"Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion.

“这是我们第一次去纽约时简买的，至少已是八、九年前的事了。她从没有穿过它。她想等一个特殊的日子再穿它。”

Well, I guess this is the occasion.

唉，我想现在便是那特殊的日子了。

He took the slip from me and put it on the bed, with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me, "Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you' re alive is a special occasion."

妹夫从我手中拿过内衣放在床上，和其他我们要带给殡仪服务人员的衣服放在一起。他的手在那柔软织物上徘徊了一会儿，随即砰然关上抽屉，转身对我说：“永远不要把任何东西留给什么特殊日子。你活着的每一天就是一个特殊的日子。”

I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the midwestern town where my sister's family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn't seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special.

这两句话久久在我耳边回响着，伴我度过了葬礼和帮妹夫、侄女处理妹妹意外死亡后的伤心后事的那几天。我从位处中西部的妹妹家返回加州时，在飞机上还是在想这两句话。我想到妹妹未曾有机会看到、听到或去做的事。我想到她淡然做过，但却没有意识到其特殊性的事。

 

I'm still thinking about his words, and they've changed the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savour, not endure. I'm trying to recognize these moment now and cherish them.

我至今还在想着妹夫说的话，正是它们改变了我的心境。我花了更多的时间与家人朋友在一起，而少花些时间在那些工作会议上。无论何时，生活应当是一种“品味”而非一种“忍受”。我在学习欣赏每一刻，并珍惜每一刻。

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special. Event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom… I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28. 49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party going friends.

我不再去“珍藏”任何东西；只要有一点好事，我们就不吝啬使用精美的瓷器和水晶制品，比如说当体重减了一磅时，当厨房水槽堵塞通了时，当第一朵山茶花绽放时……如果我想穿，我就穿上我名牌衣服去市场购物。我的理论是：如果我看上去还富足的话，我可以毫不心疼地为一小袋杂货付出28.49美元。我不再为特殊的派对而珍藏我上好的香水；五金店售货员和银行出纳员们的嗅觉，不会比派对上朋友们来得差。

 

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now. I' m not sure what my sister would've done had she know that she wouldn't be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted.

“有朝一日”和“终有一天”这样的词正从我的常用词汇中淡出。如果值得去看、去听或去做，我当即就要去看、去听或去做。人们总是理所当然的以为自己必然有明天，不知假如妹妹知道她将没有明日，她会做些什么。

I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might have called a few former friends to apologize, and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, her favorite food. I'm guessing. I'll never know.

我想她会给家人和几位密友打电话。她可能还会给几位昔日朋友打电话主动道歉，摒弃前嫌。我想她可能会外出吃顿她喜欢的中餐。我只是猜想而已。我永远也不会知道。

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good friends whom I was going to get in touch with someday. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them.

假如我知道我的时间不多了，那些没来得及做的小事会让我恼火。恼火是因为我一拖再拖没能去看看“有朝一日”会去看的好友们。恼火是因为我还没有写出我“终有一天”要写的信。恼火与内疚是因为我没能更经常地告诉我的丈夫和女儿：我是多么真切地爱他们。

I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that every day, every minute, every breath truly, is... a gift from God.

我正努力不再拖延、保留或珍藏那些能给我们生活带来欢笑和光彩的东西。每天清晨当我睁开双眼，我便告诉自己每一天、每一分钟、每一瞬间都真是……上帝赐予的礼物。

Suri, the regularly photographed daughter of actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, toppled last year's winner Shiloh Jolie-Pitt to score top honors in Forbes.com's second annual list of "Hollywood's 10 Hottest Tots."

Shiloh, the two-year-old daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, slipped to second place and was joined by two others from the Jolie-Pitt household with three-year-old Zahara in third place and brother Pax, 4, coming in fourth.

To compile the list, Forbes.com ranked 50 celebrity children aged five years and younger by evaluating the amount of press and online attention they have received in the past year.

