The Habit Trap

**“I’ve been waiting for someone to write this book, and Markham Heid is the ideal author to do it. Although good habits are vital to success and well-being, he makes an important and timely case that many people are taking them too far—and undermining their own creativity and happiness along the way. The Habit Trap is the counterpoint to optimization obsession that the world desperately needs.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again A dogma-challenging book that reveals the ways our routines can limit us, why the pursuit of “optimal” holds us back, and how we can free ourselves to live richer and more fulfilling lives.** We are living in what some call, “the Age of Self-Optimization.” Common wisdom holds that to unlock our best selves, we must develop strong habits. Health and productivity podcasters celebrate the importance of crafting the right routines while tech billionaires, celebrities, and influencers all seem to wake up at five a.m. for their morning rituals. In The Habit Trap, award-winning journalist Markham Heid pushes against the current religion of productivity in a counterintuitive and refreshing way. He offers a positive message that teaches you how to free yourself from the oppressive rigidness of self-optimization and relearn to trust your instincts. Breaking away from our routines, he argues, can help us maintain awareness and support our inherent ability to respond to changing circumstances. We’ve been taught that cultivating strong habits is the only way to become our best selves. If we’re not being both intentional and methodical, it can feel like we’re failing. The Habit Trap offers a counterargument to this narrative and ways to reorient our lives to escape the pitfalls of habit.