GRETCHEN RUBIN: "The Happiness
Project"-- the way I think about it-- is just any kind of
systematic attempt to think about happiness. Because what I found for myself
was that until I really started to think about it,
I never thought about happiness at all. I never asked myself whether
I was happy or how I could be happier. And so with "The Happiness
Project" I really set out to ask myself well, what are the
things that make me happy? How can I be happier? And what are the small,
manageable, realistic changes that I could make in my life? So I went about it a very
particular way. So I gave every month a theme,
and I had several resolutions related to every theme. Whether it was energy, or
marriage, or friendship, or play, or whatever. But then people can do it
all different ways. One kind of Happiness
Project that I love is people who pick-- and I did I've done
this myself now-- one word theme for a year to
give your year a driving idea. So I picked the word
bigger as my team. My sister pick the
word smaller. And they both are
great themes. I have a friend who one of his
themes was fame, and one of his other themes was dark. So you can get a picture
of what he's like. And so that's another way to
do a Happiness Project. There's a very prevalent
and highly estimable theme in happiness. Which is to say, if you try to
be happier you'll trip over your own feet. So John Stuart Mill said ask
yourself if you are happy, and you shall cease to be so. So it's this idea that you can't
really try to be happy it has to happen indirectly. And I hate to go up against John
Stuart Mill and Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. But I really do not find
that to be true. I find that actually thinking
about it is helpful. Because it's by really directly
thinking about it, and saying well, what's
not working? How can I be happier? That's when I started to really
identify places where I could imagine making changes
that would make me happier. So for me that's what doing a
happiness project The means. SHAREE: And one thing that you
mentioned was very empowering. To think of happiness as
something that you can actually work towards, and
take small steps towards. That's a very empowering way
to look at happiness. Unlike the roundabout way
of getting to happiness. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Right, right. Well, and it's interesting
because one of the questions is how much is it within
your control? And it turns out that
researchers think that about 50% of happiness is genetically
determined. So some people are born Tiggers,
and some people are born Eeyores. And we've all seen that. It's pretty hard wired. Then about 10 to 20% is
something called life circumstances. Which is age, occupation,
marital status, education, income, health, things
like that. Which you maybe have some
control over, but those are more like life circumstances. And then all the rest is very
much within our conscious control and is affected by the
way that we think and the way that we act. So depending on where your
range is, you can push yourself up to the top of your
range, or push yourself down to the bottom of your range
by the way that you think and act. And so it isn't just that
it's flowing over you. To some extent it's not
completely within your control to change your nature. But there are things that you
can do to get yourself up to the top of that range instead of
floating down at the bottom part of your range. SHAREE: That's definitely
good to know. You also mentioned in your
first book a concept of a happiness formula. And most people think of
happiness as things that make me feel good, and then things
that make me feel bad, and how to reduce the ones that make me
feel bad and increase the ones that make me feel good. But you bring up an interesting
point about feeling right, and about the
atmosphere of growth. Which, as an adult, I didn't
really think about. The feeling right part I
understood to an extent. But the growth part, surprisingly, I missed entirely. Can you elaborate on these
two aspects and why they're so important? Well I completely missed
the atmosphere of growth at first too. Because I was trying to come
up with my framework for understanding happiness, or
thinking about how I wanted a framework where every little
piece fit into the puzzle somehow, that there was nothing
left on the floor. And so I came up with that to
think about happiness you have to think about feeling good,
feeling bad, feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. And atmosphere of growth took
me much longer to identify. So the feeling good is easy. You want things that make you
feel full of enthusiasm, and love, and fun. And feeling bad, you want to
get rid of things that make you feel angry, or resentful,
or guilty, or jealous. And then feeling right
is trickier. Because feeling right is the
feeling that our life reflects our values, and that we're
living up to our own idea of what we want our life to be. And this is complicated, because
sometimes the things that we do to make ourselves
feel right don't make us feel good. For instance I was talking to a
guy to who was one of three brothers, adults. And they were very estranged. They had a father who was
very nasty, apparently. To the extent that two of the
sons wouldn't speak to the father anymore. And the father was in the
hospital, and the one son was going and visiting him. And he said the thing
is, it doesn't do anything for my happiness. I hate going, I dread
going, he's mean to me when I'm there. He's been mean to me my whole
life, and yet here I am going. And I said well it's because
it's making you feel right. This is your idea of how you
should behave as a son. And even though it doesn't make
you feel good, it makes you feel right. And sometimes that's important
to happiness as well, even if it doesn't translate
into feeling good. And then atmosphere of growth
is a little bit different. And this is the feeling that
people are happier when we feel like we're growing. When we're learning something,
when we're changing something for the better, when we're
fixing something, when we're helping someone. And it could be something as
simple as cleaning out your refrigerator-- can give you that little