The website then recruited polling firm E-Poll Market Research to narrow the list, getting awareness scores for the children and consumer appeal rankings for their celebrity parents.

Suri received more blog mentions than any other Tinseltown child and was referenced in more than 1,300 news articles, which can help shape public opinion about her parents while also fuelling demand for what she wears, plays with and eats.

Rounding out the top five was one-year-old Sam Alexis Woods, the daughter of world golfing champion Tiger Woods and his model wife Elin Nordegren, who is now expecting their second child.

Others children in the top 10 were Cruz Beckham, late Australian actor Heath Ledger's daughter Matilda Rose, Madonna and Guy Ritchie's adopted three-year-old son David Banda, Britney Spear's son Sean Preston Federline, and Sam Sheen.

Celebrity media editors said these children, who grace the front of magazines with and without their famous parents, could be even more in the spotlight next year as people seek uplifting stories amid the financial crisis.

"It's much more fun to look at cute pictures of Suri than think about how much your 401(k) has decreased," Dina Sansing, entertainment director for Us Weekly told Forbes.com.

Below are the strategies students reported using, starting with the most frequently used, down to the least. Also, for each strategy Tkach and Lyubomirsky looked at the relationship between its use and students' reported levels of Happiness to see if those who used a particular strategy were actually happier.

Keep in mind that this is a correlational study. That means it can only tell us that two things - like having a social life and Happiness - are related, not that one definitely causes the other. That said, there are other studies which do provide evidence of causality in some categories.

1. A social life
Social affiliation - hanging around with friends, helping others - was the most frequently reported method of increasing happiness. It also had the strongest relationship with student's actual happiness. No surprises here. Experiments manipulating people's social activity have found that when increased it leads to more Happiness. It's gratifying to see that the number 1, most frequently used strategy probably does work!

2. Acting happy
Direct strategies like 'acting happy' and 'smiling' were the second most popular. While there is some experimental evidence to back this one up, Tkach and Lyubomirsky are cautious. I'd be cautious as well. 'Acting happy' might be useful as a short-term strategy but I'm not so sure about its useful in the long-term.

3. Achieving long-term goals
The students were pretty keen on setting themselves long-term goals for personal achievement, and then sticking to them. This was a relatively popular strategy for increasing Happiness and there are also a good few studies to back up this finding. Well done to the students!

4. Passive leisure pursuits
Here's the first bad boy. Passive leisure, like watching TV or playing video games, while relatively popular, showed no connection with happiness. Experimental studies back this up finding few benefits for Happiness from passive leisure activities. So, once again, it's time to chuck out the the idiot box and the Xbox.

5. Active leisure pursuits
No question about this one. It's very well established that active leisure pursuits like running or cycling increase Happiness. What's worrying is that these pursuits come lower down the list than passive leisure pursuits.

6. Religion
This was a relatively unpopular strategy for increasing Happiness, although it is reasonably well-established that religion and being happy go together. Tkach and Lyubomirsky suggest the reason for this connection could be to do with social connectedness, having a sense of purpose in life or even reduced alcohol consumption.

7. Partying and clubbing
Perhaps surprisingly amongst university students this was relatively unpopular as a Happiness-enhancing activity. It's just as well since those who partied more weren't any happier, once their extraversion was taken into account.

8. Mental control
This is the second bad boy. It centres around thinking bad thoughts: both contemplating them and trying to suppress them. This category was significantly associated with being unhappy. Indeed, previous research has found that both ruminating on negative thoughts and trying to suppress negative thoughts leads to unHappiness.

A (mostly) positive message

This last category of mental control really stands out: what on earth is it doing on a list of strategies to increase happiness? Statistically it was the strongest predictor of unhappiness. This suggests that a significant minority of people have exactly the wrong idea about what strategies increase Happiness.

Passive leisure pursuits is the other category that stands out. All the other categories in the top 6 have at least some connection with Happiness. This one has none and yet there it is at number 4 in the list.

