Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher show on the Stansbury Radio Network. So I have Gretchen Rubin with me, author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. And I also love the, subtitle of The Happiness Project. It's called The Happiness Project or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Gretchen, welcome to The James Altice Show. Hello. I'm very happy to be talking with you. I'm really glad you you came on. I I read The Happiness Project, and it occurred to me, you know, people focus so much on what will create happiness. Like, will it be money? Will it be if I meditate, like, for, you know, 30 days in a row, 6 hours a day? And I really feel like you boiled it down kind of to its essence in The Happiness Project. I also wanna mention you have a new book coming out, Better Than Before, Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, and they're they're integrated. Maybe you can give a little introduction to what that book's about, and then I have a bunch of questions about The Happiness Project. Great. Well, Better Than Before is all about how we can change habits. Like, really, truly, you know, you wanna do something different starting tomorrow morning, whether that's get more sleep or get off your phone or write your novel in your free time or give up sugar or drink less or whatever it might be, how would you actually go about it? And, you know, and the answer is there is no one size fits all solution. I wish there was a magic answer that worked for everybody, but we know that there isn't one because, otherwise, we would all have perfect habits, which we don't. So I lay out all the different strategies that can work, and so people can pick and choose the ones that work for them. And this, like, as you pointed out, this this is a really, logical fit with everything that I've written about happiness because whenever I you know, for years, I was researching and writing and thinking about happiness and talking to people about happiness. And I started to notice that a lot of times when people had a big happiness challenge, it came down to some habit that they weren't able to make or break. So it wasn't that they didn't think that they'd be happier if they got more sleep or whatever. They'd figured that out. But for some reason, they just weren't able to follow through for themselves. And this gets really frustrating. You know, when you know there's something that would make you feel happier, healthier, more productive, and somehow you just kind of can't make it happen. So I became just obsessed with the question of why is it that sometimes we can do these things and sometimes we can't, and sometimes we have a habit for years and it disappears overnight, and and why do some people form habits more easily than others, and and all these questions. Well, you know, so you say, actually, in your blog that you love habits and embrace them. So, you know, and some people, like, as you just said, some people have a really hard time developing a new habit. And and there's, you know, there's biological reasons, there's genetic reasons, there's cultural reasons. But I was wondering, even before, this most recent book, I was wondering when reading The Happiness Project, it also seemed then that you seem to embrace habits. Like, you would you know, your first chapter in January boost energy and vitality. You had to build up a bunch of habits. Did you continue that throughout the year? It it became a little unclear to me that you continued your Yeah. The February, the March, the April. You you were building you were, like, so full of habits. Like, what the heck happened? Well, that and it's very funny that you say that because that's one of the reasons that I became interested in habits because indeed, all of those habits are cumulative. I have more habits than ever. Does that get, like, bothersome? Like, it's like you're carrying them on your load. I don't know. Habits make everything easier. But that's but but that's but that's how I feel about it. And this is the thing. So one of the things that and all my all the habits are cumulative, to answer your question. So one of the things that I noticed after The Happiness Project came out is a lot of people ask me just the same question you did. They were like, you seem to be able to do this thing the all this stuff pretty easily. Like, what's up with that? And I felt like, well, it's just not that hard, you know, like, just do it. And then and then finally, I I woke up and I was like, you know what? If everybody is is surprised by how easily this comes to me and feels like they're not able to do the same thing, like, I should pay attention to that. I should listen to what people are saying to me. And I started to focus on the range of temperament and attitude and aptitude among people for habits. And this is one of the things I think that's really different about my approach is that, and a lot of what you read about habits, they just assume that everybody's the same. If it works for you, it's going to work for me. We have the same view, you know, but that's just not true. And what I realized as I was writing when I started the habits book, I figured I was pretty typical. Well, what I discovered is that I'm actually part of the freaky fringe. I'm an extreme personality, which, by the way, was a surprise to no one except for me because everybody's like, yeah. Obviously, you're an extreme personality. I think I didn't know that. I think part of it, though, is I don't wanna say you were extreme, but I think you took on a challenge that most people are not even aware can be taken. Like like, you even point out how there were people who were looking at you. Oh, you shouldn't be happy or, like, this is a weird project. Like, peep there were you it seemed like you encountered all these weird people who thought you were crazy for wanting to be happy. Well, it's fine. Well, part of it is that happiness has kind of a surprisingly bad reputation, and a lot of people sort of are scornful of the idea. Like you meant you mentioned, like, people say, how can you be happy when there's so much suffering in the world? Yes. It's it's not morally appropriate to seek to be happy. That's a big concern. But so here's the interesting thing about that, though. If that's your concern there are other concerns. But if that's your concern, here's what research shows I think everybody would see this born out in their own experience. Happier people are more altruistic. They're more interested in the problems of other people, and they're more interested in the problems of the world. They give away more money. They