Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives (25 page)

So that was good.

Arguably, with some people—namely, children—I might be able to enforce a behavior with enough consistency to make it catch hold as a habit.

Eliza and Eleanor are the two people I most want to influence (I'd like to influence Jamie, but don't have the same sway over him). Countless habits shape family life: Do we recycle? Do we always show up on time, or run a little late? Do we use curse words? Do we wear seat belts? Do we go to the doctor regularly? Do we kiss hello and good-bye? These kinds of background habits have great influence over children and their assumptions about how the world works.

Also, because people “catch” habits from each other, one important way to influence Eliza and Eleanor is for me to have good habits myself. If I want Eliza and Eleanor to be orderly, I should be orderly. If I don't want them to spend too much time staring into screens, I should turn off screens myself.

As I considered the habits I wanted for my children, I vowed that I wouldn't press too hard. When adults pressure children to adopt certain habits, sometimes those habits stick—but other times there's a backlash. As a friend told me, “When I was a child, my mother insisted that I hang up my clothes. Now I
never
hang up my clothes “With children and adults alike, when people are strongly warned not to do a particular thing, they often want to do it more than ever (the lure of the forbidden); when they get milder suggestions, they react with less resistance over the long run.

One night, Eliza and I had a long conversation about homework. She lay on her bed while I prowled around the room in search of clutter to clear. I stashed bottles of blue nail polish, threw away empty gum wrappers, put books on the shelves, and put away clothes as we talked. (I find light clutter clearing very relaxing. Eliza tolerated this activity.)

“I just hate the feeling that my whole weekend is ruined by homework,” she complained. “I want time to hang out.”

“But why is it worse on the weekend than during the week?” I asked, as I put loose pencils into a pen cup.

“The work isn't such a big deal,” she explained. “But it seems like homework takes up the whole day.”

I thought about this. I knew the feeling of having a whole day consumed by two hours of work.

“Listen,” I said, “I have a crazy idea.” I sat down next to her to emphasize the earnestness of my suggestion. “How about this? I get up every day at six a.m. There are no distractions, I get so much work done, I love it. Six o'clock is too early for you, but what if you got up at seven on Saturday or Sunday? That's the time you usually get up, so it wouldn't be too hard. You can work in my office with me. I bet you'd get a lot done. Then the rest of your day would be freer.”

“But I like to sleep late on the weekends!”

“You really love that, I know. It would be a pain to get up. But then your day would be so open. And you could still sleep late one morning.”

“Well … maybe,” Eliza said, much to my surprise.

“Really?” I was excited to think she might try it. “Great!”

“I'll
try
it. I'm not agreeing to do it forever.”

She agreed in theory, but when Sunday morning came, I wasn't sure what would happen when I knocked on her bedroom door at 7:00. After some mumbling, she got up. And it worked. Now, on Sunday mornings, Eliza joins me in my little office.

I do several things to help her maintain this habit. I make sure she's awake by 7:00; once I forgot to wake her, and she slept until 7:45 and wailed, “I feel like the whole morning is gone!” Before I wake her, I tidy my office so she has plenty of room; I turn on the space heater or the air conditioner; I bring her breakfast on a tray. Most importantly, though, I sit next to her and work myself. I'm a role model of industry, and I suspect she's less likely to jump to YouTube or Instagram if I'm sitting right there. This successful habit represents the combined strength of the Strategies of Scheduling, Accountability, Convenience, and Other People.

But I'm just one influence among many. Does Eliza get up early to work just because I suggested it? Doubtful. Is Eleanor neat because she sees me being neat, or because I try to make her be neat—or because she was born that way? I don't give myself too much credit or blame for my children's habits. Perhaps—like writing, leadership, and a sense of humor—good habits are something that must be learned, but can't be taught.

The Strategy of Other People covers how others influence my habits, and how I influence others' habits. I also hit on a quirky way to apply it—to
myself
. In an odd but effective trick, I view myself from the outside. When I think of myself in the third person, many things become clearer.

