I love a lot of her ideas. Her concept of The Four Tendencies (that people can be roughly categorized into four distinct patterns of how we respond to inner and outer expectations) was particularly eye-opening for me. A premise in a lot of her writing about intentional change is to deeply know yourself and then apply only the strategies that work best for your unique personality and circumstances.

Armed with the knowledge that I’m a textbook Obliger (the tendency that will “meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet the expectations they impose on themselves”), I now blissfully and shamelessly seek out ways to convert my inner expectations into outer expectations, thus increasing the odds that I’ll actually follow through on the things I know are important to me, yet struggle to actualize.

So that’s the love part, what about the hate?

Okay, I don’t actually hate Gretchen Rubin, but maybe I’m just super triggered by her and any “Upholder,” those freaks of nature who “respond readily to outer and inner expectations,” and whose mantra, according to Rubin, is “Discipline is my freedom.”

I want discipline to be my freedom, too, goddamnit!

Sigh…

Sometimes discipline is my freedom. And, sure, I often wish it were more the case. But lately I’m more interested in leveraging self-knowledge and reality-awareness in service of the outcomes I’m looking for, rather than torturing myself through attempts at complex internal sea changes that are most likely doomed to failure.

To that end, I have a therapist who I’ve tasked with representing the external expectation that I get my shit together, and a music production teacher who provides the external expectation that I actually finish music.

Hiring professionals as stand-ins for external expectations can get expensive pretty quickly, but it’s definitely been worth it for me. There are also a lot of free or inexpensive accountability groups all over the internet that I may dive into at some point, because the truth is that I am working towards intentional change in several areas.

In fact, if I’m dreaming big, I have goals that fall into each of the categories of transformation that Gretchen Rubin calls…

The Essential Seven

1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol)

2. Exercise regularly

3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget)

4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car)

5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog)

6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle)

7. Engage more deeply in relationships—with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend time with family, attend religious services)

-Better Than Before

Below are some resources and activities I’ve explored in service of each category. Maybe they’ll help you, too!

1. How Not to Diet, by Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM

2. The Barbell Prescription, by Jonathon M. Sullivan & Andy Baker (perhaps minus the nutrition guidance)

3. The Simple Path to Wealth, by JL Collins

4. Ordinary Wonder, by Charlotte Joko Beck

5. How to Practice Music, by Andrew Eales

6. The Lost Art of House Cleaning, by Jan M. Dougherty

7. Volunteering with the Perinatal Support Washington Warm Line

Here’s hoping that on the road to positive change we can all learn to know ourselves, be ourselves, and love ourselves.

If so, take heart! You are not alone, you are not crazy, and you are not failing at life.

Behavioral scientist Jason Hreha’s definition of habits is “reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.” Our brain prioritizes efficient solutions to these recurring problems, and habits are about as efficient as can be, They are essentially “automatic” and “effortless” from our conscious brain’s perspective.

But here’s the thing, as Jason points out in his book Real Change: Moving Beyond Habits to Achieve Lasting Transformation,

The major transformations many of us are interested in are not things we can habit hack our way through. They require mindful, thoughtful attention. They take physical and mental effort. They are complex and dynamic.

Ryder Carroll had also expressed this sentiment in the Bullet Journal Newsletter titled “Why good habits don’t exist”:

In practice, optimizing for automation collides with a far more important quality: presence.

Taking an honest look at my life, almost all of my automatic behaviors were/are destructive. Smoking, drinking, eating, snacking, binge watching, doomscrolling, etc. Most of these behaviors are fear or stress responses. They’re designed to take me away from the present moment. They rarely offer anything in return other than temporary distraction.

What if we've got it all backward? What if the behaviors that truly enrich our lives aren't the ones we can put on autopilot, but the ones that demand our full attention? For me, it's the moments of deep focus - whether I'm writing, having a heartfelt conversation, or even simply savoring a meal - that bring me the most satisfaction and growth.

Ryder’s ideas, many of which can be found in his book The Bullet Journal Method, jibe well with Jason’s concept of Transformative Practices.