volunteer more time. They're more likely to help out if a family member or a colleague or a friend needs a hand. Because when people are happy, they have the emotional wherewithal to turn outward, and they don't think about themselves that much. They can think about other people and other problems. But when we're unhappy, we tend to get defensive and isolated and preoccupied with our own situation. And so if it is selfish to wanna be happier, which some people worry about, then we should be selfish if only for selfless reasons because it's really by being happier ourselves that we give ourselves the emotional wherewithal to really turn outward to others. Now now the the book, The Happiness Project, are you starting this happiness project for yourself? And just to define it, you were gonna spend a year with each month dedicated to some other aspect of your happiness, and you were gonna improve that aspect. Yeah. And so so just to rewind, the Happiness Project seemed to start for you when you're when you realize you were in some sort of, like, almost sliding daily routine. And, I mean, you described, like, you know, riding to work and seeing the same things, and you you had this kind of daily routine that you were not necessarily depressed about, but you were slightly frustrated with. Do you think that, daily routine as opposed to habit, leads to some sort of kind of, life constipation almost? That's a very complicated question. First of all, I would say, what I realized in that moment was not that I wasn't happy. It was that I never thought thought of I realized that I never thought about happiness whatsoever. I didn't even think about it. And then I felt like, I needed to have more like, realize how happy I was. Like, I was taking my happiness for granted, and I was just sort of being distracted by petty things and minor annoyances instead of really seeing how much happiness I really had. So a big part of my happiness project was really to appreciate my happiness more. It wasn't that I wasn't happy. It was that I wasn't even I wasn't even thinking about what already made me happy. And, but so but then the question of a daily routine is an interesting one because I like, as you said, I I love habits. I embrace so a routine is a string of habits. And, and one of the things that habits do is they they deaden and they speed time. Now they deaden in that they they, they dampen our emotional reaction to things. And sometimes this can actually actually be helpful because what they've shown is that when people are anxious about something and it becomes a habit, they feel less anxious. So over time, that anxiety becomes duller, which is good. But it also means that if you have a positive reaction to something, as it becomes a habit, you're not gonna feel the same intensity of, of happiness with it. So they it deadens. Let me let me ask you about that. Like, when you let's say so a very common anxiety, people are anxious about money, and they wake up at 3 in the morning wondering about money. Are you saying if they continually do that, then they might become less anxious? It seems like there's a little I'm just wondering if if they're mindful of it, that might speed the process. Well, I don't think I wouldn't call thinking about money. I to me, I I wouldn't you I don't talk about habits of mind. So I don't talk about pessimism, and I don't talk about, like, rumination as a habit. So by habit, I really mean a concrete action that's observable. Let's say that someone became very anxious, every time they went to their bank machine, for whatever reason. If they went to their if they went to their bank machine every morning, they would probably feel less anxious by it just because over time, it it would just you just wouldn't ramp up to the same emotional reaction. Or, like, if you're, you know, like, I'm a fearful driver. But when I drive the more I drive, the less anxious it makes me. The less I do it, the more anxious it makes me. So so that's how, but you're right. Rumination is not is not a helpful thing, but, but you're right. Rumination is not is not a helpful thing. But, action action is something But but maybe being aware that rumination is an action in itself, maybe that can help dull the influence rumination has on your life. Well, I don't know. Rumination is pretty really sets people in a downward spiral, but maybe something like writing it down on a piece of paper because that kind of frees the mind. If you write something down, then the mind feels like it doesn't have to go over and over it to keep it kind of in play. But, also, I would say if you're really worried about money, the thing that's gonna make you less anxious about money is to do something about it. Just mindfully thinking about how anxious you are about how about the money is probably gonna do less for you than, like, trying to save or pay down your credit card debt. I see. And you can and you can pick habits that would do that. For instance, you could set up an automatic savings, plan so that you sort of have this invisible hidden habit that's just operating in the background so you don't have to make decisions or take action. It just happens automatically. Or or you can do something even as small as, like, save your change in a special account. I mean, I a guy said that was his habit since the time he was 15 years old, and he saved several $100 a year doing that. And that was like his vacation splurge money. You know? He just made a habit of, like, he just put his change in this one place and counted it at the end of the year. So there's different habits that you might put into place that would address that concern. So, so so you so but but though you you were getting into this daily routine, and somehow, like, it became clear to you that something was wrong with the daily routine? No. No. No. I don't think there was something wrong with it. What was wrong was my my my lack of appreciation for it, you know, my lack of my lack of taking the big picture and really stepping back and seeing what I wanted from my life. It wasn't that anything, you know, and and and and not seeing the upper the low hanging fruit, the easy things that I could do, that could make me happier because I because I just hadn't given it any thought. You know? I was just sort of on automatic pilot. So, I mean, in that sense, I wanted to change, but it it didn't come and and this was something that a lot of people thought, would make would mean that nobody was interested in The Happiness Project was I didn't come from a place of of crisis or deep unhappiness. I I mean, I was pretty happy when I started, but I just wanted I wanted to