feeling of growth. Or learning something new. I'm sure we've all had the
experience of when you're trying to learn something
new and it's incredibly frustrating. You feel stupid, you feeling
incompetent. And yet then when you manage
to grow and you managed to learn something it's
so satisfying. And the thing that's nice about
the atmosphere of growth is this is really something that
you can deliberately go out and pursue. You can really say to yourself
wow, I'm really in an unhappy place in my life. I have a lot going on that's
making me just feel terrible, and I need to find
a way to plug my battery into something. What can I do? And a way to do it is to seek
the atmosphere of growth. Whether it's getting a pet and
house training your pet, or fixing something, or helping an
organization figure out how to do their books better, or
helping a friend move, or cleaning out your closet,
or learning a new software program. This atmosphere of growth is
something that is energizing, and in a way that's very,
very positive. However, a lot of times
it does come with this unfortunate layer of feeling
stupid, incompetent, frustrated, having to
work with annoying people, all that stuff. So you have to accept that
sometimes feeling bad is part of happiness. SHAREE: It's also interesting
that the atmosphere of growth part is probably something we
need most when we are down. And that's probably when we
are least likely to even attempt it. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yes. Annette, you raise a very
interesting point, which is that one of the reasons that
I wanted to do a happiness project was that I felt like I
would behave myself better if I were happier. And I find that definitely
to be true. I'm more patient, I'm more
forgiving, I'm less irascible, I'm more generous when
I'm happier. And studies show that although
happiness has this bad reputation, and some people
assume that happy people are smug, or superficial,
or stupid. Actually, happy people are
more interested in the problems of other people, and
more interested in the problems of the world. They're more altruistic, they
give away more money, they volunteer more time, they're
more likely to help out their colleagues and their friends
and their family. And I think when you are happier
you do you feel more able to try to do something
that's going to bring you that atmosphere of growth even if
there's going to be a lot of frustration or anxiety
attached to it. But when you're not feeling
happy it can feel overwhelming to try to plug into that. And it's the same thing with
helping other people. One of the best ways to make
yourself happy is to make other people happy. But sometimes when you're
feeling very unhappy yourself you don't have the emotional
wherewithal to do it. And so even though it would make
you feel better if you did it, it's hard to get
yourself to do it. So I think it's worth
understanding that. So then if you are an unhappy
place and you feel like oh, I just I just can't handle the
thought of learning how to do something new. If you say to yourself it's
going to be hard, but in the end I'm going to get that
charge, I'm going to get that feeling of uplift. Then maybe that can help
you push yourself. Because you know that in the and
it's going to be helpful, especially if you're in
a difficult time. SHAREE: So it's about being
conscious of that behavior? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yeah, I
think it really helps. SHAREE: Another thing that you
mentioned in your first book is how "The Happiness Project"
could potentially prepare people for when bad things
actually do happen. Would you like to elaborate
on that? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yeah, when I
was writing "The Happiness Project" I was worried, because
I thought I was a pretty happy person
when I started. And I had a great life, and one
of the things I wanted to do was to appreciate it more and
not take it for granted. And I worried that people who
were facing major happiness challenges would find what I
was writing about trivial almost to the point
of offensiveness. I'm talking about make your
bed, and someone else is thinking about they just lost
two family members to cancer in the same month. And so I was concerned
about that. But what I found is I've heard
from so many people who are in these very, very challenging
situations. And they have made
this point to me. Which is that one time to do a
happiness project is really when you are in a very
challenging situation, and you're really struggling to
figure out how can you be as happy as you can be under
the circumstances? Maybe you can't be happy,
but are you as happy as you can be? Can you make sure you
get enough sleep? Can you make sure that
eat regularly? Can you make sure that
you see your friends? Can you make sure that you give
yourself mental breaks from whatever the
situation is? So that you don't burn
yourself out dealing with some crisis. But then another time to do
it is when everything is basically going OK, and you do
have the emotional wherewithal to try to start a book group,
or start exercising. Or figure out ways so that you
can be yelling at your kids less or whatever. And so I think there's a
reason to do it when everything's going fine, and
there's a reason to do it when really everything is not fine,
and you're just hanging on by your fingernails. So it was encouraging for me
to hear that people didn't find my focus on these very
ordinary little parts of life to be deeply annoying,
as I feared. SHAREE: Cool. You also mention in your book
that it's important to follow your true nature. And at the same time you
immediately follow it up by saying it's important to also
distinguish between the lack of interest and the
fear of failure. Now how do you make
that distinction? Because that's a really
good skill to have. GRETCHEN RUBIN: So you put
your finger on the big challenges within happiness. Because on the one hand, you
want to accept yourself, but you also want to expect
more from yourself. And this is just a
constant tension. This is like the tension between
being happy in the moment and thinking
about the future. You have to think about
both all the time and make your decisions. There's not one easy
way to do it. I have 12 personal commandments