The positive message is that generally the strategies that people use to increase their Happiness do actually work. We're relying on self-reports here, so people could well be misrepresenting what they actually do - but at least they mostly know what they're supposed to be doing.

I've had a sense since I was little. Auntie is pregnant, I'd say, and then the phone would ring. These days I don't need to sell myself. I did a reading years ago, got my tarot cards out, and noticed a man staring at me. He came over and said, 'Don't believe in this, it's all crap.' I pulled him to me and said something in confidence, something specific. I found out he was the MD of Selfridges and then he asked me to give readings there.

I've never predicted someone's death. If I saw something bad I wouldn't say it, unless it was something like a woman's husband sleeping with someone else - something happening here on earth. There are clients who affect you with their stories, like a woman who lost her son to suicide. It's not callous, but you have to disconnect.

I'm quite happy. Work keeps me buzzing and afterwards I have a drink, a laugh. I don't know what happens after this life when I go to meet my maker. I'll be in the spirit world and hopefully I can come back and help the people I love.
 

Everybody knows intuitively that they have solid instincts. I have never met anybody either professionally or socially that says. “My gut feeling is terrible, I’m always getting in a mess by listening to myself, what can I do about it?” How weird is that? It seems to me it’s a universal truth.

Although at this point I have to confess I only know a small percentage of people when we look at it from a global perspective. In fact, we are probably talking about 0.000005% of the population; so statistically speaking it’s about as accurate as a blind baseball pitcher with Meniere’s disease.

Having said that, I’m prepared to bet that you don’t disagree with me. In fact, I’ll go as far to say that if you can honestly say you believe your gut instinct lets you down on a regular basis, drop me an e-mail and I’ll mail you a copy of my book with instructions on how to operate it, because you’re going to need them.

The conscious human mind can only deal with 7 + or – 2 pieces of information at once. Until you read this sentence you almost certainly aren’t aware of your left foot. But hey, presto, now you are! Way to go on shifting your awareness like a Zen Master. If you lost your foot in a freak fairground accident last week I apologize for my lack of tact. I hope you can forgive me and please accept my best wishes for a speedy recovery hoppy.

The fact is, you have to constantly delete information from your conscious mind, otherwise you’d go into sensory overload. Try and do it now if you have any doubt. Place your awareness in your right hand, now your left hand too. Now move to your feet and remain aware of your hands. Easy? Maybe, but that’s still only 4, so try thinking about what your lower back feels like without letting your attention move from your hands. By now you will be starting to struggle, but if you’re not keep going and you soon will be.

Think of your conscious mind as being like the RAM on your computer. It does lots of good stuff and it’s nice to have around and all that, but hey c’mon, it’s no hard drive! That is like the difference between your conscious and unconscious mind.

Your unconscious mind can do lots of stuff easily without you ever having to intervene. I presume your heart is beating, your food is being digested, and you do not have to remember to blink your eyes or maintain your blood pressure, right? If not you maybe dead, so stop reading now and call for an ambulance and/or an undertaker.

What happens when you get a strong gut feeling is that your unconscious mind is trying to tell you what it thinks in the only way it knows how, with feelings. It can’t talk to you because it’s unconscious, hence the rather obvious name. It has done lots of calculations, looked at all the permutations, given it serious consideration and is now shouting “Whoa there big fella, it aint a great idea to poke that skunk with a stick” Of course the ‘shout’ can manifest itself in any number of ways. You may get sweaty palms, a nauseous feeling or just a sense of something not being quite right.

So what do most people do when they get a strong gut feeling?

That’s right, they override it. Because it doesn’t make logical sense on the surface, skunk poking notwithstanding, it tends to get dismissed.  A feeling is just that, a feeling, it can be hard to put into words. When we can’t explain logically why we think something is a bad or even for that matter a good idea, we can tend to either ignore it completely or use faulty logic to dismiss it out of hand.

Some people (kinesthetics) find to very easy to tune into their feelings, but truly kinesthetic people account for less than 15% of the population. If you’re not one of the lucky few then you’ll have to pay extra special attention. Tune in to your body more often and start to recognize the patterns an when it’s trying to tell you something.