expect more from myself, and I wanted to have greater appreciation for what I already had. And, and I wanted to do everything that I could within my power to make myself as happy as I could be, given my circumstances. And and so once you decided, okay. I'm gonna dedicate a year to being happy. At that moment, did you get happier just because of sort of the the dopamine rush that must have happened at that moment? Well, that's an interesting question. Well, I think I became very intellectually excited. So, yes, I'm sure I did become happier because I was you know, in a flash, I thought I should have a happiness project, and it all I was just, you know, very excited to get to the library and get my giant stack of research books and start digging in. Though at first, it was just gonna be for me. I didn't have any I didn't have any plans to write a book about it. It was just gonna be for my own. I often go off on these giant research projects, so that that was very typical of something I would do. But it was just so fascinating that, I got deeper and deeper into it, and pretty soon I realized, wow. There's a whole book here, because it's just such a vast subject. Well and then and then, I guess, related to the book idea, like, it seems like you started writing lots of things down, and I love it because it's this this was part of the book that was really inspirational to me. But you put down, you know, your 12 commandments, and then and then you have your secrets of adulthood, then you have your splendid truths. Like, all of these things, like, I should write down my secrets of adulthood or my 12 commandments or the the you know? And then and then you even kind of give, almost what I would say, an initial method, which is that you, you sort of kind of listed you identified things that made you happy, and then the resolutions that could boost them, and then you did the reverse. Things that made you sad, and I guess what what actions you took that made you sad. I guess that's kind of how things started. Right. Yeah. You wanna have more of everything that makes you feel good and happy and interested and enthusiastic and loving and and then less of everything that makes you feel guilty or resentment resentful or angry or bored and, and just sort of really think about it. But earlier, you mentioned mindfulness, and I do think that that is, like, the key, key, key word, which is too bad for me because I'm, like, the least mindful person in the world, which is probably why I keep writing these books, is that it you know, it's a lot of it is just taking the time to think about, like, well, what what does make me happy, and what does make me feel less happy than I could be, and what could I do? It what can I do about it? I mean, usually, there's things that are pretty apparent to people, things that they could do well within their ordinary day, that are gonna affect their you know, give them a happiness boost. Well, like, so so what were the first things that you were thinking you needed to do? Obviously so you you kinda planned it out month by month, and, obviously, you felt like you needed energy first. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I the thing is energy makes everything easier. And when we our sense of energy is very tied to our sense of happiness. And, also, you know, there's a lot of things that we know would make us happier, but we just feel too tired to do them. Like, you know, it would be fun to have everybody over, you know, for Sunday brunch, but you'd sort of just kind of can't face the idea of cleaning up and getting you know, ordering the food and emailing everybody, and it just seems like too much work. And so you don't do it even though, you know that if you did do it, you would have tons of fun and you would reconnect with your friends, and it would be a great thing to do. And so anything that boosts energy tends to help, tends to help because then you can do you can ask more of yourself. And this is very true of habits as well because one of the things about habits is we all need self command. This is, like, the bit you know, like, a huge, huge, huge thing. We all should want to have as much self command as we can. What what does it mean self command? I mean, I can imagine. But Self command just means, like, you know, or maybe you call it willpower. You call it, it's the sense of, like, if you wanna do something, can can you follow through? Can you do it or not do it? Like, if you don't wanna yell at your kids, can you not yell at your kids? If you want to make your bed in the morning, can you stick with it? And the more and when you have energy, you have more self command. And so, so any so this kind of energy is just really, really valuable to have. I mean, you feel better when you have more energy, obviously. We all know that. But it also then helps you do a lot of other things that are gonna gonna make you happier and healthier and more productive, which then in turn, that that energizes you, and and it all kind of builds on itself. So energy is a really good place to start. And also the thing about the thing about physical is your physical experience is always gonna color your emotional experience. You know, it's your body is always right there with you. So you wanna pay attention to your body, not just, you know, just treated as an afterthought. And so this is something you started in in January. We're focusing on your energy. Was that were you able to continue that throughout the year? Yes. Yes. And and, you know, again, this is this is strongly related to the ability to stick to habits, and also to stick to kind of overcoming challenges. Like, I I think maybe on one of your list was make friends, you know, which is obviously a good thing for for happiness. But sometimes with someone shyer than someone else, it's a little becomes a little harder to make friends. Well, absolutely. And that's why it's very important to sit down and think about, like, what would make me happier and then how would I go about it? And something like friends is a perfect example because a lot of people feel like, well, making friends is supposed to be easy and kind of natural and kind of spontaneous, and so it's not something that I should purposefully go about doing. Well, it's hard to make friends, and it's hard it's it's really hard to make friends as an adult. Many people have said to me they feel like that's one of the great challenges of adulthood is is making new friends. You move to a new city and you don't I mean, and you don't really know anybody there. It's hard to make friends. And I think that one of the things about, like, this kind of happiness