that I identified as part of my happiness
projects. And the first one is
to be Gretchen. And everyone should feel free to
substitute there own name. And there's this idea that you
have to be yourself, and to know yourself. And part of what's hard about
that is that it's very easy to think about the way you wish you
were, or the way you think you ought to be, or the way
other people want you to be, and to lose sight of the
way you really are. Well like I said, I went
to law school. I was a lawyer for five
years without even thinking about it. So I really have to remind
myself to be Gretchen. And one of the questions within
trying to be yourself is when are you setting
yourself a task that's appropriate for you and is
within your own nature, and is pushing you in the right
direction to expect more from yourself? And when are you really picking
something for the wrong reasons? Or not because it's really
meaningful to you but it's related to a fantasy of who you
think you are, or the way you wish you would be. And it isn't a natural extension
of your personality. It's not the right
goal for you. And those things tend
to be very sterile. It's very easy to burn out, or
to hit a dead end with that. I recently faced this
with driving. Is anybody here a
fearful driver? I'm a fearful driver. OK. So I grew up in Kansas
City, Missouri. So I got a driver's license
when I was 16 years old, and I drove. And when I lived in Washington,
DC, I drove. But I always a fearful driver. And my sister lived in LA for
three years before she drove, so you see where I'm
coming from. And we were living in New York,
and basically any time we had to drive my husband
would drive. To the point where I basically
quit driving. And we weren't driving
that much. But we were driving to Vermont
to pick up my daughter from summer camp, and I
was not driving. And I felt like that was an
unfair burden on my husband. Because even if he got tired
or had to take a conference call or something,
he had to drive. And, also, I was beginning
to feel like it was weighing on my mind. I started having dreams where
there would be an emergency and I wouldn't be able to go
because I couldn't drive. And I had to ask myself is
being a fearful driver something that I should accept
about myself as just being part of my true nature? And has been true of me for as
long as I can remember, and so just accept it? Or can I expect more from
myself, and deal with this fear of driving? And I so desperately wanted to
believe that I should just accept it, and not
drive ever again. But I did decide that it was
something where I could ask myself to do it. So now I drive regularly, and I
really do not like driving, but I do drive. And it's been interesting for
me to hear a lot of people have something in their life
that they're afraid to do, that other people do
without thinking. Riding a bike, public speaking,
swimming, flying. These are things, for most
people, it doesn't seem like it bothers them. And then there's the people
for whom it's really difficult, and you really have
to say to yourself, do I want to expect of myself? But then there's other
things, like music. I finally said you know what? I don't really like music. I used to think oh, if I would
just go to concerts, if I would read, if I would study
up, if I would sit down and listen and concentrate I
would love music too. And finally, I'm like
you know what? I'm just don't like
music that much. And I'm sad about that. I wish I did. I see why everybody
else likes it. And I wish I like it. I wish I could be Gretchen and
love music, and tap into this source of joy that so
many people feel. But I finally had to just say
yeah, I got to accept myself. And it's just not for me. And now that I don't worry about
loving music I have more time to do the things I like. Like read all the time. So its attention to accept
yourself and expect more of yourself. SHAREE: So along the same lines,
how have you seen your personality change as you've
gone through the several happiness projects? And obviously you like the
way your personality has changed, if it has. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Well
it's interesting. Because when I started I took
one of those tests. Which, by the way,
drive me crazy. I hate the tests to tell
how happy you are, but I score a seven. I'm pretty happy. And most people around the world
will say that they are pretty happy, or very happy. So most people are pretty happy,
and I'm pretty happy. So I'm average. And so the interesting thing
for me is that is, I would say, is my inborn nature. And if I am lying in bed at
night or I'm on the subway with nothing to read, and I'm
just staring out into space, I am at a seven place. More or less, usually. I'm not in a highly ebullient
person, but I'm not a melancholic person. I'm just a seven. But what has changed as a result
of doing the happiness project is that my experience of
my life is so much happier. I spend so much less time
feeling angry, or resentful, or bored. And I spend so much more time
having fun and doing the things I value. Like not worrying about music. And so even though you can't
change your inborn nature, you can change the experience
of your life. And I think the best example
of this-- which I'm sure everybody has seen-- is if you've ever had a job that
you really hated you're still yourself. You're still walking around as
yourself, but your experience of your life is very
different. And then if you get a job that
you love, it's like you're the same person. Probably your life circumstances
haven't changed very much, and maybe
not at all. But your experience of your
life is so much happier because you're doing something
that you enjoy. So that's what I think
has happened. I'm the same person. My personality is the same. But I just feel like
my experience of my life has changed. Mostly with things that
didn't take very much time, energy, or money. There's a lot of low-hanging
fruit. At least there was in my case. SHAREE: So how much of the
recording and tracking of the goals, and the resolutions
impacts the way you perceive your happiness? And did it change between the
time you were actually going through the project, the 12
months, and then after? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Well, the