I hit on this technique after struggling to identify the right metaphor to describe the tension between my two selves—between now-Gretchen and future-Gretchen, between my want-self and my should-self. Jekyll and Hyde? The angel and devil on my shoulders? The charioteer driving two horses? The elephant and the rider? The ego, the id, and the superego? The spectator and the agent?

In a flash, I saw that there's me, Gretchen (now-Gretchen, want-Gretchen), and there's my
manager
. I think I was inspired by Elizabeth's Hollywood workplace lingo.

I imagine myself as the client, a fabulous celebrity—and like all fabulous celebrities, I have a manager. I'm lucky, because my manager understands me completely, and she's always thinking about my long-term well-being.

These days, when I struggle with a habit, I ask myself, “What does my manager say?” I was considering scheduling an hour a day to work on an e-book. I vacillated until I asked myself, “What does my manager say?” and my manager answered, with a faint air of exasperation, “Gretchen, you don't have time for that right now.” It can be a relief to be told what to do;
I agree with Andy Warhol
, who remarked, “When I think about what sort of person I would most like to have on a retainer, I think it would be a boss. A boss who could tell me what to do, because that makes everything easy when you're working.”

I'm the client, and my manager is the executive who works for me—very appropriate, because my manager is my
executive function
. There's no need to rebel against my manager, because I am the boss of my manager. (Not to mention, I
am
the manager.)

My manager reminds me to follow my good habits: “Gretchen, you feel overwhelmed. Get a good night's sleep.” “You're tired, but you'll feel better if you go for a walk.” She stands up for me when other people are too demanding. Just as the rock band
Van Halen famously required bowls of M&Ms
for backstage, with all the brown candies removed, my manager says, “Gretchen really feels the cold, so she can't be outside too long.” “Gretchen is writing her new book now, so she can't give a lengthy response to that email.” On the other hand, she doesn't accept excuses like “This doesn't count” or “Everyone else is doing it.”

As an Upholder, however, I've learned to be a bit wary of my manager. I know how she thinks. She's very impressed by credentials and legitimacy. She's sometimes so focused on my future that she forgets that I need to have a little fun right now. My manager is helpful, but in the end, I'm the one who must “Be Gretchen.”

I'd been trying to help Jamie with his sleep habits, because I'd been listening to him complain every morning about how badly he'd slept, but one day he proposed a new habit himself.

“You have all those rules for me about sleep,” he said one night. “But we should have a habit to help us do something more important. I mean, sleep is important, but something more meaningful.”

“Absolutely! What?” I asked, delighted at this show of habit initiative from Jamie. I try not to expect him to join in my preoccupations. I realize how tiresome I can become.

“Let's set aside some time to talk each night, to tell each other about our day, really share what we're up to.”

“I would
love
to do that.” I was touched. For him to propose that we schedule a nightly sharing session was a real departure from his usual let's-not-make-everything-too-complicated approach. “When? We need to be specific.”

“How about after Eleanor goes to bed?” he suggested.

Now, most nights—I can't say we do this
every
night—we have a conversation about our days, and this small habit makes us feel more connected to each other. In the chaos of everyday life, it's easy to lose sight of what really matters, and I can use my habits to make sure that my life reflects my values.

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.

—William James,
Psychology: Briefer Course

O
n our flight home from a family trip, a chatty flight attendant remarked, as I declined to take anything from the snack basket, “After the holidays, a lot of people turn down the cookies and the pretzels.”

“How long does that last?” I asked.

She smiled. “About as long as most New Year's resolutions.”

I was intrigued by this real-world evidence of the failure of a yearly mass attempt at habit change. As many New Year's resolvers will agree, few experiences are as discouraging as repeatedly failing to keep a commitment to an important habit.

