Habits, Self-Knowledge and Alcohol: New Strategies

Would you like to be ‘better than before’? I think for many of us this is the appeal  of an alcohol-free life; we want our circumstances to improve.

Today, I share the work of Gretchen Rubin who wrote the book, Better Than Before. This book is about habits but most importantly it’s about knowing oneself better than before. Rubin makes a convincing point that in order to establish habits that last, we must build habits that are based on who we are now. I agree – when we try to adopt the habits of someone else, we often find it difficult. If we start with self-knowledge we are much more likely to succeed in creating lasting change. 

In the podcast today, I share the Habit Manifesto that Rubin created and also offer real life examples of where these principles can help us create an alcohol-free life, and do it with more ease. Here is Rubin’s manifesto:

1. What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while
2. Make it easy to do right and hard to go wrong
3. Focus on actions, not outcomes
4. By giving something up, we may gain
5. Things often get harder before they get easier
6. When we give more ot ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves
7. We’re not very different from other people, but those differences are very important
8. It’s easier to change our surroundings than ourselves
9. We can’t make people change, but when we change, others may change
10. We should make sure the things we do to feel better don’t make us feel worse
11. We manage what we monitor
12. Once we’re ready to begin, begin now

THANK YOU! I am incredibly grateful to all of you who tune into the podcast, read my newsletter and allow me to share a bit about this aFree journey. My book club partner Sarah (shout out to Sarah who is amazing!) and I have decided to say ‘thank you’ by inviting you into our book club for FREE for the month of December! We want to share this fun and engaging community with all of you!

In addition to reading one book a month, we also have:

• Member spotlights – get to know your fellow book lovers
• Author spotlights – this is so fun – we invite an author who comes into the group with a special Zoom session to share about their book and tell their back story
• Weekly questions about our current book
• Weekly chat from Sarah and Teri
• We love the warm community that is building and we would love for you to get a glimpse of what’s inside.

Here’s what’s coming up in December:

We are reading “Build The Life You Want” by Oprah Winfrey and Arthur C. Brooks
We have Meg Guiseweiss for our Author Spotlight sharing her new book “Intoxicating Lies”

You can claim your free month HERE

You can also join our book study, Better Than Before HERE (there’s still time but don’t wait much longer!)