tracking is funny. Because actually,
Marcus Mitchell, who works at Google-- I just saw him, but he had
to go somewhere else. When he heard about this he
was like well I think you should have your husband-- they went to college together--
you should have Jamie score you on a one to
10 scale twice a day. Then you'd have a record. And I'm like yeah, that's
not going to happen. Yeah, so there are all these
quantified self, and they're all people who love to track. I like to track whether I'm
keeping my resolutions. So I like to track whether I'm
actually sticking to the things that I'm doing. I'm a junkie for gold stars. So I like checking things
off the list, and feeling yes I did it. So I do it in that way, but I
don't track it in terms of my happiness level. Because for me, at least, I
find that to be intensely annoying, and actually if I
stand around I think am I happy right now? It sort of dissolves under me. I feel like it's more helpful to
think about being happier. Like is this going to
make me happier? Am I happier than I
was a month ago? So am I moving in the
right direction? So I think about more like that,
are things moving in the right direction? Than what's my actual ranking
right now, or how would I measure it? Because I do feel like
that can trip me up. But accountability for following through is important. And I do think one thing-- when people are thinking about
happiness projects for themselves-- one thing I think is helpful to
remember is that it works better when you think of
change in terms of very concrete, very manageable
actions. So sometimes people will say
oh my resolution is to get more joy out of life. OK so what does that mean? I have no idea what
that means. And the person making that
resolution, I don't think, really has a good idea. Or I want to be less
stressed out. OK, why? Do you feel like you
need more sleep? Do you feel like you never
see your friends? Do you feel like you need to
make time to exercise? Do you feel like you need to
have time to write a novel? Why? Do you feel like you yell your
kids too much in the morning? Do you feel like you're
hitting the snooze button too much? Do you feel like you're eating
too much junk food? Do you feel like you're always
10 minutes late? Do you feel like you're letting
down your colleagues because you're always
late with projects? What do you mean by
stressed out? Because once you say what would
you actually change? Then you can say to yourself
this is what I'm actually going to do, and then you know
whether you did it or not. And if you consistently can't do
it maybe you need to set a different resolution. Or if you can do it are you
seeing any beneficial change? Because to bring about change
you really need to figure out what would actually
be different? And not just think about vague
aims without a plan for how you could bring them
about in real life. SHAREE: One of the biggest
things I got from your books was exactly that. That happiness can be broken
down into actionable items that you evaluate yourself
on, on a daily basis. And in that sense it sounds a
lot like the OKRs we set for ourselves every quarter. And I think it makes for a
perfect parallel there. I actually did start off my
own Happiness Project. I did pause it for a little
while, but what did come out of it is that I am participating
for the first time in NaNoWritMo. And I am, as of this morning,
6,000 words away from my 50,000. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Oh my gosh,
congratulations. SHAREE: Thank you very much. I see myself completing it
by the end of tomorrow. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Wow,
that's amazing. Well congratulations. SHAREE: Thank you. So I'm really hoping that a lot
of you go out there and look at your OKRs, create
daily ones for yourself. There's really a lot
that'll can out of having a happiness project. OK, so I have more questions
for you. Does anyone here have
any questions? AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]? SHAREE: Oh, National Novel
Writing Month. So you do 50,000 words
over one month. Doing about 1700 a day. I skipped a few, so I'm
a little behind. But I'm 6,000 words away from
getting to the 50,000. It doesn't have to be a fully
coherent novel, really. It's really just
about writing. It's to get you through
the creative block. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]? SHAREE: Yes, exactly. I mean no one's expecting
to get theirs published. GRETCHEN RUBIN: If you're
interested, there's a book called "No Plot No Problem"
by Chris Baty where he lays this out. National Novel Writing Month
is when everybody-- November is the month. Importantly, because it has 31
days, you have an extra day. That people do it. And there's screenwriting month,
blog starting, there's a lot of offshoots. But I did it just in my own
month reading the book. But it's really if you're ever
attracted to kind of a boot camp start for something, it's
a way to just, like you say, get your creativity going by
just consistent productivity. and it's so much fun. It's really, really fun. I mean something like "The Great
Gatsby" was only like 60, or 70,000 words long. So if you write 50,000
words in a month, that's a good start. But anyway, I really recommend
"No Plot No Problem". Because it goes through the
theory of how you should think about editing, how you should
think about outlining in preparation, and how this is
meant to spur creativity. Like why you would
do it this way. But it's tons of fun. SHAREE: Yeah, and you mentioned
in your book. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yes, I did. I really enjoyed it. SHAREE: So how long did the
habits you developed during the Happiness Project last once
you stopped doing the check marks? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Well, I still
do almost everything that I did, because they all
make me happier. And I'm less happy when
I break them. So for the most part either I
abandoned them right away, like the gratitude journal,
which drove me crazy. Though many people love
a gratitude journal. Almost everything I do and more,
way more, even than I write about in both
of the books. For me it's a way of thinking
about the way I behave that's very, very helpful. But it was helpful to do the