If your unconscious is saying don’t take that job, go on that date, poke that skunk - take heed. It knows what it’s talking about and it has your best interests at heart. The alternative it to disregard it as some weird nebulous feeling that’s come out of nowhere and almost certainly live to regret it.

 # Moderate exercise can reduce the risk of Diabetes in people at risk. Exercise may reduce the risk of heart disease and breast and colon cancers.

 # Though the evidence is mixed, exercise may also provide benefits for people with osteoporosis.

 # Physical activity alone will not lead to sustained weight loss or reduce blood pressure or cholesterol.

Exercise has long been touted as the panacea for everything that ails you. For better health, simply walk for 20 or 30 minutes a day, boosters say — and you don’t even have to do it all at once. Count a few minutes here and a few there, and just add them up. or wear a pedometer and keep track of your steps. However you manage it, you will lose weight, get your blood pressure under control and reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

If only it were so simple. While exercise has undeniable benefits, many, if not most, of its powers have been oversold. Sure, it can be fun. It can make you feel energized. And it may lift your mood. But before you turn to a fitness program as the solution to your particular health or weight concern, consider what science has found.

Moderate exercise, such as walking, can reduce the risk of diabetes in obese and sedentary people whose blood sugar is starting to rise. That outcome was shown in a large federal study in which participants were randomly assigned either to an exercise and diet program, to take a diabetes drug or to serve as controls. Despite trying hard, those who dieted and worked out lost very little weight. But they did manage to maintain a regular walking program, and fewer of them went on to develop Diabetes.

Exercise also may reduce the risk of heart disease, though the evidence is surprisingly mixed. There seems to be a threshold effect: Most of the heart protection appears to be realized by people who go from being sedentary to being moderately active, usually by walking regularly. More intense exercise has been shown to provide only slightly greater benefits. Yet the data from several large studies have not always been clear, because those who exercise tend to be very different from those who do not.

Active people are much less likely to smoke; they’re thinner and they eat differently than their sedentary peers. They also tend to be more educated, and education is one of the strongest predictors of good health in general and a longer life. As a result, it is impossible to know with confidence whether exercise prevents heart disease or whether people who are less likely to get heart disease are also more likely to be exercising.

Scientists have much the same problem evaluating exercise and cancer. The same sort of studies that were done for heart disease find that people who exercised had lower rates of colon and Breast Cancer. But whether that result is cause or effect is not well established.

Exercise is often said to stave off osteoporosis. Yet even weight-bearing activities like walking, running or lifting weights has not been shown to have that effect. Still, in rigorous studies in which elderly people were randomly assigned either to exercise or maintain their normal routine, the exercisers were less likely to fall, perhaps because they got stronger or developed better balance. Since falls can lead to fractures in people with osteoporosis, exercise may prevent broken bones — but only indirectly.

And what about weight loss? Lifting weights builds muscles but will not make you burn more calories. The muscle you gain is minuscule compared with the total amount of skeletal muscle in the body. And muscle has a very low metabolic rate when it’s at rest. (You can’t flex your biceps all the time.)

Jack Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at Texas A & M University, calculated that the average amount of muscle that men gained after a serious 12-week weight-lifting program was 2 kilograms, or 4.4 pounds. That added muscle would increase the metabolic rate by only 24 calories a day.

Exercise alone, in the absence of weight loss, has not been shown to reduce blood pressure. Nor does it make much difference in cholesterol levels. Weight loss can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but if you want to lose weight, you have to diet as well as exercise. Exercise alone has not been shown to bring sustained weight loss.Just ask Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina. He runs every day and even runs marathons. But, he adds, “I was short, fat and bald when I started running, and I’m still short, fat and bald. Weight control is difficult for me. I fight the losing battle.”

The difficulty, Dr. Blair says, is that it’s much easier to eat 1,000 calories than to burn off 1,000 calories with exercise. As he relates, “An old football coach used to say, ‘I have all my assistants running five miles a day, but they eat 10 miles a day.’”

