I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time.
Taking time to be more fully present.
Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now.
On the surface Gretchen Rubin had an enviable life.
Married to the love of her life and the mother of two daughters, Gretchen lived and worked in her favorite city, New York.
She was a graduate of Yale and Yale Law School and once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O 'Connor.
Gretchen knew she was blessed.
Why then, she asked herself, wasn't she happier?
Gretchen's personal quest to bring a deeper sense of happiness to her life inspired millions to create happiness projects of their own.
I'm talking with New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin about how we can bring ourselves a deep, lasting joy.
I am so excited to have, I'm happy.
I am not just excited, I am happy.
Excellent. To have you here.
And I'm very happy to be here.
Well, thank you because you are the founder of The Happiness Project, which is a perfect name for this book and a perfect name for what you did.
And I'm excited for and happy for the information I know you're going to offer people today.
So people are going to now want to do their own happiness project.
When I finished, I wanted to do my own happiness project because we have the power in our lives right now to be happier than we are.
Absolutely. And what I'm hoping happens today is after our conversation that people actually stop and think about your life because you're so in the doing, doing, doing, doing, doing of it.
So I'm going to start where you started in the book.
I love this moment.
Paint the picture for us where you're on the bus and you're looking through the window and you see a woman with the umbrella and you describe it.
So I was stuck in a city bus in the pouring rain and I didn't have anything to distract myself with.
So often you're just lost in something.
And so I looked out the window and there was a woman with a stroller and a cell phone and a umbrella, you know, kind of frantically trying to cross the street.
And I looked at her and I thought, well, you know, that's me.
That's my life. I'm just doing a million things all at once, barely paying attention as I'm crossing the street.
And as I was sitting there on the bus, I had one of those rare opportunities for reflection when you really step back and think about your life.
And I thought, what do I want from life anyway?
And I thought, well, I want to be happy.
But I realized I didn't spend any time thinking about whether I was happy or how I could be happier because I was so busy managing the stroller, the cell phone, the umbrella.
I wasn't taking the time to think about what was missing, what I could add, how I could really be happier.
And I thought I should have a happiness project.
And it came to me like that.
Wow. You know, what I love about that moment is because everybody has had that moment.
Yes. So the idea that comes across over and over again in The Happiness Project is you weren't unhappy.
Yeah. You weren't unhappy.
No. I was I was perfect.
I was pretty happy.
I had all the elements of a happy life.
And that was one of the key things I wanted to work on on The Happiness Project was I felt like I'm taking this for granted.
I have all everything I need already.
And yet I'm not paying attention.
I'm getting distracted by, like, minor annoyances and grievances.
And I'm not I don't appreciate my ordinary day.
I'm not thankful enough for it.
I'm not I'm not paying enough attention to what's happening to me right here right now.
Like, my ordinary day is so precious.
And yet I wasn't paying any attention to it.
And so, you know, over the years, many, many times on The Oprah Show and almost every day after the show, I spent 40 minutes to an hour with the audience who'd come from all over the country.
And I would always start out by asking this question about what makes you happy or what do you really want in your life.
And everybody would always say, I want to be happy.
And then when I would say, What does that look like, people couldn't answer the question.
Did you know the answer to that question?
No. But I mean, that's the absolutely key thing, because if you don't pay attention to it, you don't see the opportunities.
I mean, what I found for myself is when I really sat down and thought, what would it look like if my life were happier?
How if I could eliminate guilt, boredom, resentment, anger, if I could have more fun, more engagement, more friends, more love, more tenderness, like how would I go about it?
But what was really important was to realize to translate it into specific actions.
Because you're right.
When you just have sort of a free floating idea like, I really want to be less stressed out.
Well, how do you make that happen?
It's like it's not concrete enough.
I think part of it is I have a very concrete mind.
I need specific things to work on.
And so when you think about your question, what would a happy life look like, you sort of have to really sit down and think it through.
Like, what's the stuff that you could do?
And that's what the happiness project is.
Exactly. So you started out with a few simple rules.
Your own commandments.
OK, I love this. Be Gretchen.
Yes. That's the most important one by far.
But everybody has to substitute their own name.
OK, good. Yeah, you can't be Gretchen.
Yeah. But it's this idea that and it's mysterious because you think, well, the easiest thing in the world is to be yourself.
You just hang out with yourself all day.
Yeah. But really, like in the more I thought about this more, I realized like it's the great challenge of our lives.