charts where I would check it off, because that kind of
accountability also is helpful because sometimes you want to
do something, or you want to make a change, and it just
falls out of your mind. You just don't think about it. Except for a couple
times a week. And so just even by reviewing
them once a day that helped me keep them active in my mind. So for instance, now if I'm in
a conversation and I start to gossip I may continue to
gossip, I may break the resolution because it's hard not
to gossip, because it's so fun to gossip. But the sirens are going off,
are the horns are blaring being hey, that's a
resolution here. Are you going to break
your resolution? Are you going to go? You're right up the line,
are you going to go? So I don't forget about
it, and do it. I'm aware whether
I am or am not. Under-react to a problem, that's
one of my resolutions. And sometimes I just take it
all the way up to 11, but I know that's what I'm doing,
and usually I regret it, because it's better
to under-react. But it's always in my mind that
there is a resolution there that I am either
keeping or breaking. SHAREE: So something about the
initial checking off process really helps you get
those things in your mind and ingrained? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Just to
reinforce it, yeah. Actually my next book-- speaking of habits-- is going to be all
about habits. Because I realize that habits
are really the prequel to a happiness project. Because if you have good
habits it's so much easier to be happy. And if you have bad habits
it's a stumbling block. So the idea of how do you get
yourself in the habit of doing anything is something that I am
now completely obsessed by. SHAREE: That sounds
fascinating. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Stay tuned. SHAREE: Cool. So one mantra you repeat often
in your book is that you can only change your behavior
and not that of others. And I'm sure that all of the
resolutions you set for yourself reflect that. And why is it that important? It also screams unfair. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yeah, well, it
is a sad truth of happiness that the only person you
can change is yourself. Because it's so easy to think
I would be happier if other people would behave properly. And to have a long list of
resolutions for other people to follow, perfectly
reasonable. But it doesn't work like that. Alas, you can only
take yourself. But I did find that when I
change the atmosphere around me changes. And when I change, a
relationship changes. And very often I was able to
bring about larger changes just by thinking about what I
could do differently, or how I could change. And sometimes people say to me
well I really wanted to do a happiness project, but my
spouse doesn't want to. Or my roommates don't want
to, or whatever. And the fact is nobody-- my husband, he doesn't even make
New Year's resolutions. I mean he would never do
something like this. It's just not his nature. I mean he feels like a martyr
to happiness at this point. But you don't need to. It's not something where
you need other people's cooperation. Because really it is something
that is all about what can you do differently? Sometimes I think you can all
agree to do something differently, but I think it
should be the rare exception. Rather than thinking that
handing out ideas for other people, or thinking about how
other people should change to bring about change it's
just not possible. SHAREE: There's an interesting
and sad fact that you mention in your second book. It says that research found
that perceived time passes more quickly as you
grow older. And I think that ties back to
what you mentioned earlier about growth, and a rich
and vivid experience. Can you tell us more? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yeah, it's this
very interesting thing that, as people grow older-- and I'm sure everybody's
experienced this-- that your perception of time changes. And so looking back at your
life, the first 21 years will be much will seem like it took
a much bigger percentage of your existence. And it narrows as
you get older. So between 60 and 80 is much
less than it actually is in terms of where it is
on the pie chart. And one of the things you can do
to counter this is that if you do something very novel
and challenging, your experience of time slows. Because there's so much new
information that you're processing. And I remember a friend of mine
saying that he was really happy when he and his
wife had a baby. He said because life was rushing
by so quickly, but when she was born it was
like time stood still. And her first month of life felt
like two or three years. And when I was working at the
Federal Communications Commission it was so intense. There was so much going on, it
was so new, there were so many people, there was so
much that I had never experienced before. I mean I was only there
for 14 months. But it feels like as
long as law school, which was three years. Because law school was pretty
familiar, and one year was pretty much like the next. Whereas this was a whole
different thing. Or the time when
I was clerking. It just felt like so
much was happening because it was so new. And I've been thinking about
this a lot for myself, for my own Happiness Project. Because I feel like time is
going by so quickly, and I don't like it. I don't like this feeling that
everything is racing by. So I keep thinking, well, what
can I do to shake myself up? But the problem is I
don't want a new career, I love my career. I don't want to have
another baby. And I already have two children,
so it wouldn't even be that novel and challenging
probably, for these purposes. It would have other
advantages, but it wouldn't with this. I don't want to move, I want
to live in New York City. I don't even want to live
five blocks away from where I live now. So I'm trying to think. And there's really nothing that
I want to do, like to learn to speak French. I don't really want to learn
to speak French. I wish I wanted to learn to
speak French, but be Gretchen and don't waste your time
learning to speak French. So I've been really struggling
with this. One of things about starting a
blog that was amazing for me-- which I didn't really know that
this was going to happen, but it did serve that
