As I wrote yesterday, we’ve entered into Dry January, a month used by many to reset drinking habits. Maybe you’re not prone to overdrinking. Maybe you’re using it like I am, to reset an attachment to some other vice (like shopping, eating sugar, porn use, or whatever). But whether you are are aren’t participating in Dry January, have you considered the power of abstinence—even for a season? Have you thought about the benefits abstinence brings?

If you buy one book this Dry January, buy my newest release, The Book of Waking Up. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookish). If you buy two books, buy The Book of Waking Up and Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin’s work on making and breaking habits. In her offering, Rubin uses expert storytelling, research, and strategic insights to give the reader a habit-making and habit-breaking playbook. It’s a book that is both packed with insight and immanently readable. In discussing abstinence from any vice (LaMar’s Donuts being her example), she writes:

“Because habit formation often requires us to relinquish something we want, a constant challenge is: Ho can I deprive myself of something without feeling deprived? … I realized that one way to deprive myself without creating a feeling of deprivation is to deprive myself totally. Weirdly, when I deprive myself altogether, I feel as though I haven’t deprived myself at all. When we Abstainers deprive ourselves totally, we conserve energy and willpower, because there are no decisions to make and no self-control to muster.”

Consider Rubin’s advice. By taking something off the menu, even if only for a month, doesn’t it free up mental energy. Doesn’t it total deprivation remove the willpower required for moderation. (After all, if you remove all potato chips from the menu, you don’t have to stop yourself short of eating the entire bag once you tear into it.) This reserved mental energy and willpower—couldn’t it be better spent in other areas of your life?

***TODAY’S TASK: ORDER AND FORWARD***

THE BOOK OF WAKING UP —a book on addiction, attachment, and the Divine Love—launches in just a few short weeks and IT’S TIME TO ORDER YOUR COPY. Today:

1. Order a copy or ten at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever good books are sold; and,

2. Forward this post to a friend and ask them to read along.