The truth is, those seemingly innocent preferences about towel folding, dishwasher loading, or desk organization often reveal deeper patterns about how we relate to control in every aspect of our lives. And according to psychology, there are specific traits that tie these behaviors together in fascinating ways. 1) They need predictability in their environment to feel safe Have you ever met someone who gets anxious when their morning routine gets disrupted?
The dates don't matter, I wanted to say. It's the 31-day stretch that's important you could do it whenever. But of course this is wrong: we reserve these privations for January on purpose. Despite, or perhaps because of the month's prodigious capacity to disappoint, we go out of our way to make January hard on ourselves. It starts with the tremendously misleading idea of a clean slate.