project approach is to say, like, well, what do I want? And then what are the things that I could do that would help bring it about? And not just wait for something to happen spontaneously or assume that happiness is something that just organically happens if it's supposed to, but really say, well, what are the actual things that I could do to bring about a change? So for instance, if you wanna make friends, a great thing to do is to start a group. I've started or joined, like, I don't know, like 12 or 13 groups since I started My Happiness Project, and they've all given me tons of friends and so much happiness. And, you know, it takes work to start a group. I like I like your idea of, the children's literature group. That sounds fun. Yeah. Well because I'm really into children's literature, so that's a great group for me. But I've heard of people who have groups. My father-in-law was in a group where they met one time to talk about fly fishing. They didn't even go fly fishing. They just talked about fly fishing. Yeah. You know, somebody I know keeps saying that she's gonna start a group for people who who wanna talk about People Magazine. And she says, I would always be prepared, and I have a lot to say. And, like, people are clamoring for her to start this group, and she hasn't done it yet. So, you know, it could it doesn't have to be, you know, foreign policy book. It could be anything that you could watch television together. You could bake. I know people who take turns baking fancy desserts for each other. You know, anything that brings you into contact with people with whom you share an interest, because usually what it it's it's interesting because, one of the best ways to make friends is to make friends with the friends of your friends, which is hard to say, but it's called triadic closure. If you wanna make friends, the one of the most useful places to go is to try to become friends with the friends of your friends. And if you start a group, a lot of times that would that's what happened. You and I say we're gonna start a group. I invite a few friends. You invite a few friends. I meet your friends. You meet my friends. All our friends become a social network. It's very efficient. It sounds funny to talk about efficiency and friendship, but it but people are strapped for time. And it's a pain to make a lot of plans with all these different people. This way, it's like it happens regularly. If you miss one time, you'll see everybody next time. And then everybody's becoming friends with each other, and that's a very that's a really solid way to make friends. And so I think I think you just defined, like, Facebook. Like, you should make a a website. By the way, I I just noticed on Facebook, actually, we have 90 mutual friends. Oh, yeah. Oh, girl. Great. There you go. So we have tried a closure. Yeah. I I never knew it was closed that. I never knew it was called that. Yeah. It's a funny phrase. You know, it's funny though, but you you do a lot of research, obviously. But, did you notice these things? And you mentioned research a couple times. Did you notice these things actually coming true anecdotally for yourself? Like, as you were happier, did you become more altruistic? You know, did did things work? You know, I think so. I think I'm always interested in looking at the research and then and also looking at my own experience of everyday life, which I've learned to take very, very seriously. And to really think of that as being that the observatory of the street is just as important as reading, you know, research papers. And I think I think for the most part, it was borne out. One thing where I was amazed by how true it was was, the research consistently shows that novelty and challenge make people happier. Even something as simple as eating at a new restaurant tends to make people happier. And I just thought that was not true for me. I thought I love familiarity and mastery. Maybe that's true generally, but that's just not my situation. But in order to do something novel and challenging, because I had to do an experiment for the purposes of the book, I started a blog, which was incredibly novel and challenging. I was so intimidated. I felt so stupid, so insecure. I had no idea what I was doing, and it was this giant engine of happiness for me. Indeed, novelty and challenge, like, when you push through those negative emotions at the beginning, you just get a such a rush of a feeling of growth and learning. And, so that was a place where I really questioned the validity of the science, at least as to me, and then I became a complete convert. Well, the used to believing it. And let me ask you about that. So you started the blog. Let's say you posted or or or so there's 2 there's several things that can happen when you when you post a blog, or when you sit down to write a blog post. You have a great thing to write about and everybody loves it and you get this feeling of great feedback and that feels good, or you have nothing to write about so you feel frustrated, or you write about something and you don't and whatever metric you use to judge whether you're getting positive feedback is not as high as usual, so you feel frustrated. Did you find that happened at all, or was it just the straight up line? Well, I mean, nothing's a straight up line in life. Like, things ebb and flow. You have high moments and low moments. But I will say this, like, about about that particular thing. I post on my blog 5 or 6 times a week, and I would just observe as a side note that one of the things that happens when you do something very frequently is that any one episode matters less. And so if you're a person who tends to feel like a lot of, like, today was great. Today was terrible. You know, like, really, like they because often people think if something's a challenge, it's they're better off doing it more rarely. But in fact, one of the things I've found is that it's often easier to do something almost every day or every day than to do it sometimes. And one of the re part of it is because it more readily becomes a habit. And part partly it's because no one thing matters so much. If you're running 6 posts a day, if this post does great or this post gets gets crickets, it doesn't matter because every day it's just moving, just moving, just moving. If you write one post every 2 weeks, you really want every post to be good. And that can makes a lot of people feel anxious, a lot of pressure, which then might even keep them from writing or or feeling good about what they're doing. And so if you're a person who has that reaction a lot, maybe try doing something more. Like if you get