While the clean slate offers tremendous opportunity for forming new habits, it can disrupt a person’s existing good habits by eliminating a useful cue or breaking up a positive routine. Routines are chains of habits, and when just one seemingly insignificant link weakens, it can disrupt the entire habit chain. For instance, research shows that people are more likely to alter their buying habits—often without noticing—when they’re experiencing a major life change, such as marriage, divorce, career change, or having

new habits, it can disrupt a person’s existing good habits by eliminating a useful cue or breaking up a positive routine. Routines are chains of habits, and when just one seemingly insignificant link weakens, it can disrupt the entire habit chain. For instance, research shows that people are more likely to alter their buying habits—often without noticing—when they’re experiencing a major life change, such as marriage, divorce,

opportunity for forming new habits, it can disrupt a person’s existing good habits by eliminating a useful cue or breaking up a positive routine. Routines are chains of habits, and when just one seemingly insignificant link weakens, it can disrupt the entire habit chain. For instance, research shows that people are more likely to alter their buying habits—often without noticing—when they’re experiencing a major life change, such as marriage, divorce,

and she asked her editor to give her accountability.
“When I signed the contract to write this memoir,” she said, “I told my editor, ‘I can only write when I have to turn something in, and I don’t want to wait until the last minute to work on this book. Please, give me some fake deadlines along the way.’ But he said, ‘Don’t worry, the book will be great, you’ll get it done, blah, blah.’ He

Because Obligers resist inner expectations, it’s difficult for them to self-motivate—to work on a PhD thesis, to attend networking events, to get their car serviced. Obligers depend on external accountability, with consequences such as deadlines, late fees, or the fear of letting other people down. One Obliger wrote on my blog, “I don’t feel a sense of accountability to my calendar, just to the people associated with the appointments. If the entry is just ‘go for a jog’ I’m not likely to do it.” Another Obliger summarized: “Promises made to yourself can be broken. It’s the promises made to others that should never be broken.” Obligers need external accountability even for activities that they want to do. An Obliger told me, “I never made time to read, so I joined a book group where you’re really expected to read the book.” Behavior that Obligers sometimes attribute to self-sacrifice—“Why do I always make time for other people’s priorities at the expense of my own priorities?”—is often better explained as need for accountability.
Obligers find ingenious ways to create external accountability. One Obliger explained, “I wanted to go

Obligers
Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. They’re motivated by external accountability; they wake up and think, “What must I do today?” Because Obligers excel at meeting external demands and deadlines, and go to great lengths to meet their responsibilities, they make terrific colleagues, family members, and friends—which I know firsthand, because my mother and my sister are both Obligers.
Because

As my idea hit, I felt the same excitement that Archimedes must have felt when he stepped into his bath. Suddenly I grasped it. The first and most important habits question is: “How does a person respond to an expectation?” When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand how we respond to expectations.

We face two kinds of expectations: outer expectations (meet work deadlines, observe traffic regulations) and inner expectations (stop napping, keep a New Year’s resolution). From my observation, just about everyone falls into one of four distinct groups:

information and justification can become overwhelming. “My mother makes me insane,” one reader reported, “because she expects me to need tons of information the way she does. She constantly asks questions that I didn’t ask, wouldn’t ask, and generally don’t think I need to know the answers to.” Questioners themselves sometimes wish they could accept expectations without probing them so relentlessly. A Questioner told me ruefully, “I suffer from analysis paralysis. I always want to have one more piece of information.”
Questioners are motivated by sound