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.

But they need those votes!

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

Here's the deal, 'pubbies: Howard Dean was right.

It isn't that culture doesn't matter. It does. But preaching to the choir produces no converts. And shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party -- and conservatism with it -- eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs.

Religious conservatives become defensive at any suggestion that they've had something to do with the GOP's erosion. And, though the recent Democratic sweep can be attributed in large part to a referendum on Bush and the failing economy, three long-term trends identified by Emory University's Alan Abramowitz have been devastating to the Republican Party: increasing racial diversity, declining marriage rates and changes in religious beliefs.

Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting.

With the exception of Miss Alaska, of course.

Even Sarah Palin has blamed Bush policies for the GOP loss. She's not entirely wrong, but she's also part of the problem. Her recent conjecture about whether to run for president in 2012 (does anyone really doubt she will?) speaks for itself:

"I'm like, okay, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is.... And if there is an open door in (20)12 or four years later, and if it's something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."

Let's do pray that God shows Alaska's governor the door.

Meanwhile, it isn't necessary to evict the Creator from the public square, surrender Judeo-Christian values or diminish the value of faith in America. Belief in something greater than oneself has much to recommend it, including most of the world's architectural treasures, our universities and even our founding documents.

But, like it or not, we are a diverse nation, no longer predominantly white and Christian. The change Barack Obama promised has already occurred, which is why he won.

Among Jewish voters, 78 percent went for Obama. Sixty-six percent of under-30 voters did likewise. Forty-five percent of voters ages 18-29 are Democrats compared to just 26 percent Republican; in 2000, party affiliation was split almost evenly.

The young will get older, of course. Most eventually will marry, and some will become their parents. But nonwhites won't get whiter. And the nonreligious won't get religion through external conversion. It doesn't work that way.

Given those facts, the future of the GOP looks dim and dimmer if it stays the present course. Either the Republican Party needs a new base -- or the nation may need a new party.

In a recent survey, women expressed more fear about the economic situation than men and reported more physical and psychological effects because of related stress.

"Women are sometimes more aware of the stress they are feeling," said Stephanie Smith, a psychologist and public education coordinator for the American Psychological Association (APA).

"They are often more willing to talk about it and admit to the struggles they are having," she said in a statement.

The survey, conducted by the APA, showed that 84 percent of women expressed fear about where the economy is going, compared with 75 percent of men.

One reason could be the primary caretaker role many women hold in their families, Smith suggested. A financial crisis can become even more worrying if you are responsible for caring for children and older relatives than if you are just taking care of yourself. As well, although surveys have shown a shift toward a splitting of chores between genders, women still carry a heavier burden in maintaining the Home.

"As much as things have changed over the years, women still tend to do more of the household work," Smith said. "Taken together, these things often lead to more stress in women because they just have more things to be stressed about."

Stress is considered a risk factor for many diseases, including heart disease, bowel illnesses like Irritable Bowel Syndrome and mental illness. It causes biochemical changes in the body that can compromise the immune system, and makes it more difficult for diabetics to control their blood sugar.

A recent study found that some types of stress, such as that caused by financial debt, can increase the risk of preterm delivery, and another showed that people who are chronically stressed are three to four times more likely to suffer heart problems. They also have a 53 percent increased risk of high blood pressure or stroke. A long-term study out of Finland discovered that uncertainty about your role in your workplace can up the risk of a heart attack over time.

The first key to reducing stress is recognizing its symptoms, which include irritability, sadness, changes in sleep patterns, weight gain or loss, difficulty concentrating and restlessness.

Most people likely already have the tools to cope with stress, said Smith. "One of things we often do is abandon our good coping strategies," she said. "The first and easiest coping mechanism is to keep up your good habits." That means trying to stick to your existing schedule for social activities and taking some time during the day to focus on yourself.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also suggests making an effort to get adequate sleep. A lack of sleep could make stress worse and lead to other health problems like weight gain and reduced immune function. Exercise and a good diet will help you stay healthy, and talking to friends and loved ones about your worries can also help you work through your anxiety.