really annoyed with yourself, if you have a bad workout at the gym, maybe go to the gym more often. Because then it's like, well, today wasn't so great, but yesterday was good and I'm going to be here again tomorrow. So any one day just doesn't seem as significant. So that's just something to think about for people who who who kind of feel battered around with that kind of thinking. Well and and I wanna talk about writing, a little bit more in that. Not only did you start a blog and you were writing this book, but while you're writing the book, in one of the months, in order to be happy, you wrote a novel Yes. Because you love books. And, I just wanna know if you were ever gonna publish the novel. Oh, no. It was terrible. I've written 3 novels. They're all terrible. I am not I I do not have my sister's a television writer and a novelist, so I have great respect for kind of the storytelling, writing style. And, of course, I read it constantly myself, but that is that's just that's not my personal strong suit. But it was tons of fun to do it. And, I did National Novel Writing Month, and I really encourage anybody who's thinking about doing that kind of thing. It really is fun. And, and I think it was a great writing exercise to be working outside of my usual form and then also just to be pumping it out at that speed. It was like doing scales. You know, it was just, like, intensive training. And it was really fun to think at the end of a month, I'd written a novel. And but it's funny, though. You didn't feel the need to share it. Like, I always feel when I write something, boy, I've gotta share this as much as possible now. Otherwise, it was otherwise, I'm not happy with it. Well, I didn't feel like it was good. So I didn't feel like sharing it because of that. If I'd wanted to share it, I would've to keep working on it to try to make it better. And I just I wasn't I wasn't and I wasn't engaged enough with it to wanna keep tinkering with it. But, you know, and I was writing another book, you know, full time at the same time. So I definitely felt like if I wanted my voice to be heard, I I I had a way for that to happen, and the novel was not gonna be the way that that came about. Right. And the novel was not gonna be the way that that came about. Right. So so so you had your your writing fix was taken care of. Yes. Or my my, my communicating fix was taken care of. Yes. My writing fix was double taken care of. You know, and and again, in terms of writing, like, what what I liked a lot about the book was how vulnerable you were. Like, you talked about different areas, you know, where working on your marriage was was you you specifically say working on my marriage is an obvious goal in order for you to be happier. And you talk about specific scenes. And, I thought that was really nice transparency in the book. And do you find that the so so what what specific things did you do to kind of make the marriage not necessarily better because it sounded like it was already good, but, you know, that you felt happier about it. One of the things that sounds so obvious, but actually really did make a difference was just to kiss my husband every morning and kiss him every night. And that is you know, a lot of times people feel like we we act because of the way we feel. But in fact, to a very great degree, we feel because of the way we act. And so a way to change the what your emotional state, which is very hard to change directly, is to change your outward actions, and then your feelings kinda follow from that. So by acting in a very loving, tender, romantic way, I incur I build those feelings in myself and then, obviously, my husband too. It's like if somebody's kissing you all the time, you're just gonna naturally feel like they're more into you. And, If if they're not, then then that's a then that's a real problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then one of the things I have to say, which was very popular with my husband and has proved popular with many people who've read the book, is quit nagging. And the sad truth is nagging doesn't work, so give it up. You know? And, it's just it's no fun to be nagged, and it's also no fun to be be nagging. Like, it's a you just feel it just it's annoying to be put into that position. Well, I I tried one of the things that you were doing in your book. You you mentioned, it takes 6 seconds of hugging for oxytocin and serotonin to be released, which of course are these happiness chemicals. And, so yesterday, my wife, Claudia, and I were I don't know. We were in some small bickering about something. And so I so I literally, I hugged her and I counted in my head to 6 seconds. It's longer than you think, isn't it? It is it is longer. I I made it also a very slow 6 seconds, so I made sure that the oxytocin was Yeah. Was being activated. And it worked. Like, suddenly, I could literally feel like she was melting in my hands as a result. Well and I've heard too that just even holding hands when you're arguing makes because one of my another one of my resolutions was to fight right, which means, like, to have fight in the right way. And one of the things that you can do is to hold hands because when you're holding hands with somebody, it's just harder to, like, just, you know, be shouting or be very, very nasty. Yeah. A lot of the things that I worked on were things like this, like, really trying to expect more from myself and, like, not I have a very, very quick temper, and I still work on it constantly. And, and a lot of my things were aimed at trying to be more consistently patient and have a good sense of humor and a sense of perspective and and not fly off the handle as much as I was. Well, you know, and some of the things I I again, I really was inspired by the list making. Like like, how it how important it is, like, these, you know, truths of being an adult. Like, how how little we pay attention to these things in our life. Like Yeah. I don't know. You even you even said things like over the counter medicines are very effective as a truth of adulthood. Yes. Like, what does that mean? Well, I mean because for a long time, I'd be like, well, I have a headache, but, I mean, nothing's gonna help. Or, like, why should I, you know, why should I go to the why should I go buy something from my upset stomach? It was like this just the sense, like, you know, but it's like it actually works. And then finally, I was like, you know, it really does help to take this stuff or it really does work to, and and and and so take it. I mean, one of the things that that is a big happiness drag is is just like little nagging things that bother you. You're