation – which.
In 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.
When life was taking its ordinary course, it was hard to remember what really mattered.
Self-measurement brings self-awareness, and self-awareness strengthens our self-control.
Eventually, I decided to count my daily walk or cross-country ski as a treat – my time for myself in a day otherwise filled with responsibilities. Somehow, that made it much easier to make it a priority.
For most of us, the real aim isn’t to enjoy a few pleasures right now, but to build habits that will make us happy over the long term. Sometimes, that means giving up something in the present, or demanding more from ourselves.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “New England Reformers.
Any beginning is a time of special power for habit creation, and at certain times we experience a clean slate, in which circumstances change in a way that makes a fresh start possible – if we’re alert for the opportunity.
Rather than striving for a particular level of possessions – minimal or otherwise – it’s helpful to think about getting rid of what’s superfluous. Even people who prefer to own many possessions enjoy their surroundings more when they’ve purged everything that’s not needed, used, or loved.
I started to apply the “one-minute rule”; I didn’t postpone any task that could be done in less than one minute.
My happiness project was both. I wanted to perfect my character, but given my nature, that would probably involve charts, deliverables, to-do lists, new vocabulary terms, and compulsive note taking.
Underreact to a problem.
One day, I’d stop twisting my hair, and wearing running shoes all the time, and eating exactly the same food every day. I’d remember my friends’ birthdays, I’d learn Photoshop, I wouldn’t let my daughter watch TV during breakfast. I’d read Shakespeare. I’d spend more time laughing and having fun, I’d be more polite, I’d visit museums more often, I wouldn’t be scared to drive.
For Rebels, the ability to choose is so important that sometimes they make a choice – even when it’s against their own self-interest or it’s not what they prefer – just to reassure themselves that they can make that choice.
I used to think I was pretty typical, but now I see that I’m extreme. I can’t judge people according to what works for me.
I didn’t want to be like the novelist who spent so much time rewriting his first sentence that he never wrote his second.