function for me. Because I had never done
anything like that before. I didn't know anything
about it. And so it was huge,
it was new. It was this whole new
identity for me. A whole new group of people that
I was hanging out with, a whole new skill that I added. And that really did
enrich that time. But now I feel like it's
become part of me and part of my day. It doesn't serve that novel
and challenging function. So I've really been thinking
well what could I do? Like get a pet? I don't want a dog. I don't know. So any suggestions I welcome. Because there is something about
the atmosphere of growth that serves this function
of making life more rich, more dense. Probably moving to a
foreign country. And the more foreign,
the better. The more dense and rich that
experience would be. And like I said I don't even
want to leave my neighborhood. But there's got to be other
ways to do that. So that's something that I'm
thinking about, because it's a very real aspect of life. And it is something that
we can affect. SHAREE: You also talk about
unscheduled free time. And you say that it's very
important for children, for creativity, and other
such things. How about for adults? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Absolutely,
but I would say maybe scheduling free time. Scheduling unscheduled time,
as paradoxical as that is. You need to schedule
unscheduled time. And I'm sure that I am talking
to the people who suffer from this, which is this feeling
like everything is flowing into everything else. Either you are working, or you
could be working, or you should be working. Or maybe you're kind of working
and you're not really at leisure, because you know
you could be working or you should be working. But then there's a lot of
times when you could be working, or should be working. And you're even at work,
but you're not working. But that doesn't feel
like leisure. And to think about giving
yourself a quitting time. It used to be nine
to five, right? Five o'clock was
quitting time. That doesn't happen anymore. We all walk around with a
cubicle in our pocket. So what I do is every day, and
every day it's a different time because my schedule is
very different every day. Is I say this time
is quitting time. And after quitting time,
I don't work anymore. I don't check my email. I don't work. And I try not even to do like
household tasks, because I want it to be leisure time. And it's really important. Or maybe on the weekend you'll
say from 11 to two is playtime, and I'm going to
do just what I feel like. I have a friend who's
a novelist. And on Sundays he does not
even read nonfiction. He only reads novels. Which is his work but
also his play. But he doesn't do any work,
and he won't even read the newspaper or read a biography. Because he wants to have
total playtime. And then people use freedom. People have all different ways
of figuring out how to break free, and to give themselves
free time. But I think there's sort of
a feeling like I will just spontaneously have fun
in my free time. Or I'll do that when I
have some free time. But you don't have any free
time, like for 10 years. So if you want to have a
sense of leisure you have to build it in. Force yourself to wander,
make time. My daughter is in second grade
and they have choice time. And I love the idea
of choice time. Because you can just choose
whatever you want to do. But I think some people go weeks
and months maybe without really having choice time. They're just picking
between duty and sort of the bad trance. You know the bad trance. When you're clicking around
the internet, or watching television, or flipping through
a magazine that you're not even that interested in, or
you're eating in front of the refrigerator, and you're
in the bad trance. Usually, if you're in the
bad trance it means you should go to bed. The bad trance is a sign
of being too tired. So always go to sleep if you're
in the bad trance. SHAREE: Bad trance sounds a
lot like trading long-term happiness for short. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Well
that's another tension within happiness. Which is thinking about what
makes you happy in the moment, and thinking about what's
going to make you happy in the future. I did the bad trance
is sort of neither. It's not very satisfying in the
present, and it certainly doesn't pay off in the future. SHAREE: It's even worse? GRETCHEN RUBIN: And so if you're
in the bad trance, or you notice that you're spending
a lot of time in bad trance you need to think about
what could I do differently? Either to have more short-term
pleasure by just doing something that's going to be
more fun in the moment, or by thinking about how I could use
my time in a way that's going to pay off more in the end. Because the thing is, a lot of
times, the things that payoff the most in the end
are a lot of work. Like let's say you were going
to plan a big holiday party. I mean it's a lot of errands,
it's a lot of planning, it's a lot of tidying up the house. There's a lot of parts of it
that are not that much fun. But in the end that's the kind
of thing that's going to bring you a lot of happiness. And so it's better to spend an
hour doing party planning chores than it is to spend that
hour in the bad trance. Even though at the moment that
you're doing it it feels mildly diverting. SHAREE: I try to distinguish
between the two by the fact that one leaves you
with memories, and the other doesn't. So you might watch a whole
series of something on Hulu. And at the moment you're
enjoying it. But when you look back three
weeks later you don't even remember that you
really did it. GRETCHEN RUBIN: That
is a great test. Because I think about energy. Like is something energizing
or draining? But memories is a very
good thing too. Though now that's making me call
into question my ambition to watch all of Homeland within
the next couple weeks. But I think that's a
really good point. Is it something that is
going to be adding? Or is it just something that's
so ephemeral that you're not even going to remember
that you did it. And then the other test
is the energy. Do you walk away from it
feeling energized? Or do you walk away from
it feeling drained? SHAREE: One other thing
that you mention-- it's also a sad fact, and it's