too hot. You're too cold. You have to go to the bathroom. You're too hungry or you're too full. Your head hurts. Your your shoes are too tight. Your clothes are too tight. You know, something that's just kind of a like a little bit of discomfort. It just wears away at your patience. It just sort of it it it's it's just like like that grain of sand that is just constantly nagging you. And so I feel like it's really now I try to back to this idea of mindfulness, I try to really say to myself, wow. I'm feeling hungry. Wow. I'm really cold. Wow. I have a headache and really try to deal with these things because they really do drain our energy and, and try our patience. And so when you do those little thing I mean, I remember one thing, and I don't know if you have this as a writer, but I read somewhere that a lot of writers as they're writing, they they they lift their shoulders up. And some of a lot of them also apparently I did not know this. I don't do this. They thrust their tongue onto the top of their mouth. And so this person's advice, and I use it for shoulders, is shoulders down, jaw relaxed. Because what happens is a lot of times, people get very tensed up, and then that drains their energy as they're writing. And I've been astonished by, like, how much, like, more comfortable I am in my body when I really do take a minute every once in a while to think about drop my shoulders, drop my shoulders. There's just something about writing that makes makes me raise my shoulders, and apparently, a lot of people do it. Or like the the your office light. If you do like a salute, you know, like, oh, like you're a little kid and you're making a salute and your eyes feel relieved, that means there's too much light shining in your face, which is very common in office situations. So you wanna do something so that you're not constantly, like, slightly fighting a glare. And these little things, you know, they add up. They're they're minor, but, you know, you they're easy to take care of. And it's funny how they add up. I mean, I I didn't count them specifically, but how many things do you think you specifically did over the course of the year? Like, little thing because what Dozens. I I mean, it was more than dozens. I feel it was, like, well over a 100. And and you really and you really paid attention. Pay the lift. Yeah. You you you you really, celebrated the small successes, and you noticed the small successes too to your to your happiness throughout the book. You know, and and I think it was related to something you said. I think one of the most inspirational things in the book was the fact that the connection between happiness and growth. So that Yep. We have to feel growth, in in our activities, to trigger happiness often. Yes. Yeah. No. Because there's earlier, I was talking about you wanna have more feeling good and you wanna have more less feeling bad, and those are very easy to see. But then the 2 other kind of components of happiness, I think, are harder. 1 is feeling right, and that is, does your life reflect your values? Because if you feel like your work is meaningless, or if you feel like there's something real that's really important to you that's going completely neglected, then you're not going to feel right about your life. And then there's the element that you just talked about, which is the atmosphere of growth, which is that people are happier when they feel like they're growing, when they're learning, when they're improving something, when they're helping someone else, when they're making something better, like, when there's just sort of and I think this is one of the reasons why children make people happier is, is you you feel like you're contributing to this growth or something like a garden where you see it literally growing in front of your eyes or, or you volunteer for a nonprofit and you help them get their books organized well for the first time, or, you know, you help someone, you tutor someone in, in, in English and you see them improving, and you know that you've played a part in it and having that atmosphere of growth. Sometimes even when there's it's very we're in circumstances where we really just aren't very happy, That's a place where you can deliberately try to create some somewhere where you're experiencing growth, and it can help you, have some happiness even at a time that might be very difficult for you. So so, you know, in terms of, let's say, someone's sitting in a cubicle, at some company and they're stressed about supporting their family, they're stressed about the relationships with their family or with their spouse or their boss or whatever, And and they hear this, they're listening to this, and they're thinking, you know, I'm just stuck in this situation right now. I've gotta pay my mortgage. I've gotta pay the IRS. I've gotta support my family. I can't really get started on all this right now. That that could be a common misconception. But, like, what would you suggest are the first things people should do if they wanna start their own happiness project? And by the way, I like how you make it in the individual thing. Like, some things were happy for you, but not necessarily for others. Yeah. Like, for for some people, adventure is a really high value, and they might have had a whole section on adventure and trying to get more adventure into their life. That wasn't something that was important to me, so it wasn't something that I thought about. But I could imagine that for someone else, it might be a huge part of what they would think about. But that's the thing about where do you start. I mean, I think that the the big thing is just to ask yourself the question, like, how could I be happier? How is part of my ordinary day without spending a lot of extra time, energy, or money on something? How what could I do that would make me happier? And I think for most people, with a little bit of reflection, they start coming up with a list of things that would probably make them happier. For instance, if you feel just exhausted and drained all the time, maybe you need to get more sleep. Okay. So could you get, could you get another hour of sleep at night? Is that something that you could do? You really need to think about that. Okay. How is that gonna look? When are you gonna go to sleep? How are you gonna get yourself to go to sleep? And then that might make you feel a lot happier. Or if you feel like, you know, a stress Oh oh, you know, I just wanna take that as an example because I I I'm a big believer in sleep. And and people always say to me, oh, well, you know, if you have, like, 5 kids or whatever, then you're never gonna