If stress is affecting your quality of life, the American Heart Association recommends speaking to your doctor to find ways to cope and reduce your risk of stress-related health problems down the road.

Are you feeling extra stressed because of the economic crisis?

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” - Mark Twain

I’ve learned a lot about changing habits in the last 2 1/2 years, from quitting smoking to taking up running and GTD and vegetarianism and waking early and all that. I could go on, of course, but you get the picture.

I’ve not only learned a lot about what you should do when changing habits, but through my failures, I’ve learned about what not to do.

And trust me, I’ve had lots of failures.

I’ve found failures to be just as important as successes when trying to learn how to improve, especially when it comes to changing habits. It’s not an easy task, and I’m sure every one of us has tried to quit something and failed, or tried to do something positive and failed. The key, of course, is to not just give up after failure, but to reset your resolve, to analyze what went wrong and why, and to plan to overcome those obstacles the next time.

I’ve done that, with one failure after another, and would like to share a few things I’ve learned to avoid when trying to change a habit.

    “motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” - Jim Ryun

   1. Taking on two or more habits at once. We’ve all done this. I want to learn to wake early, and to start running, and to eat healthier, and to be more organized, and to write every day … all at once! But no matter how much enthusiasm we have for all of these goals, taking on even just two habits at once is setting ourselves up for failure. I’ve tried it. Many times. It’s certainly possible, but it’s not for those of us who have difficulty changing habits (I think that’s nearly all of us). I would estimate that you triple or even quadruple your chances of success if you focus on one habit at a time, for one month at a time. Devote all of your energy to that habit change, and once it’s on autopilot, move on to the next one. Knock ‘em down one at a time.

   2. Not committing a plan to paper. It’s easy to wake up, jump out of bed, and yell out loud, “I’m going to make a change today!” Who among us hasn’t done that? (Side note: if you don’t live alone, your housemates or family members might not appreciate all the yelling.) But just telling ourselves, whether out loud or quietly in our heads, that we’re going to change isn’t enough. You have to write down your goal. Write a start date. Write an end date (30 days is a good time frame). Write down exactly what you’re going to do. Write down how you’re going to be accountable, what your rewards are, what the obstacles are, what your triggers are. More on these below. Main thing: put it on paper and stick to the plan (don’t file the plan in your inbox, you piler you!).

   3. Being half-committed. I’ve done this a few times myself: I will say, “I think I’ll quit smoking today.” Then I’ll throw away my pack of cigarettes (this should be in past-tense as I don’t smoke anymore, but I’m too lazy to go back and change the tense). Then I’ll go for as long as I can (often half a day!) and then cave in and go buy another pack. Then I feel guilty for a little while until I half commit to quit again. That doesn’t work. You have to commit Big Time. That means tell the world about it. Seriously — put it on your blog, tell your family, friends, co-workers, your butcher, the guy from your high school who you say hi to when you run into him at the grocery store and who you call “buddy” because you forgot his name. The more people, the better. Publish your entire plan. Put up a sign on your desk and refrigerator. Make a solemn promise to your child (this worked for me when quitting smoking).

   4. Not having support. There will be times when you falter, almost invariably. Who will you turn to when you need encouragement? If you don’t have a good answer to this, you need to think it through. If you have a significant other, that’s a good choice, but have more than one supporter. Maybe your mom, your sister, your best friend, your boss. Maybe an online friend or three. Best yet, join a support group or an online forum full of people doing the same thing. Make the commitment to them, and ask them to help you when you hit rough spots. Make a promise to call them if you do. Put this in your written plan.

   5. Not thinking through your motivation. In my experience, what people call discipline, I call motivation. Why are you disciplined enough to do something? Because you have the right motivation. When you lose the motivation, you lose the discipline. Before you start your habit change, think through your motivations. Why are you doing this? What will keep you going when you forget your reasons? Public commitment is a big motivator, of course, but you should have internal ones too. Write these down in your plan.