in your second book. It says that small children
laugh about 400 times, and adults laugh about
17 times a day. And I saw, and I was just
shaking my head. And it's very true though. So since you became aware of
this fact have you noticed yourself laughing more? And what do you do to fix it? GRETCHEN RUBIN: I'm sure you can
tell this, but I'm a very tightly-wound irritable
type personality. And I can take it to 11,
like in a flash. I have this thing,
my mean face. Which apparently is this
Medusa-like terrifying mean face that I make. And so many, many of my
resolutions are aimed at trying to be more lighthearted,
more calm, more patient, more fun, taking
time for projects. Again it comes back to
this idea of time. Taking time to be silly, not
constantly walking around marching, or barking out orders,
or crossing things off the to-do list. But to make time to have
fun, and to goof around and be silly. So that kind of fact really did
make me focus on how can I be more fun? And it's interesting just
talking in a workplace. There's a lot of studies showing
that just having fun in the workplace is important,
and levity. There's an interesting book
called "The Levity Effect". And by levity, it doesn't it
mean people are cracking jokes and actually being funny. Because actually being
funny is hard. But people can be lighthearted,
and they can see the funny side, especially
when things go wrong. Or they can under-react to
problems, or they can have a sense of just laughing, and
a sense of lightness. That is a social lubricant. It helps people work with
difficult personalities, that helps people deal with anxieties
and tensions. And so it really is worth
something that. And also if you're in a conflict
with somebody, if you can not make sarcastic asides,
which is the worst thing you can do. But if you can find a way to
joke about it or to relieve the tension it's really,
really helpful. If you're in a bad place it's
very hard to see the funny side, and to be lighthearted. But it really, really helps. And so to think about how to
get more laughing, and more joking around, and
more playing, it makes your life happier. And I think it also makes
you more effective in almost any realm. SHAREE: That's going to know. Try to beat 17. Any questions? AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Or we can just
repeat the question. AUDIENCE: Oh, OK, great. What was my question now? I loved your book,
your first book. I'm one of these goal-setting
people too. And I was fascinated/
overwhelmed by the fact that you added a new goal
every month. Am I correct? GRETCHEN RUBIN: Yeah, Yeah. AUDIENCE: So after the year was
over, how much did you end up actually holding onto them? What were the most
important ones? GRETCHEN RUBIN: So the question
is everything was cumulative, so at the end of
the whole thing with both projects how much
did I hang onto? I mean the fact I do almost
all of it still. Because it really all
makes me happier. And most of the things don't
take a lot of time or energy to do. I mean there's kind of this
mental work of deciding to do it, and sticking to it, but
they don't-- so almost everything I do. Now, I mean, I did it in a very over-the-top way, clearly. So the idea is I'm trying
out all these things so you don't have to. So most people are not doing
like 100, 200 resolutions a day the way I am. But I think they're
reinforcing. I mean I'm very conscious of the
fact that I'm happier when I behave a certain
way, or when I follow certain practices. And so then that also helps
me feel motivated to stick with it. Because I know that it actually
has an effect, and really does make me happier. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]? GRETCHEN RUBIN: OK, so this is
funny that you ask that, because so many people are
like OK is that for real? Do you still have
the empty shelf? So for "Happier at Home" I did
this behind-the-scenes video, which was so much fun. And I showed some of the
things that I talk about in the book. Just for fun, it was just
this little fun extra that I created. And one of the things that
I show is my empty shelf, because so many people ask
about the empty shelf. And the fact is it
sounds so weird. Like why does it matter to
have an empty shelf? And yet it really catches
people's imagination. And so many people have told
me how much they love their empty shelf. There is something
about that space. Making that space, holding that space, having that margin. Thoreau said I love having a
broad margin to my life. And there's something about an
empty shelf that gives you that feeling of having
a margin. Especially think in someplace
like New York City where you feel like every little inch has
to have an Ikea thing, so you can cram as much stuff
in there as possible. It's nice just to have your
empty shelf, you're like I got plenty of room, I got
my empty shelf. SHAREE: And why do you
think the physical environment is so important? GRETCHEN RUBIN: This
is a mystery to me. I'm constantly astonished why
it is that outer order contributes to inner calm to
the degree that it does. It just doesn't seem like it
should matter that much. And yet, I feel-- and over and
over people have told me that they feel the same way. That there is something about
creating outer order that makes people feel calmer and
more energetic, more creative, more in control of their life. And of all the resolutions when
people tell me oh I did a happiness project. I say what did you do? What did you do to be
happier at home? Or what did you do to boost
your happiness? This is the number
one resolution. And I'm not saying this is the
most significant resolution you could do. I'm just saying this seems to
be like the gateway drug resolution. The resolution to
make your bed. How many people here regularly
make their bed? Not that many. How many people make their bed
in a hotel room on the morning they check out? All right. OK, we will talk later. There's something about these
little cleaning off your desks, filing things, cleaning
out your inbox. I know woman who told me she
throws away every single thing in her refrigerator
on January 1. It's like inbox 0. She just wants everything
gone. No even half-full bottle
of ketchup. There's something about outer
order, clear surfaces, empty shelves that helps people feel
calmer and more creative. SHAREE: You had a question? AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] are you more happy or
less happy when surround by happier people? That's one. And then does it make
you happier to make other people happy? GRETCHEN RUBIN: So the question
is are you happier if you're around happier people? And does it make you happy
to make others happy? There's something called
emotional contagion. And that's the term for it,
because we literally infect each other with our emotions. And so happy people help
make people happy. And so if you're around
happier people you will feel a lift. Unfortunately bad is stronger
than good, and negative emotions are more catching
than positive emotions. So if you're around people with
negative emotions you will also pick that
up very quickly, probably even more quickly. And we pick up these emotions
from each other in seconds. You could pick it up over the
phone, you could pick up just by looking at a photograph. So there's this constant
change of emotions that happens all the time. So being around happier people
will definitely help you be happier yourself. And then your next question was
does it make you happy to make other people happy? I have eight splendid truths
about happiness, and this is my second splendid truth, which
is a two-part truth. One of the best ways to make
yourself happy is to make other people happy. And this is one of the nicest
things about human nature. One of the best ways to make
yourself happy is to make other people happy. And some people argue that
this is a criticism. Like well no one can be truly
altruistic, because if you do something nice for
somebody else you just feel good yourself. Like, oh, well then
forget about it. I'm like this is the greatest
thing ever. I mean nothing makes me happier
than seeing me do something virtuous. And the fact that I find that
that makes me happy is good. So I see that is a positive
effect of human nature, not something that makes altruistic
behavior less admirable, or less laudable. But that's the first part of
the second splendid truth. And I think the second part of
the second splendid truth is also worth thinking about. So one of the best ways to make
yourself happy is to make other people happy. And one of the best ways to make
other people happy is to be happy yourself. And that gets to your
first point. Which is that a lot of times
we're more able to help other people be happy when we
are happier ourselves. Both because of emotional
contagion, that we help them. And also back to what I was
saying before is I think when we're happy we have
the emotional wherewithal to turn outwards. It is not selfish to want to be
happier, because if it is we should be selfish, if only
for selfless reasons. Because it's by being happier
ourselves that we give ourselves the wherewithal
to think about others. AUDIENCE: Hi. First of all I think you're
really awesome, I'm a huge fan of your writing. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Oh,
well thank you. AUDIENCE: So obviously you've
done a ton of research, and experience, and growing over
the past several years. So what is the one thing you
wish you would have known five or ten years ago? Or one thing you'd go back and
tell your younger self that you think would have improved
your happiness? GRETCHEN RUBIN: So the question
is knowing what I know now, what would I go back
to the past and tell myself? I would take it back to that
point that I made earlier about be Gretchen. That's another splendid truth. Is we can build a happy life
only on the foundation of our own nature, our own values,
and our own interests. And I'm just one of these people
who spent a lot of time thinking or being swayed by the
way I thought I ought to be, or the way I wish I were,
the way other people thought I ought to be. And I think that it's really by
trying to figure out well is this right for me? Is this something
that I value? Is this something I'm
interested in? Does this reflect my nature? I wish I'd thought about that
much harder, much earlier. Everything ended
up fine for me. I mean that's the thing
about drift. Drifting into something
like law school. Sometimes it works out fine. And that's dangerous right? Because that's what makes it
even more tricky, because maybe it'll all work
out in the end. Don't count on it. So it all worked out. I'm glad, I'm happy
about everything that happened to me. But I didn't do it mindfully,
I didn't do it as an expression of what was
true about me. And I wish that I had
done if for that. Yeah? AUDIENCE: It seems like you
really good about being systematic about things. What ways would you go about
thinking about a framework or discovering what those things
are if you're not super clear about them? GRETCHEN RUBIN: That is
an excellent question. And in fact, for this new book
that I'm working on about habits I have this section that
I'm working on that's called quiz for self
knowledge. And it's just every time I think
about a question that I think you need to ask-- like are
you a morning person or a night person? This is really important
to know. Are you an abstainer
or moderator? Which is something I talk
about in my book. Are you spurred on by
competition, or are you unspurred on by competition? Do you feel very
self conscious? There's a lot of questions. So it's a very, very large
issue, and I've been thinking about how to systematically
figure out how would you figure that out without spending
thousands of dollars in therapy? So I don't have an easy question
other than to just constantly ask that, but I do
feel like I'm trying to identify sets of questions. So to help spur that kind
of self reflection. For me I find that it's from
reading other people. Like reading Samuel Johnson,
which is why mention him in my subtitle. When I read Samuel Johnson
I feel like I understand myself better. He just says things and I'm
like, OK, I get it. Somehow he's able to shine
a spotlight that helps me understand myself. So often by reading I feel like
some things resonate, but it seems like there should be
other ways to do it too. FEMALE SPEAKER: That's
all we have time for, thank you very much. GRETCHEN RUBIN: Well thank you,
this was so much fun. Thank you Sharee.