sleep. But, you know, I I always find people always have excuses. Like, they really like watching that 10 PM Breaking Bad or they have the the 2 kids or whatever. So how do you No. Help people get over those excuses? No. No. No. And this was a, this was something I've really looked at hard for better than before in my habits because this is a habit that many people say they want. They want to get more sleep. But then when I found when I would talk to people and I would say like, I would go like, I'm just going to go out on a limb here and suggest something crazy. Why don't you go to bed at 11 instead of at 1 AM? You know? And then I but what surprised me was how people reacted. People often reacted very angrily or almost like feeling looking like they were going to burst into tears. And what I realized is that for a lot of people, those last hours of the day represent their true leisure, their true goofing off. So And so that time is so precious. And I remember I talked to a guy who was a partner at a law firm, and he only got, like, 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night. It was clearly, like, making him crazy. And I said to him, well, why don't you go to bed earlier? And he's like he's so angry at the suggestion. He's like, if I went to bed earlier, that's like the firm would have even more of me. That's the this time is the only time that I have. And so I understand that feeling of like, oh, I just want leisure. But the fact is it's a bad trade off because if you need sleep, like, it's not up to you how much sleep you need. I wish it were. It's not something we can bargain away. And in fact, research shows that people adjust to sleep deprivation. They feel like they're fine. They're like, oh, I'm totally normal. I've trained myself to get by in 4 or 5 hours. But when they're studied, they're actually quite impaired. So you don't realize, like, really how off of your best gain you are if you're chronically sleep deprived. But for a lot of people, it's just painful to think about giving up those last hours. So I think you really have to sit down. Now there's little things you can do like setting an alarm. That helps people. Setting an exact bedtime. That helps people. Getting ready well before bed so that when you're ready to go to sleep, you can just fall into bed instead of, like, knee I I realize it's just took me so much energy to get ready for bed a lot of times. I put it off even though that's stupid. Yeah. So having a having a sleep routine is a Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Doing all these things. But for some peep so there's all these little things you can do to help with the habit of going to bed and to turning off the light. But I do think, after having talked to a lot of people about this, a lot of times it really may people have to sit down and say to themselves, like, what is more valuable to me from midnight to 1 AM? Am I gonna be happier, healthier, or more productive in the long run if I'm sleeping, or am I gonna be happier, healthier, or more productive if I'm watching Breaking Bad? Now you might say, I really wanna watch Breaking Bad. You're a grown up. You can do what you want. You can make mindful choices. But what happens is a lot of times people are like, oh, yeah. I should go to sleep earlier. Or usually I go to sleep earlier. Tomorrow, I'm totally gonna go to sleep earlier, but not they don't really think through the choices that they're making and they don't really accept the consequences of those choices. So I think back to what you said a long time ago, mindfulness, a lot of times it's just really thinking through like, what am I doing? And here's the thing. Here's a habit strategy that really works for something like sleeping. It's just monitoring. Anytime we monitor something, we just automatically start doing a better job of it. So even if you're not trying to make your even if you're like, okay, I don't wanna even try to get more sleep at this point, just start keeping track of when you go to sleep. And you probably will start finding it easier to get more sleep once you know how much sleep you actually get. I think that's really true. Yeah. And it might be that once you realize how little sleep you actually get, because we tend to overestimate how much sleep we get, you might be like, wow. I I I really didn't understand how little sleep I get. Or maybe you're getting more sleep than you thought. You know, like, maybe you're remembering the night when you stayed up till 3 AM because it sort of stands out in your memory. But basically, you do a pretty good job of it, and so you really don't need to worry about it. Surprisingly, a lot of people get more sleep than they think because they just they focus on the bad nights, and they don't realize how often they really, they really do manage. So monitoring is just a good thing so you have a sense of of your situation. But I agree. You know, most people, they're not doing a heart surgery at midnight. You know? They're they're doing very low level tasks. And, and in a lot of times, they're not even enjoying it that much because they're so tired. You know? So but but you you started that off with, though, the the the person sitting in their cubicle, one of the things they could do is list the things that would would make would be better for their happiness that they could conceivably do. So that's one that's the first thing. And another thing that's really helpful is, like like, the person that you're describing, I can imagine saying, like, well, my problem is that I'm so stressed out. Now the problem with saying that you're stressed stressed out is that it doesn't have a prescription for change. There's no remedy to being stressed out except being less stressed out, but how would that come about? So what you really wanna do is really push yourself to get very specific. I'm stressed out because I have a boss who's really rude and undermining, and I have a lot of conflict with my boss. I'm stressed out because I don't have any friends at work, and so I feel very lonely and isolated here. I'm stressed out because I have a horrible commute that I feel like takes up my entire day. I'm so stressed out because my my group has been downsized, and I'm expected to do too much work that's that's too much of a load for one person. I'm so stressed out because I feel like this work is meaningless. I'm so stressed out because every day I come to work and I eat all this, the donuts and the cookies that people bring in in the break room, and I feel gross all day. Why are you feeling stressed out? Because all of those things are very different. They all could explain