   6. Not realizing the obstacles. Every habit change is a path littered with obstacles. Unfortunately, when we hit some of these, we often quit. or we’ll try again, but hit the same obstacles again and again with the same result. Instead, think it through, and anticipate your obstacles. If you’ve failed before, think about what obstacle stopped you. If you’ve never done this habit change before, do some research and read about others who’ve succeeded and failed at it, and find out what obstacles you should expect. Then make a plan for what you’ll do when you face the obstacles. For example, I have a hard time eating in moderation when I go out. What will I do when I go out to eat? What are my strategies? I have to think these through before actually going out, because when the urge hits and you don’t have a plan, you’re too late.

   7. Not logging your progress. You can change habits without keeping a log, but a log just increases your chances of success — and why wouldn’t you want to do that? Things are hard enough without using all the tools at your disposal. A log helps you succeed because it reminds you to be consistent. It keeps you aware of what you’re actually doing. It motivates you, because you want to write good things in that log. It helps keep you accountable before the people you’ve made a commitment to.

   8. Having no accountability. Speaking of accountability, it’s the second half of the all-important public commitment. It’s not enough to make a big announcement on your blog and not follow through. For example, I announced my plans to get in shape earlier to all of you … but I also created a small training blog (or “tralog”) that will help keep me accountable. I report my progress daily, whether I fail or succeed. Take a look at my “tralog”. Even if you don’t have a blog, you have to set up a system where you remain accountable — maybe post your log up at your workplace, or email your progress to people, or just report to them daily in person.

   9. Not knowing your triggers. This is an important key to changing habits. Every habit has at least one trigger — an event that immediately precedes the habit. Some habits have more than one trigger — for example, when I smoked, my triggers included waking up, eating, sex, stressful events, going out drinking, etc. Each time these events happened, almost without fail, I would smoke — either that, or I’d get the urge to do so. The more consistent the link to the trigger, the stronger the habit. So when you try to break a habit, you have to know all of your triggers (log it for a few days) and then create a positive habit to replace the negative habit for each of the triggers. Running, for example, replaced smoking when I got stressed. For positive habit changes, such as exercise, you need a trigger that will happen every day (or as often as you need it to happen). For exercise, you could exercise right after your morning coffee (if you have Coffee at the same time every day already) or right after work, if you get off work at the same time every day. Put your triggers in your written plan, and be very very consistent with them — when the triggers happen, do the habit immediately, every single time. The less consistent you are with your triggers, the weaker the habit will be.

  10. Not doing your reading. With every habit change, I find it important to read as much as possible about it, before and during. I will do my research, to find out strategies for success, potential obstacles, good tools that will help me be successful. And I’ll still read about it during the habit change — blogs, magazines, books, forums, success stories — to help motivate me.

  11. Changing focus too soon. Often we’ll start a habit change, and within a week or two change our focus to something else. Well, the habit probably isn’t firmly ingrained by then, and so we’ve wasted all that time trying to form a new habit and then abandoning it before it’s on autopilot. Instead, stick to this habit for at least 30 days, and be consistent as possible.

  12. Not being consistent. I’ve mentioned this a couple times now, but it should be addressed because it’s important. If you attach a habit to a trigger, you have to do the habit every single time, immediately following the trigger. If you do it sometimes and not others, you will not have a habit. Try not to miss a single time if possible, because once you miss once, you’ll be tempted to miss another time, and then a third, and then you’ve got nothing.

  13. Quitting after failure. However, if you do miss once, or twice or three times, don’t give up. Just figure out why you missed, and plan to beat that obstacle next time. Then be as consistent as possible from then on out, until the habit is ingrained. If you quit, you’ve let the failure beat you. But if you reset your resolve, and learn from your failure, the failure then becomes a positive thing that helps you to succeed. As I’ve said before, I see failure as a stepping stone to success.

    “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle