We are all distinct individuals with various personalities and experiences.  But, as I have mentioned before, we are more alike than we are different, but those differences are very important to understand.  The questions that I listed in the last post are designed to help us understand our personal preferences.  It is essential to understand our preferences so that we can make informed choices about what habits we would like to develop.  We must base our self-transformation on forming habits that utilize on our strengths.  Developing helpful habits is not about changing who we are, it is about accepting and using our strengths to our advantage.  Go over the questions again in the previous post if you need to, but usually our gut reactions are often correct.  The next discussion pertains to our personal motivation style.  When I read this particular information it immediately struck me as disconcerting.  Mostly, because I found that I wasn’t pleased with my personal motivation inclination or predisposition.

Gretchen Rubin studies what motivates people.  She argues that there are four different tendencies of motivation that generally describe most people.  Realistically, there is variation in all of us that cannot be boxed into categories.  But, generally speaking we find ourselves in one camp; so here it is: Upholders, Rebels, Obligers and Questioners.  Upholders are motivated by both external obligations and personal expectations.  Upholding is the motivation style that everyone likely assumes they have because it seems the most desirable.  Similarly, a rebellious personality style is rarer than the other two types, Questioners and Obligers.  Gretchen Rubin, also a famous habit formation pioneer explains that those people who fall into the rebel category are not motivated by external parties such as a boss or parents.  Yet, they also struggle to be motivated by personal expectations.  They tend to fulfill promises to others before they maintain commitments to themselves.  Most people are motivated best by one or the other: external or internal influences.  Obligers are more willing to fulfil goals if they experience pressure from external actors like exercising with a friend or finishing a degree to set a good example for children.  Questioners resist direction from others until they consider it a worthy feat.  Questioners are motivated by personal goals and skeptical of external pressures unless they find them worthy.

As I mentioned, I found this information frustrating because I don’t find my personal motivation tendency particularly pleasing.  While I used to consider myself firmly within the Upholder category, I think I have become an Obliger.  This is not to say our motivation predisposition can’t change.  But we have to be honest with ourselves so that we can exploit our strengths to more easily achieve self-transformation.  This information is important because it allows us to develop habits that are tailored to our motivation style.  My husband, for instance is a Questioner and I find that most of his commitments are carefully weighed and considered.  His rationale, his logic motivates him best because he finds the activity useful.  Carefully and honestly consider your motivation tendency.  It’s critical to successful habit formation.

Some habit formation advice:  Habits are easier to form when we attach a new habit to an old habit.  Brushing one’s teeth is a consistent and scheduled habit that another habit may be attached, like tidying up your living space.  For instance, every morning after I make the bed, I sort all the recycling from the previous day.  Sorting your recycling for just a few minutes every day keeps the recycling from becoming a burden.  Habit tip #1 is that any task which can be performed in under a few minutes should be completed daily.  Clean out your refrigerator and do your laundry as it comes.  Chores are easier to accomplish when they are smaller.  When our tasks are too big we avoid them.  I hear a lot of people who are only willing to recycle if they do not have to put forth effort.  When I moved to Manhattan I found myself recycling less items than before, mostly because I have to transport the recycling.  I decided to start organizing my recycling daily and take it to the recycling center weekly, instead of monthly.  This new habit helps me to recycle more items because I get less frustrated by a few bags, as opposed to a dozen.  I attached my new recycling habit to my regular errand day on Saturdays.

So why is any of this important?  Because self-monitoring and habit formation allows us to expand our sphere of influence over our lives and achieve some transformation.  We can use these strategies to make changes anywhere from how many hours of sleep we get to becoming more socially dutiful.  Persuading people of how easily more mindful environmental choices can be made is ultimately the highest achievement I can expect from this blog.  Simply considering how little time it takes to turn off the water faucet between rinsing dishes justifies the water savings.  We can control our thoughts and we can control behavior.  So, I am going to encourage us to embrace the challenge for the sake of change.  Every generation complains that the proceeding generation is problematic or dissimilar in some way.  But we should all recognize that we are becoming an incredibly individualistic culture that rarely rallies for a cause farther than a signing a Facebook petition.  We are too alone to ban together.  And as much as I want this blog to encourage individuals to ‘get to know themselves as individuals,’ I want just as badly to persuade us of the limitations of individuality.  Klein’s pioneering work, “Blockadia” explains that fight against environmental degradation is “building a global, grassroots, and broad-based network the likes of which the environmental movement has rarely seen” (Klein). We must have control over what happens to our most critically important resources, such as water, soil and air.  I am discussing habits because I want us to understand that our environmental impact is easier to control when we consider it in the form of easy to manipulate habits.  We can change, but we need to embrace HOW we can CHANGE.  I work in a restaurant that doesn’t recycle more than cardboard mostly because we don’t have the space to store recycling bins.  I can’t change the institution of our throw away culture or the way disposable products have overwhelmed our existence, but I can try to change what we do and do not put in the trash can.  Consequently, for the last two weeks I have been collecting the restaurant’s aluminum beer cans and taking them to the recycling center when I go to the center for my household.  This is a small contribution, but I am going to expand my efforts.  The point is that developing new productive habits can be easier than we imagine.  I am already at work and have opportunities to collect the aluminum cans that I take to the recycling center with my personal recycling.  And you know what?  It makes me feel good to do it.  And luckily, it also makes me feel motivated to do more.