Are You an Adder or a Subtracter?

Two ways of thinking about building or improving your habits

Photo by Clayton Robbins on Unsplash

I have been reading Superhuman by Habit by Tynan and one part of the book stood out to me as an interesting tidbit I want to explore more. I recently conducted a thorough analysis of habits with my book, Essential Habits. In it, I share the lessons and takeaways about building habits from authors like James Clear, Gretchen Rubin, and Charles Duhigg, and I summarize hundreds of non-fiction books, podcasts, articles, and courses into several ‘directives’ (statements that tell you exactly what to do to lead a better life). So learning about a novel way of thinking about habits was surprising to me.

The adding/subtracting strategies for thinking about habits is this: some people find it easier to add habits, and some people find it easier to subtract habits.

Here is a simple litmus test: is it easier for you to cut out junk food from your life? Or is it easier to go to the gym?

If it is easier for you to cut out junk food from your life, you are a subtracter

Tynan, for example, found it easy to cut out all unhealthy food from his life but had to use a lot of willpower to go to the gym. Tynan is a natural subtracter.