Better Than Before

Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

By: Gretchen Rubin

Narrated by: Gretchen Rubin

Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

The author of the blockbuster New York Times best sellers The Happiness Project and Happier at Home tackles the critical question: How do we change?

Gretchen Rubin's answer: through habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives.

So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits?

Better Than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow listeners to understand their habits - and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin's compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better Than Before explains the (sometimes counterintuitive) core principles of habit formation.

Along the way Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers listeners' most pressing questions - oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore:

• Why do I find it tough to create a habit for something I love to do?
• Sometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can't change a habit no matter how hard I try. Why?
• How quickly can I change a habit?
• What can I do to make sure I stick to a new habit?
• How can I help someone else change a habit?
• Why can I keep habits that benefit others but can't make habits that are just for me?

Whether listeners want to get more sleep, stop checking their devices, maintain a healthy weight, or finish an important project, habits make change possible. Listening to just a few chapters of Better Than Before will make listeners eager to start work on their own habits - even before they've finished the audiobook.

Bonus feature: includes a full episode from the author's podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin in which she discusses how to build happier habits into everyday life.

©2015 Gretchen Rubin (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Here, she [Gretchen Rubin] uses her gifts to help you eat right, sleep well, stop procrastinating, and start enjoying all that life has to offer." (Susan Cain, New York Times best-selling author of Quiet)

"Gretchen Rubin combines deep research and observations from her own life to explain how habits emerge and - more important - how they can change. It's indispensable for anyone hoping to overhaul how they (almost unthinkingly) behave." (Charles Duhigg, New York Times best-selling author of The Power of Habit)

"Filled with insights about our patterns of behavior, Better Than Before addresses one of life's big and timeless questions: how can we transform ourselves? In a way that’s thought-provoking, surprising, and often funny, Gretchen Rubin provides us with the tools to build a life that truly reflects our goals and values." (Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post and New York Times best-selling author of Thrive)

Best Self-Help book I've ever read

Of all the self-help books I've ever read this one is the most transformative probably, it's up there with the Myers-Briggs books and others for sure.

It's not just a series of suggestions or incentive to help you have the life you want. It is a psychological and social logical breakdown of why people do what they do and what motivates them. I found it extremely helpful. Not only an understanding myself but an understanding other people and how to help motivate them also.

Enjoyable as Always

As an Upholder myself, Gretchen Rubin's perspective always proves to be insightful and instructive! I enjoy the way each Strategy is explained with personal anecdotes, however I do wish that fewer of said anecdotes revolved around food/eating.

Great book to satisfy my listening habit!

A subject that includes everyone and can be a self help topic if used correctly. It can be a positive for the habitually negative;-)

Great information, not my favorite delivery

I loved all the practical advice and took so much away from the book but her style and cadence we're not for me. To each her own!

Great for self improvement

Love Gretchin and her work, she gives great advice. The whole concept of the four tendencies is brillo, it's given me so much insight into myself and my friends and family.

Loved it!

I really enjoyed this book! It was thought provoking, insightful, and interesting. I'll probably get it in book form as well as audio so I can mark it up, but the Audible form got me through a very long, boring drive!

Great ideas and inspiring

I see a lot of myself in this author. I am always looking for ways to my make life go from good to great. In this book, Gretchin identifies different personality types and different stories so that all readers can relate. I like the material, I find it inspiring and it works. I also like the narration.

I think I can make some new habits!

I enjoyed listening to this mostly. I really came away with some useful information and got some strategies that I think will really work to help me make some habits out of what used to be my same old failed resolutions. the only part that I didn't like is that the author comes across as pretty bossy, controlling and rigid. she admits it, but it still is irritating. but overall I am a big fan of Gretchen and would recommend her books, blog and podcast.

Enlightening

Truth be told, most of the things we have to do to be a better self are already engraved deep in our minds. Sometimes, all you need to realize it is for somebody else to say it. This book does just that, not only concretely listing dos and donts about habit formation, but also enlighten us about external factor's that matter.

p.s. Will miss the "Secret of adulthood" part

Loved it!

Very informative book about habit forming - loved it! Glad I heard about it (: