Hello and welcome to More Happier, a podcast where we get more happier. Hey, Elizabeth. Hi, Grudge. Today, we're sharing a sneak peek at the new 2025 habits for happiness course. I am so excited about this course.
I am so excited too Gretchen tell us more about it. So this course is a personalized way for people to focus on a few habits like one, two, three key crucial habits for happiness and really make 2025 the year that it sticks. And each month as part of the course I'll be answering questions from participants about designing, tracking, whatever is needed to keep them consistent with that habit for the year.
Normally this will be exclusive to those participating, but today we're actually making it available to everyone and I get to participate. Yay! So if you're interested in the course, it is not too late to sign up. To get your habits on track in the new year, visit happiercast.com slash habits course and sign up today.
Hello, and welcome to our very first call-in episode of the Habits for Happiness course. This course is designed to help you successfully integrate a few key habits into your life. Over the course of this year, you'll articulate one, two, or three habits you're truly committed to changing. Figure out the how and why behind those habits and identify personalized strategies, help make them stick for the long term.
Each month, I'll be answering calling questions for course participants about designing, tracking, and keeping their habits for the year. But this first episode is available to everyone and anyone. If you want to get your habits on track in the new year, visit happiercast.com slash habits course and sign up.
For this very first episode, Elizabeth, my sister the Sage, is also joining me to weigh in on the strategies that have helped her form and keep habits over the years. Elizabeth, I am a happiness bully. You've been part of this habits journey with me. Let's get into it. Yes, let's do.
Okay, so first of all, people often ask me, what habits should I pursue? Is there a specific category of habit that would make the biggest difference to my overall happiness? You know, where should I start? And no surprise, the answer is...
It depends. It depends on you. But I will say that there are eight categories of habits that make the biggest difference to people's happiness. When I ask people about the habits that they're trying to change, these are the eight categories that come up over and over. One is energy, which is exercise, sleep, recharge. Two is productivity, focus, work, make consistent progress.
Three is relationships that's connect and deepen relationships. Order, which is to clear and organize. Purpose is to reflect, identify and engage. Mindful consumption is how we eat, drink, spend, scroll, consume. Mindful investment is how we save, support, experience. And then creativity is how we learn, practice, play. Yeah, and Gretchen, which ones do people struggle with the most?
Well, that's really hard to say because there's some that come up over and over. I think energy is one because no matter what I want to work on, I would like to have more energy to help me do that. So that's a place where a lot of people start relationships. Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that relationships are a key to happiness. And I think people generally get that. That's a really high priority. But I'm surprised by how often creativity comes up. Everybody seems to really understand the value of having everyday creativity in their lives.
So I think they're all important. So, how can people set themselves up for success? Okay. So here's one thing that is really helpful just at the outset, and that is to be very specific. So you want to think about articulating the habit that you want to keep in a way that is very concrete and trackable and manageable. So you have to be able to say, like, can I measure this habit? How will I know if I succeeded? Like, let's say it's Monday. How do I know if I have
kept that habit. Yeah, I know for me that is huge because for years, Grudge, maybe decades, I really wanted to exercise more, which is one of the classic. Yes. I want to exercise more. Right. And once I started putting numbers on it, it just all came together. So you remember that I wanted to walk from in Canyon 50 times, then it became 100 in the year. Yes.
I wanted to do this year, orange theory 50 times. I blew past that next year. I'm going to do a hundred times. And for me, having that specific number makes all the difference. Now I have no problem exercising more. But if I just said exercise more, I wouldn't do it.
Yeah, anything like exercise more, eat more healthfully, enjoy the moment, have more fun, quit yelling at my kid so much. Anything like that, that's very vague. It's much better when it's exactly what are you expecting your, your wake up in the morning. What is it that you're expecting yourself to do in a particular day? And that way you know, well, did I do it or did I not do it? Is very, very helpful. And coming up, we'll talk about a key element to keeping your habit.
So Gretchen, you've been on this habits journey for a long time now and as you were on this journey, you discovered something huge that really influenced all of your work since about keeping habits. Yes.
And this is my framework that I call the four tendencies. And this is a framework that divides everybody in the world into four categories. They say there are two kinds of people in the world, the kind of people who like to divide the world into two categories and the kind of people who don't, and I'm the kind of people who does.
So this divides people into upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. So I'll give a brief overview of it. And a lot of times people know exactly who they are right away. But you can take the quiz. Just go to Gretchen Rubin dot com slash quiz. It's quick. It's free. It gives you a report. It tells you what you are and how to think about whether you're in a folder or a question or a blazer rebel, like three and a half million people have taken that quiz.
But just to give a brief overview, what it looks at is a very narrow aspect of our nature, but something that's very important, which is how we respond to expectations.
What kind of expectations? Yeah, yeah. So we all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations like a work deadline and then inner expectations like my own desire to keep an ears resolution or get back into meditation. So depending on whether we meet or resist, outer and inner expectations, that's what makes us an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel.
So, upholders are people who readily meet both outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline, they keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. So, they do really well with a calendar, a to-do list. They don't need a lot of supervision or accountability. They're very focused on execution. They can be kind of rigid, because once they have an idea in their head, they want to just get it done.
So their motto is discipline is my freedom.
Then there are questioners. I'm married to a questioner. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they're making everything an inner expectation. If it meets their inner expectation, they will do it no problem. If it fails their inner expectation, they'll push back. They're very focused on reasons, justifications. They always need to know why. They tend to love to customize. They tend to love to track. They love research.
So they really, really want to have their questions answered. So their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why. Then there are obligers. This is the biggest tendency for both men and women. If you are an obliger, you're in big company and obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So these are people who say,
Why do I keep my promises to other people? But I can't keep my promises to myself. Why is it that I can make other people the priority? But I can't make myself the priority. Why do I struggle to make time for self-care? What obligers need is they need outer accountability even to meet an inner expectation. So if an obliger wants to read more, they might join a book group that really expects you to read the book. Or there's a million ways to create outer accountability once you realize that that is what you need.
Obligers make great leaders, great team members, great friends, great family members, because these are the people who are the most likely to go the extra mile. They're the ones that get frustrated with their tendency because they're like, why can't I keep my promises to myself? And so they need that outer accountability. So their motto is, you can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me. And Gretchen, what about the last category, rebels?
Okay, so Rebel is the smallest category. Obliger is the biggest, is the one that has the most people in it. Rebel has the smallest. Rebels resist outer and inner expectations alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they choose to do that they want to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist.
They are very focused on their identity. They want to put their values out into the world. They can be unstoppable if there's something that they want or some value that they want to uphold. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they are very likely to push back. And this is true even for things that they tell themselves what to do. So they typically won't sign up for a class, say, on Saturday because they think, well, I don't know what I'm going to feel like doing on Saturday and just the idea that I'm supposed to show up is going to annoy me.
So their motto is, you can't make me and neither can I. So the thing about the tendencies is once you know your tendencies, this gives you a huge amount of guidance about how to set up your habit for success. So it's really important that you figure out your tendency. And again, you could just take it for free at Gretchen Rubin dot com slash quiz, because once you know your tendency, it's much clearer what you need to build around a habit so that you can successfully stick to it over the long term.
So, Gretz, you're an upholder, which means discipline comes naturally for you, which, of course, I've known about you for many years long before you ever even realized these categories existed. So many things became clear when they came up with these sentences. So it's like, now everything in the world makes sense. But for other people, especially obligers, and I am an obliger, so I can attest to this, we need structures of accountability. Yes.
Now, the thing about accountability is it can be useful for many tendencies, but it is necessary for obligers. And Elizabeth, you've seen this where I remember when you were doing your trying to walk 10,000 steps.
You had an accountability partner were midway through the day. You would text like, I'm at 5,000 or whatever. And so you knew that somebody was kind of keeping an eye on whether you were hitting that 10,000 number that you were committing to. And that accountability partner was really helpful in helping you stick to it.
Yes. And then that person would also tell me her steps. Yes. And that also added to the accountability because if she would chime in, I would go, I've got to get to my steps now. Right. Yes. So the partnership really made a difference. Yeah. So one of the things that you need to figure out is you're setting yourself up for the new year is what is your tendency? Because that's going to help you figure out how to build a structure around what you're doing.
So you can stick to it. But you also need to know like, well, what is the habit or the one, two or three habits that I really, really want to follow?
So then once you figure out your Tennessee, you have to say, okay, what do I want from life anyway? What habits should I work on? Yes. So of course, when you're trying to figure out what habits to pursue and what's the best way to pursue them, it's very helpful to know your tendency, because if you know if you're in a poll or a question or a pledge or a rubble, that's going to give you a lot of insight about how to set yourself up for success. But of course, you also need to figure out like, well, what will those habits be? What are the habits, the one or the two or the three habits that I might pursue?
that are going to do the most to make me happier, healthier, more productive, more creative. I think for some people, they know it perfectly well. This might be a habit that they have really wanted to achieve for a long time. Maybe they've become discouraged because it's been hard.
Maybe it's something new that they've identified. But I went ahead and created my habits for happiness quiz because this is a question that people so often ask, which is, where should I begin? Not just where should one begin in theory, but where should I personally? Elizabeth or I Gretchen begin, what's the thing that would work the most for me? And that's the habits for happiness quiz, which everybody can take at Gretchen Rubin dot com slash quiz. And that will help you figure out what is that habit.
Yeah, and it works incredibly well. I can say as someone who took the quiz, I found it super helpful. Yeah. It's almost uncanny, I think, that in so few questions, you really get to an answer that people are like, wow, this really gets me. This is really what I want. But then, so once you know your tendency, so that's really important to know,
Then you know okay what are the habits that i want to work on the one or two or three crucial key habits that i want to focus on. Then it's about choosing the strategies that work for you and some strategies work really well for just about everybody and then some strategies are very specific and work really well for some people and not for others like we were talking about accountability accountability being absolutely essential.
strategy for obligers but maybe actually not that useful or perhaps even counterproductive for rebels because they don't like the feeling of somebody looking over their shoulder. So a rebel would think about accountability in a very different way. And so that's one where you would really want to know what is my tendency because you would think about the strategy of accountability very differently knowing your tendency.
And what's an example of a strategy that works for pretty much everybody? Oh, well, one of them. And listen, I know you love this one. And so do I, which is pairing. So the strategy of pairing is that you only do one thing when you're doing something else. So it's not that one is a reward.
it's just that they only go together. So you pick something that you really need to do or want yourself to do and then do one thing that you don't particularly want to do and then they just always go together. So for instance, if you are having trouble taking prescription medication, you might put your medicine bottle right by your coffee pot and say,
I can only have my first cup of coffee in the morning after I've taken my medication. It's not like you're rewarding yourself for taking the medication by having the cup of coffee. It's just like, if you want that cup of coffee, you have to have the medication. And listen, I know you've used pairing a lot of ways. What are some of the ways you've done it?
Well, a big one is I will say I can only watch my real housewives shows if I'm on the treadmill. Yeah. So putting those two together definitely upped my treadmill use by quite a bit. Yeah, we've heard from a lot of people who will say that they have a favorite podcast, but they'll only listen to that podcast while they're like out for their daily walk because that makes you want to do it. And it keeps you going, I'm a Marine College. I could only take a shower on a day that I exercised.
And I wanted to take that shower. Another strategy that people might think about. And this is a really interesting one. It took me a while to see how important it was. And that is the strategy of identity. So our habits reflect our identity. So if you struggle to change a particular habit, sometimes we have to rethink our identity. Because every identity has habits that go with it. So identities might be things like athlete, artist, environmentalist, reliable parent, strong leader.
But sometimes an identity can conflict with a habit. For instance, I know somebody who really identified with the idea of themselves as a workaholic. Like they really took pride in the idea, I'm a workaholic. But then at a certain point, it was sort of like, wow, this is not working for me. I really want to end my day at a regular time and make time for leisure and seeing friends and everything.
She really had to work on that workaholic identity because she couldn't change the habits of work until she really tackled the idea of changing that underlying identity. And I will say this is a particularly useful strategy for rebels because identity is such a high value for rebels. Often a rebel can change their habits by really focusing on the identity.
And of course, scratch a strategy that works for a lot of people is scheduling. Oh, yeah. So now this is one that often for rebels does not work because they may feel trapped by their calendar. For some rebels, they use it for some they don't. But for most other people, having something on the calendar just makes it much more likely that it happens and habits grow strongest and fastest when they're repeated in predictable ways.
And for most of us putting an activity on the schedule tends to really help us consistently do it. It also means that we protect that time from interference because if it's on the calendar, like, oh, this is when I go for my daily walk, then you're not thinking, oh, that's free time for me to do anything else. Because it's like, oh, no, that's the time I'm supposed to be walking. This for me is one of the most powerful strategies Elizabeth. I mean, when I was doing my 24 for 24 list, you heard me say,
I didn't stick to water coloring and part of the reason was that I didn't put it into my calendar, and so it just fell away.
Yes, putting it on the schedule is essential. But there are 21 strategies all together. That's just a few of them, but they're all super valuable and very powerful. And we all have our own mixture of the ones that work best for us. And I love thinking about all of them. Now, if you are joining us for the Habits for Happiness course, but you're not sure what habit or habits you want to pursue,
You do want to begin by taking the four tendencies quiz and the habits for happiness quiz. That's just going to give you a lot of information about how to proceed to make 2025 a happier, healthier, more productive, more creative year. Coming up, we'll jump into some listener calling questions.
Okay Gretchen, this first question is from ready to begin again and this is a habit so many people want to keep.
Hi, Gretchen. I have a question about starting again with a habit that I failed to keep for years. For the past handful of years, I've tried to start a journaling habit each January, and I do pretty well for the first few months. I have a lot of motivation initially, but over time I give up or just forget about it. I've tried writing in the morning, in the evening, even keeping a notebook right next to my bed, but I always lose steam by March. Now I have a stack of notebooks that are only 10% filled.
I really feel like journaling would make me happier. I have young kids and I want to remember this chaotic time of life and what my kids are like at this age. And I want to have a record of what I'm grateful for in this season.
I don't even need to write long entries or write every day. I just want to keep up the habit throughout the whole year. So my question is, if I've tried and failed so many times, is it possible to set up the habit in such a way that I actually follow through this year? Sincerely, ready to begin again, again. So journaling Gretchen, so many people really want to journal daily.
Yeah, this is something that's very common. A lot of people have this itch to keep in journal, but then it's hard to maintain it as we know. So the first thing is figure out your tendency because that's going to be really useful to know because how you set it up, it's going to depend a lot on whether you're in a poll or a question or a pledge or a rebel.
If you're an obliger, you're going to need to build an accountability. Again, there's lots of ways to create accountability once you know that that's what you need. Another thing to think about is plan for failure. Like, what's going to get in your way? What can you anticipate might go wrong? And this is called if then planning. Like, if I'm traveling, then I will do what with my journal.
or if I have a busy morning and evening, then I will bring my journal with me so I can jot something down while I'm on the go. You wanna anticipate the stumbling blocks that you know might be presented to you and figure out what you will do to deal with them.
Another thing is to lower the bar, make it easier. And I think sometimes people have, I mean, I certainly know this. You have sort of this vision of writing for 30 minutes or writing down pages and pages. But you know, the one sentence a day, I have a journal, a one sentence a day journal. And so many people say, that's all you need. You really can hang on to memories. You can really track. You can really get that journaling urge satisfied.
by just doing one sentence a day. And since it's convenient and it's really manageable, we're much more likely to do it. You can track yourself. Elizabeth, I know you're a huge streak person. You love to keep a streak. So use some kind of habit tracker so you don't forget about the habit and you see yourself having these streaks. And you might even give yourself some kind of gold star each week or month that you keep the habit to really reinforce the idea of how good you feel when you keep that streak. But here's the thing that's also true.
is don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't get so focused on the streak that you feel terrible if you have to break the streak. If we do something most days, that's really, really good. And so don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't give up if you miss a few days here and there. You really do want to try to keep consistent because that's the best way to form a habit. But at the same time, you don't want to be too hard on yourself if something interferes.
Yeah, I often struggle with the forgetting, like she mentioned. And so one thing I'm going to do this year with my 25 for 25 list is make a photo of it my screen saver on my phone. Then I know that I'll see it all the time. So I would suggest maybe doing something similar like journaling just the word or a picture of the journal as a screen saver.
Yeah, it's funny. Something can be really, really important to you. And you might even really enjoy it. And then you forget to do it for a month. This is just baffling. But you and I have both experienced this. Yes, we have. Okay, Gretchen, our next question is from someone who maybe needs to be more concrete.
Hi Gretchen, this year I want to spend less time on social media. Right now I find myself turning to my phone whenever I'm bored or need a break. I feel like scrolling is taking up too much headspace and time in my life. How do I make a habit of spending less time on my phone?
Okay, I would say that this is a classic example of having an aim that is a very laudable aim and is really likely to make the person happier, healthier, more productive, more creative, but it's a very vague aim. And because it's not articulated in a way that's concrete and trackable,
It's hard to know on any particular day, have you kept that habit? How do you know if you're on track? So I would say you would really want to reframe your aim into a habit that is trackable, concrete, achievable, and specific. So some examples might be limit time on social media platforms to 20 minutes per day. Delete apps for my phone and only look during my lunch break from my desktop browser.
Set a timer on my phone for 20 minutes and only look at it for 20 minutes. And then each day that I keep the habit, I'll check off the day on my habit tracker. And so that way you're very specific about your asking for yourself and you know at the end of the day, did I keep my habit or did I not keep my habit? You'll really, really know.
And Gretchen, also you can ask yourself, how will you know if you've achieved your aim? Like, what is less time? Right. That's why it's so much more helpful to say, like, what is the amount of time? Is it 20 minutes? Is it an hour? I mean, you're the adult. You get to make the rules. You can say to yourself, I want to have three hours. You can set it up whatever way you want, but you want to have an actual measurement where you can say, this much and no more is what I'm wanting.
Another thing, this is kind of a no-yourself, better question, but some people prefer to say yes to themselves, and some people are fine saying no to themselves. I know you like to say yes to yourself, whereas I'm kind of a person who likes to say no to myself. I don't know what that means about us. I think it means you're probably more fun. But so one person might say, don't spend more than 20 minutes per day on Instagram. So that's like no. But another person might say, read a novel before bed for 20 minutes.
at a time when I'd normally be tempted to scroll. So one is what you're not doing, but then one is like what you're saying yes to. And so sometimes by framing it in a different way, you can make a habit more appealing. Yes, that was a huge discovery about myself. And you were first diving into the whole habits world, Gretchen, I realized I need to make something a positive. Yes. We talk so much about reframing because it's funny how sometimes just by simply reframing something, it makes it much more
Engaging or much more off-putting, just depending on how it's framed. Another thing to say is, what are the tools you need? If you know that you need accountability, are you going to get accountability? If you know you love tracking, like questioners often love tracking, are you going to have a habit tracker journal? Are you going to use the Happier app in your phone or a different app?
What are the tools that you need to keep you on track? And here's another thing. This is smart fun. So if you are trying to do less social media, another thing to think about is what are some things that you can do to replace it? So if you find that one of the reasons that you social media, sometimes you need to give yourself like a little fun break.
just like a little something to do, but you feel like, oh, this is kind of a waste of my time. Maybe you could start doing something that you feel like is a healthier use of that time, that you still get that break, but maybe you feel better about like maybe you're doing a crossword puzzle or wordle or you're reading a few pages or you're going to go outside and have a cup of coffee outside or stretch while you listen to a favorite song. Think about the way that you're using your habit now that's not working for you and think about, okay, well, is there a better way to get the benefit
of it. Yeah, Sarah actually put a list of things she wants to do next to her at her desk so that when she wants to scroll, instead, she looks at her list and does something else. See, that's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Because what are you going to do with this time that you is going to make you happier, but you need to make that extra step of doing the substitution. Yeah.
Okay, Gretchen, our next question is from tired of snoozing, who, like so many of us, wants to get up earlier in the morning. Hi, Gretchen. So I need help finding strategies for waking up earlier. My wife gets up at 6 a.m. every morning. She doesn't even hit snooze when her alarm goes off. And I have other friends who have no problem being out of bed before the sun rises.
While I would love to wake up early to get things done in the morning, it's an effort for me just to get out of bed by 7.30. To make things more complicated, I got a new job that requires me to be in the office by 9 a.m. That doesn't sound too bad, but it's still a huge shift for my remote job, which allowed me to ease into the workday. Now I have to get dressed, eat breakfast, pack a lunch, and be on the road by 8.30 a.m.
Do you have any tips for helping me form the habit of waking up earlier? Sincerely, tired of snoozing. Well, the first thing I would say is don't compare yourself to somebody else and be like, oh, well, my wife gets up so easily. I should be able to get up so easily because people are different. And this is very true when it comes to what's called chronotype. So about 30% of people are night people.
And about 40% of people are mourning people and then everybody else is somewhere in the middle. It's largely a function of genetics and age. And so instead of feeling bad about yourself because something comes easily to your wife that you wish came easily to yourself, just say, well, we're different.
And I wish that this is easy for me to get up early since I have to get up before I want to. But that's not a reflection on something that's wrong with me. It's just the way I'm constituted. And so knowing that your energy peaks later, that you're probably your most energetic and creative and productive later in the day,
Anything that you can, you want to put later in the day. But since you have to get up, one piece of obvious advice, and it's sort of a cliche because it really is true, is do all the things that you can so that you can sleep as late as possible.
and get ready as quickly as possible. So can you figure out what you're going to wear? Can you pack your bag? If you take your lunch, can you have your lunch ready so that you can stay in bed as late as possible since that's where you really want to be and hit the road as quickly as possible with at least amount of running around and figuring things out and getting yourself organized as you can in the morning since you're probably kind of foggy if you're a night person.
One thing I know works for a lot of people, Gretchen, is putting a coffee pot in their room. So because a lot of you, like, don't want to get out of bed because it feels like such an effort to go make the coffee. But if it's in your room, it can be easier to get up and make the coffee.
I love the hat. I love that. It's like the people who sleep in their gym clothes because they're like, I just want to roll out and go to the gym. It's like, whatever you need. Yes. It's fine. I love it. I love it. And the other thing I would say is keep a tracker of when you go to sleep because I think that people are, and I say this from my own experience, even though I am a sleep zealot,
It's easier to think that you go to sleep earlier and more consistently than you do, especially probably if you're a night person. And so maybe you're not getting these cues that you're just agonizingly sleepy. And so you're crawling into bed, really pay attention and track what time you're going to bed. You might set an alarm.
to remind you, oh, it's my bedtime, just like you have an alarm to wake up. You have an alarm that's like, okay, now it's time to go to bed. Or you set a snooze alarm being like, now I need to start getting ready for bed because you may be getting less sleep than you think. And that might be also part of what's making it hard to get up in the morning. Most adults need at least seven hours of sleep a night. And people often think that they need less than they do.
So using a tracker can be very useful in just making sure that you're on top of what your actual sleep habits are.
Yeah, and you mentioned setting the snooze alarm for going to bed. I find that very helpful. Yeah. I like to get ready for bed well before I actually mean to turn off the light because then when I'm tired, I can just go to sleep because I was finding that I was staying up late because I was too tired to take out my contact lenses and wash my face. And that was not a good result. So get ready early. All right, Gretchen, well, you and I love walking, but not everybody does.
Hey Gretchen, so this year I want to go for a daily walk. I know this would be good for my mental health, for my physical health. I've heard you endless talk about the benefits of walking. I even tried to participate in your walk 20 and 20 challenge, but give it up pretty quickly.
The thing is, walking seems like such an easy form of daily movement because I just need to get out the front door and I don't need any new equipment. And I have so many friends who swear by their daily walks, but I guess the thing is, I just don't really like walking.
I get very bored even when I listen to a podcast or music and the time just kind of feels pointless to me. I don't know, any tips on just getting started?
This is a really good example of identify the problem if there's a habit that you're having trouble keeping because you want to say, well, what is the problem that is keeping me from embracing this habit? So here, the person seems to have this idea that walking is something that a person should do. Like everybody likes it. I should like it, but maybe you just don't like walking.
And that's okay, because what you really want to do is you want to have more movement in your life. You want to get all the benefits that comes from movement. And for many people, yes, it's easier to do with walking. But you could watch a yoga class on YouTube. You could ride a bike to work. You could put on music and dance. You could dance with your kids.
Maybe you do want to buy some equipment. Maybe you can get a used rowing machine, and that would be something that you would enjoy much more. Because sometimes people don't like to be out in the weather. And it's not that they don't like the walking. It's just like, oh, I don't like being exposed to weather. So they need to find something that they can do indoors. So then maybe you can get a treadmill. But it's this idea of identifying the problem. What is it that is keeping you from it?
For a lot of people who find it boring, they do enjoy listening to a podcast or an audiobook, but this person says that they don't really like that. But maybe there are places where it would be more interesting, like going for walks in new neighborhoods or going on new hikes so that it's not just the same old routine. Maybe go with friends. If you could find a friend who wanted to do it, then you'd have conversation. And then, Elizabeth, I mean, for you and me both, going on a walk when you're talking to somebody, it's a completely different experience.
Maybe you could find somebody who would like to do it with you. So identify the problem. What is it about the walking that's not working and try to fix that instead of just saying, I should be able to go on a 20-minute walk exactly like everybody else? Right. What you want to do is move. Yes. What do you want to do to move? It doesn't have to be a walk. I have a friend who, the way she gets her exercise is she dances to pop music for a half an hour every night at midnight.
And that's what worked for her. That would absolutely not work for me. But she didn't want to take a walk around the neighborhood every day, but that's what she liked to do. And so, again, identify the problem and figure out how can you achieve a name in the way that is right for you. Okay, Gretchen, our next question is from someone who wants to continue her new habit of not drinking. Hi, Gretchen.
A few months ago, I decided to give up alcohol. I still drink very occasionally, like at weddings or other special events, but I no longer drink routinely or socially. I felt so many physical, mental, and emotional benefits since cutting out alcohol. And for the most part, these changes make it pretty easy for me to stick with my commitment. Well, at least when I'm alone. The hard part is,
I feel like I'm swimming upstream socially. Everyone I'm surrounded with still drinks. My roommates, my colleagues, my friends, which is always alcohol present in social and professional settings. I'm an obliger and I can feel like letting people down when I refuse a glass of wine when they offered a dinner or beer when everyone else is having one after work.
I find myself thinking, just one drink isn't going to make a difference, but then I end up disappointed at myself after the fact. Do you have any tests for sticking with my commitment from the face of social pressure?
So this is a really interesting conundrum. I think a lot of people have experienced this or something like this. And what is happening is that the strategy of other people is making this tougher. So the strategy of other people holds that we pick up habits from other people. If one person in a couple is really good about going to the doctor regularly, the other person is much more likely to go to the doctor regularly. If one person quit smoking, the other person is much more likely to quit smoking. We pick up good and bad habits from each other.
So one of the things we want to do is we want to associate with people who follow the habits we want to adopt. And here you're spending a lot of time with people who are following habits that are different from the habits that you want to follow yourself. So one thing is you can associate with people who follow the habits that you want to adopt. This can even be sometimes in your imagination. Like if you want to do a lot of yoga, you might read yoga blogs or sign up for a yoga newsletter because then you're sort of putting yourself in the company if people have a habit.
Another thing that you might do is think about the strategy of convenience, which is you want to make it easy to do the things that you want to do and harder to do the things that you don't want to do. So for instance, if you're meeting friends, maybe you meet them for brunch. Some people might have a mimosa of brunch or something, but it's a meal where it would be much more likely that a person would not have an alcoholic drink.
And so that might make it easier. Or if you show up at a bar restaurant, you might order a drink that's non-alcoholic right away so that when somebody walks up to you or you're at a party, it's like, oh, I already have a drink. Thanks. And so no one's saying like, oh, you should partake.
And it's also helpful to remember that people just may not be paying as much attention as you think. There's something called the spotlight effect, which is that we tend to think that people are paying more attention to us than they are. And they've got their own spotlight effect. So they're paying attention to themselves to a very great degree. So that also can be helpful to remember if you're feeling self-conscious.
Yes. I know a lot of people find it helpful to just say, oh, I'm not drinking right now. Yeah. And leave it at that. Yeah. And nobody really cares. Right. Or even just like not right this minute, maybe later. Yeah. And it's so good that she's thinking about this in advance and having the strategies to keep the habit in place because then it will stay in place. Yeah.
So this is so interesting. Thank you everybody for sending in the questions. I love these calling questions. And you know, it's really helpful because I think we can all learn from each other. And sometimes even when the habit that you particularly want to follow is different, you still can think like, Oh, well, that strategy would work for me or that is an approach that could apply to my situation. You know, like not everyone wants to keep a journal, but you know, for just about any habit, making it easy and convenient to keep it is going to help.
So there's still a lot of lessons to be learned even if the specifics are different. And soon we will send out an email to the course participants with instructions for how you submit your questions to me. And then I'll be answering them in each month's Colin episode. I'm really looking forward to it. Yes.
We hope you're feeling more happier after this episode. We had so much fun taking calls from participants and answering questions together. If you want to get your habits on track of the new year, visit happiercast.com slash habits course and sign up today. Thank you to Chuck.
Get in touch, Gretchen's on threads, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram at Gretchen Rubin, and I'm on threads in Instagram at LizCraft. Our email address is podcast at Gretchen Rubin.com. And for everything related to this episode, links, photos, and more go to happiercast.com. Bye, Gretchen. Bye, Elizabeth. The best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