The most important thing I'd learned during my study of how we change our habits?
We can build our habits only on the foundation of our own nature
.

When I'd begun this inquiry, I understood very little about myself and my aptitude for habits. 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.

By understanding myself better, I've also come to understand other people better. When I'd started my investigation, I felt quite confident doling out advice after a five-minute conversation with a stranger—and I hadn't realized how much my suggestions reflected my own temperament. Now I'm much less dictatorial. The opposite of a profound truth is also true, and often, opposing strategies work. We might try to make a habit more social, or more competitive, or more challenging—or less so. We might decide to go public with a new habit—or keep it private. We might abstain altogether, or indulge in moderation. No simple, universal solutions exist.

What's more, if we don't consider these differences among individuals, it's easy to misunderstand whether and why a habit-formation strategy is effective.

A friend told me, “For good health habits, the key is to have confidence in your doctor. My mother did home dialysis for years, and people were amazed that she could do that. But she had so much confidence in her doctor.”

Hmm. I had a different theory. “Let me ask you,” I ventured, “would you describe your mother as a disciplined person?”

My friend smiled in recognition. “Oh, yes.”

“Say, if you'd told her you needed to bring a signed note to school next Friday, she'd remember?”

“Every time.”

“Did she also take time for things that were important to her? Not just to other people?”

My friend nodded.

“Maybe your mother was the
kind of person
who could follow through with something difficult like home dialysis. Maybe that was the key, not the confidence in her doctor.”

“Well,” my friend admitted, “maybe so.”

When we clearly understand the various levers—both internal and external—that move habits, we can make change much more effectively.

In my investigation of habits, I'd focused on the individual. The only person we can change is ourselves, and how we command
ourselves
is always the question that most interests me. Nevertheless, as I wrapped up my catalog of habit-formation strategies, I became increasingly interested by the possibilities for change on a larger scale—how companies, organizations, institutions, and designers of devices and other products can use habit insights to shape people's habits.

For instance, I spoke at a prominent tech company, and afterward got a tour. In current corporate fashion, I saw a big bowl of candy by the reception desk, a display of energy bars and juices near the doors, heavily stocked kitchens throughout the buildings, and a giant cafeteria—and everything free.

“Let me ask you,” I said to my guide, “do people gain weight when they start working here?”

“Oh, yeah! We all talk about it.”

In law school, we took “issue-spotter” exams, which were actually kind of fun. An issue-spotter exam presents a long tale of legal woe, and students must spot every issue that arises—the law-school version of a child's “find the hidden pictures” puzzle. As I was shown around the corporate campus, I amused myself by trying to spot every change I'd make to help people foster healthier habits. What steps would make it easier for employees to eat more healthfully without even thinking about it? First, at the reception desk, I'd put all the candy in an opaque container with a lid, with a small sign that said “Candy.” I'd put doors on the office kitchens. I'd change the bins that stored candies and nuts, so instead of pouring out their contents in a stream, the bins would dispense one small serving at a time (or better, I'd put those items in small, prepackaged baggies). By the end of my tour, I'd written a ten-point memo in my head.

If this company changed the food environment at work, it could make a big difference in its employees' habits. But the fact is, for everyone, it's almost always easier, cheaper, and more fun to offer chocolate-covered pretzels than cucumber slices. And that's a challenge.

I loved my new habits—to commemorate my new way of eating, Jamie gave me a Christmas ornament in the shape of a strip of bacon—but the habits that give me the most satisfaction are the habits I've helped other people to form. My father loves his new way of eating: he now weighs what he weighed when he played high school football, his statin and blood pressure medications were cut in half, and what's more, his doctor has started eating low-carb. Eliza loves (well, maybe “loves” is the wrong word) finishing a big pile of homework on Sunday mornings. Elizabeth
loves
her habit of walking at her treadmill desk. When I checked in with her, she said, “My A1C level is great. I'm at the high end of ‘normal.' ”

“Is that good?”