Hreha’s book is a quick read, but provides a wealth of inspiration and insight into lasting behavior change via the “Transformative Practice Path,” which he outlines as follows:

The Transformative Practice Path:

1. Solve your energy issues.

2. Disrupt your bad habits.

3. Trade your bad habits for good habits.

4. Build Transformative Practices.

To carefully select your Transformative Practices, use the Behavioral Strategy process:

Step 1: Choose your goal.

Step 2: Be honest with yourself.

Step 3: Come up with Transformative Practice ideas.

Step 4: Rank the potential Transformative Practices.

Step 5: Choose a top-rated Transformative Practice and do it.

Don’t forget: A good Transformative Practice is exciting, easy, enjoyable, and effective. You will have a hard time being consistent with any behavior that is missing one of these four components. While there is no shortcut or hack to personal transformation, it is possible to set your life up for consistent growth and real change using the Transformative Practice Path. Remember, transformational change is a process that requires patience, commitment, and consistency. You may encounter setbacks and challenges along the way, but don’t give up. Keep pushing forward.

I highly recommend diving into the book if you’re looking to make major intentional changes in your life, and doubly so if you’ve been frustrated in the past by how the “power of habit” in your life seems to only manifest in less than ideal ways.

Glad you asked! I have an excellent and aptly titled book recommendation for that.

Katie Milkman’s How to Change is packed with actionable, practical advice on intentional transformation distilled from decades of research in psychology and behavioral science.

I loved Katie’s engineering (and tennis)-inspired perspective on approaching change with a clear understanding of, and tailored solution for, the oppositional forces you will inevitably encounter on your path to the new you.

Each of the book’s chapters addresses a particular common obstacle to change and provides a summary of the most current behavioral science-y ways of addressing them. This structure definitely warmed my clarity-and-simplicity-obsessed heart!

The obstacles she addresses are:

Getting Started

Impulsivity

Procrastination

Forgetfulness

Laziness

Confidence

Conformity

With a final chapter on what I imagine is the thorn in many a side:

Changing for Good

Speaking of which, one of my favorite takeaways from the book was this:

“In medicine, doctors recognize that chronic diseases require a lifetime of treatment. Why do we assume that behavior change is any different?

Study after study (mine included) has shown that achieving transformative behavior change is more like treating a chronic disease than curing a rash. You can’t just slap a little ointment on it and expect it to clear up forever. The internal obstacles that stand in the way of change, which I’ve described in this book—obstacles such as temptation, forgetfulness, underconfidence, and laziness—are like the symptoms of a chronic disease. They won’t just go away once you’ve started “treating” them. They’re human nature and require constant vigilance.”

Did you hear that? She said CONSTANT vigilance! As in relentless, unflagging, eternal, CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Change is freakin’ hard! She compared behavior change to chronic disease for God’s sake! Maybe you can remind yourself of this the next time you falter at any point on the timeline of your ambitious new life plan.

There are a ton of other gems in the book, but just to highlight one more I found particularly noteworthy, Katie Milkman and Angela Duckworth were on a speaking tour in London when private equity firm managing director Lloyd Thomas asked,

“Which of the many behavioral insights he’d learned about was most important to helping him achieve his goals?

Angela didn’t hesitate before giving her answer—to her, it was blindingly obvious: cue-based plans [i.e., a plan formatted as “when ___ happens, I’ll do ___”]. Forming these kinds of plans most effectively sets you up for success, she told him. It’s the best insight behavioral science has to offer on this topic.

Angela pointed out that in addition to reducing forgetting and short-circuiting the need to think about what you’ll do in the moment, planning forces you to break big goals into bite-size chunks. This turns out to be really important to making progress on ambitious projects

when you have a big goal you hope to achieve, such as “earn a promotion in the next year,” planning forces you to do the critical work of breaking it down.”

For whatever reason (possibly the fact that my life tends to unfold as a fractal kaleidoscope of chaos and unpredictability), cue-based plans/implementation intentions have never really done it for me. BUT, I absolutely agree that being forced to “break big goals into bite-size chunks” is without a doubt vital for success in effecting intentional change. And to whatever extent you’re able to get specific about exactly when you will do exactly what, you are going to be very much headed in the right direction on the royal road to change.