why somebody's stressed out, but they would all have radically different solutions. And so if you think about what exactly is your problem, and this is one of my principles is to identify the problem. Once you identify the problem, it's often surprisingly simple or simpler than you might expect to come up to to come up with some solutions. For instance, I have a friend who was a lawyer in DC and she hated her job. And she was telling me, oh my gosh, she was going to quit her job because she just couldn't stand it anymore. Okay. Well, there's a lot of reasons a person might want to quit her job. Well, when she really looked at it, it turned out what she hated was her commute. She was she lived in Virginia. She had to go in and out of DC every day. It was a horrible commute. So she started listening to audio books and podcasts. And she said it utterly transformed her day. She found herself actually sitting in her driveway once she got home so she could listen to a little bit more of this exciting audiobook that she was listening to. And it completely changed her experience of her workday. So it turned out that her stress around work wasn't really about the work. It was about the commute. And then when she fixed the commute, then the job situation improved dramatically. So when if you're saying you're stressed out, really, really push yourself to understand what are you reacting to. Because you can't really take any steps to do anything differently if you don't really understand what the problem is. I I like that. So so so list things that make you happy and then have a prescription on the things that make you unhappy so it's may become more easily defined. And then Right. You know, I think also just the basic idea. Like, I love how you just came up with to every month, this is what I'm gonna do to increase my happiness. I'm gonna focus on energy, family, this, that, the other thing, and and you did it. Yeah. I mean, most people don't do it the way I would do it. It's a little like, I try all these things so you don't have to. You know, most people pick some things. In my experience is most people, several things kind of jump out at them. Like, you were like, I'm gonna do this 6 second hug. Like, you tried it in Oh, I'm gonna do it every day. Yeah. So, you know, so so I think people different things. And And then I think people look at their own lives differently, and they're like, oh, well, you know, music. How can I have more music in my life? Well, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. You know, I wrote this not not to tell people to do what I did, but on just as like a model. Like, this is the way you could think about it, and these are the kind of things. And so then you're like, well, I could try these kinds of things, which aren't the same thing, but, you know, it's in the same mode of very manageable, realistic things. But and and I like see if they work. I like also how and and I don't quite know how it's connected to happiness, but I like how you made that list of, you know, truths of adulthood. Like, that that was sort of inspirational to me. I wanna make my own list of, adulthood truths. Well, there's there's something about making lists that is very it's very creative. It's very fun. And like you said, I make them all the time. It it is very satisfying to kind of distill what you've learned, and it it gives you a real sense of satisfaction where like, yeah. I figured a lot of things out. And it's it's fun to try to distill them into some kind of snappy phrase, you know. Yeah. I mean, you had I think you must have had at least 4 or 5 different lists in there, but I have the you had the 12 commandments, you had the secrets of adulthood, and the splendid truths. The first splendid truth, I wanted I just didn't quite understand. You said to be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right in an atmosphere of growth. So what does it mean feeling bad in an atmosphere of growth? So those are the 4 things. So feeling bad is what makes you feel angry, resentful, bored, guilty? You know? And then feeling like, well, how could I have like, I felt a lot of guilt because I lost my temper a lot with my children and my husband. That made me feel guilty. Like, I would do it, and then I would feel bad about it. And that would make me feel even angrier, and then I would be even more short-tempered because I'd feel bad about the way I acted. So I was like, okay. How can I feel less guilt about the way I behave? Well, I could behave myself better. And so so many of my resolutions were about, how how can I behave myself better so I don't have this bad feeling that I'm not living up to my own standard of the kind of family member that I wanna be? And so that so so, you know, it's easy to it's easy to sort of say, like, well, I want more of the good things. But for me, I think I got a bigger happiness boost from eliminating the things that were dragging me down. You should you should make a blog post, which is I'm not telling you what to do, but you could do whatever you want. But you should make a list of all the things you did in the book. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You have it. Pointless. Yeah. So Then I wrote then I wrote happier at home, which is all about hap happiness project, but very focused on home, which is one of the few universals. So I did more there. And then for my habits book, you can't even believe how many habits I tried. So, you know, I'm just I I I do a lot of this stuff. It would be a very long list, but you're right. That would be a lot of fun to do. Well, I can't wait for your book to come out better than before making, you know, mastering the habits of our everyday lives is coming out March 17th. And, you know, one other thing I wanted to bring up, you and probably the last 6 podcast guests I've had all mentioned the same guy who's a good friend of mine in your acknowledgments, which is AJ Jacobs. That guy love AJ Jacobs. AJ is everywhere. I keep writing. I thought the last time Yeah. But he's he's related to everybody. Right? We're all his cousin. That's what his next book is about. So yeah. So we must be cousins because I'm his cousin. So you're his cousin. So, well, it was nice having you on my show, cousin Gretchen. Yeah. Thank you very much. I was it was great to talk to you. Yeah. And I look forward to seeing your book. I'll I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. Bye. For more from James, check out the James Altucher show on the Stansbury radio network atstansburyradio.com, and get yourself on the free insider's list today.
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