“Yes, sometimes I've been nowhere
near
the normal range. So that's a relief.”

“What's working?”

“I think it's a lot of things. The treadmill desk, for sure. Losing weight and cutting out a lot of crap that I was eating. The weekly strength training. It all feeds into each other. Also,” she added, “Adam has been working out more, too.”

Habits multiply, for better or worse, within individuals. They also spread from one person to another. As Maria observed about cutting down on alcohol, “It starts to be self-reinforcing. When I drink more wine than usual, I feel like—ugh. That's enough.” Elizabeth's habit of exercise helped her to exercise more—and helped her husband to exercise, too. On the other hand, the less we do, the less we feel like doing. If my office is a wreck, I don't feel like cleaning up.

As I reflected on the changes I'd seen in my habits and in other people's habits, it struck me that only rarely do we achieve a dramatic, picture-perfect
before
and
after
. Sometimes we do make a complete transformation; it's not an utter fantasy. But usually we end up in a place that's better than before. And that's enough.

Some habits become completely automatic; others require some effort, always. What matters is to be moving in the right direction. There's a great satisfaction in knowing that we've made good use of our days, that we've lived up to our expectations of ourselves. The true aim is not to
break
bad habits, but to
outgrow
them. With the bright light of attention, we can recognize and acknowledge them, and leave them behind.

Often, when we try repeatedly to form a habit that we desire, we fail because we want to reap its benefits without paying the price it demands. I think constantly of that stark line from John Gardner, so significant for habits, when he observed, “Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.” Keeping a good habit costs us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunities—but not keeping a good habit also has its cost. So which cost do we want to pay? What will make our lives happier
in the long run
?

Around the time that I completed my habit-formation framework, I had a brief conversation with Eleanor that reminded me why I'd bothered with this long inquiry in the first place.

Every Sunday, we have family Movie Night. One evening, I chose
Lost Horizons
, though I worried Eleanor might be a little bored or confused by the 1937 movie's story of a man who's spirited away to Shangri-La, a mysterious, idyllic village hidden deep in the Himalayas. To my surprise, she loved it—so much, in fact, that after I showed her my copy of the novel, she was inspired to write a sequel.

She labored away in a notebook, then came to read me what she'd written. I enjoyed her account of the romantic engagement and wedding of Robert and Sondra, but she really caught my attention after she'd finished.

“Oh,” she said, “I forgot to tell you the title of my book.”

“What?”

She paused for effect, then said, “
Everyday Life in Utopia
.”

What a phrase, what an idea!
Everyday life in Utopia.
“Eleanor,” I told her truthfully, “I absolutely
love
that title. That is
genius
.”

I couldn't get those words out of my head. I wanted to buy a T-shirt with that slogan printed on it. I wanted to tattoo it across my ankle. I wanted to paint it on the wall in my office.

It struck me, in fact, that all of my work on habits and happiness was meant to help us construct, as much as possible, just that: everyday life in Utopia. Everyday life with deep, loving relationships and productive, satisfying work; everyday life with energy, health, and productivity; everyday life with fun, enthusiasm, and engagement, with as little regret, guilt, or anger as possible.

My study of habits has made me less judgmental, but also more opinionated—more convinced than ever of the enormous value of good habits. Before I started, I hadn't been making the most of my opportunities to create the life I wanted. Now, all that I'd learned about habits was helping me to make my life better than before, and step by step, to make my life more nearly my Utopia.

Tomorrow, without making any decisions, without exerting any willpower, I'll wake up at 6:00 a.m., kiss Jamie while he's still asleep, work on the computer for an hour, wake Eliza and Eleanor, fix the family breakfast (I'll have three scrambled eggs, no oatmeal), stand on one leg in the elevator, walk Eleanor to school, sit down at my clutter-free desk again … and so on. Those habits wouldn't make everyone happy, but they make me very happy.

Everyday life in Utopia.