To get more out of your life, work on a few good habits

Making a better life is like playing the piano. It takes practice.

As Aristotle taught, we are our own habits, good and bad. My husband Brian knows my bad routines better than I do, like the fact that I hiccup at the end of dinner. Every night. Must be annoying for him at the other end of the table, but me, I never really noticed, before he mentioned it.

Good friends don't judge. I have every confidence that Brian loves me, burps and all. And advice about habits is rarely welcome. A friend who complained about writer's block finally said, “No one could tell me that writer's block is the habit of not writing. The cure is to set the alarm for 4 a.m., get out of bed, pick up a pen and write.”

Depression could be described as a habit of hopelessness.

I know lots about unsuccessful habits, having proved that the ice-cream-and-frosting diet does not work. But in the process, I have learned how to fail successfully.

Here are a few habits that have made me more or less better:

Keep learning: The word education comes from the Latin educere, to grow out of. When I grow out of my bad habits, I grow into good ones.

Start small. For me that begins with looking up the words that my husband has played against me in Words with Friends. “Zein,” “quirt” and “diazin” are just the most recent. Read a work that challenges me. Conjugate some French in Duolingo.

Be kind: Sometimes, that means hanging out with friends who have better habits.

A week ago Sunday, Brian and I attended a charity event in Walnut Creek that our friends Jill and Sarah had been working on: “Angels for Minis,” as in miniature horses. I didn't even know that was a thing. But miniature horses are the equine version of Pekingeses. Starting in the 17th century or so, they were bred to be no more than 3 feet at their withers.

Even a small horse costs hay and vet bills and what have you, and sometimes they end up abandoned. Angels for Minis drives anywhere they're called in the Western United States, from Texas on out, and picks up these little horses and little donkeys in crisis. In the past decade, they've saved 720 of them, as well as 287 ranch animals.

If you can't be kind to yourself, be kind to a jackass.

Create: Creation is the signature of humanity, everything from cave paintings to the Apollo space program. For me, it doesn't just mean writing a column. It means trying a new recipe for stew. It means sewing needlepoint or driving a different path home.

It means dancing to the Muzak in the aisles of Safeway. Embrace beauty: It might be the Mexican sage growing in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior as we walk Queenie through her queendom. But on occasion, there are Sundays like the one where our friend Deidre took us to the Legion of Honor to see the Guo Pei exhibit, “Embroidered Dreams.”

Guo Pei, China's first couturier, takes fashion to the level of fantasy: elaborately gilded dresses, mother of pearl sheaths, Cubist miniskirts, all almost impossible to wear and well above the homage of mere words. But it was soul-filling to walk the exhibit, stop in the cafe for croque monsieur, and just enjoy the beauty that is life in San Francisco.

And this is the big one:

Tell the one you love that you love them:

You never know. They might love you back. As Victor Hugo wrote: "The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves."

My sons could easily be ranked as the most annoying teenagers ever to ruin a parent's middle age. But we don't have a day we don't tell them we love them.

Sometimes it's a hug. Sometimes it's as mundane as teaching Zane to cook chicken with rice, even when I know that it will take a lot longer to clean up if Zane is the one who plops the chicken into the baking dish.

I have little idea how this all started, but years ago Zane and I got into one of those contests: “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“I love you most.”

“I love you more than you can say.”

“I love you more than you can say even in sign language, which makes no sense, even in sign language.”

Now, some days we just say “sign language.” But we say it at least once a day.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.