It's as people are living their life for their other people, for their friends, for their spouses, for their mother, for the other women at school, the way they wish they were a fantasy.
And I realize like this, the first thing, the only way you can build a happy life is, you know, from a foundation of my own nature, my own values, my own interests.
But what we're like, but there was a lot of ways that I was sort of pretending to be different from the way I was like music.
Like, I wish I loved music.
Other people love music.
I get why people love music.
I don't really love music so much.
And I had this fantasy that I could make myself love music and then I'd be a better person.
And if I only studied harder.
But then when I gave up the fantasy of this other Gretchen who loved music, then I have more time for the things that I love.
What really is your life?
I said this big Gretchen ended up really being almost like it almost covers everything.
Yeah. But isn't that the number one spiritual law, to be yourself, to thine own self be true?
I mean, isn't that really?
And every, every tradition, tradition, religion, spiritual practice, and yet.
And it seems like it would be so obvious and clear.
And yet it's just it's the constant challenge.
OK, I love this. OK, First Commandment, be Gretchen.
Substitute your own name.
Let it go. Let what go?
Anger, resentment, grudges, like, don't get worked up about the minor.
Act the way I want to feel.
So this is interesting.
Psychological research shows that people think, we think that we act because of the way we feel.
I'm throwing things because I'm angry.
But to a very great extent, we feel because of the way we act.
So if I feel resentful, but I act kind, I'm going to feel more kindly.
And so it's very hard for us to directly affect our emotions.
It's really tricky to control your emotional state, but you can control behavior.
And so if we act the way we want to feel, then we're going to feel the way we want to feel.
Be polite and be fair.
I had a boss who said I was getting a promotion and I was worried about whether I was going to be able to do a good job.
And she said very sternly, be polite and be fair.
You'll be fine. And I was like, that basically covers everything.
And it really does.
It does. It really does.
OK. Enjoy the process.
Oh, this is my father's mantra.
If you enjoy the process, then you can let go of outcomes.
Everything doesn't have to work out your way if you enjoy the process.
OK. No calculation.
What does that mean?
Well, this comes from my spiritual master, St.
Therese. And she said, when one loves, one does not calculate.
And I'm kind of a bean counter.
Like I did this for you.
So now you should do this for me, like especially in marriage, like keeping score.
Yeah, score keeping is not the loving way.
So just let it like just do it about doing a thing.
And then wanting your husband, Jamie, to say, wow, wasn't that wonderful that you did that?
Exactly. Like since you did this, like you had your turn now, I have my turn.
But no calculation is like no keeping score, no keeping score.
So how have you eliminated that keeping score for yourself?
I haven't done it 100 percent.
Yes. But just the reminder.
I mean, one of the things I like about the personal commandments is because they're very short.
I can kind of keep them in mind all the time.
And when I catch myself in that cycle of score keeping, I'll say to myself, no calculation, no calculation.
That's not what I want for myself.
You know, I want to expect myself to behave better.
And there is only love.
Oh, a friend of mine went to work for a very difficult boss and she just realized she couldn't work for this guy if she like let him get under her skin.
So she said there's only love, there's only love.
And she would not allow herself to think like to go into a negative or gossip about him beyond his back or get worked up about him.
Because one of the things that you talk about is how damaging gossip is.
Yes. And we live in a gossip culture.
We do. You know why is is because everything is energetic and the energy of gossip that you're putting out is automatically already coming back to you.
And that energy out creates a negative space for yourself.
Wasn't that the truth?
Yes. And there's also this other thing that happens which is called spontaneous trait transfer, which is whatever you say about other people sort of sticks to you.
So if you say about someone like, oh, well, you know, she's such a loser, you're going to get associated with that term.
So you're hurting yourself in all kinds of ways.
So let's talk about why you started the project and what happened to you in that year.
Well, I started the project because I really wanted to work on all these things.
And I realized, you know, you think you could just do it, like just do it as you go along.
Because the idea was that you could make an extraordinary difference in your life by making small changes.
Yes. Because a lot of times people make have dramatic happiness projects like Elizabeth Gilbert's goes to foreign lands or Thoreau lives in a little hut in Walden.
Where people give up cell phones for a year.
And I love this kind of radical happiness projects.
And I got a big kick.
Didn't we all want to eat and pray and love some.
Yeah, absolutely. But most women, even Elizabeth Gilbert will say say, you know, my life doesn't allow for that.
And I have to say for me, that's not the kind of happiness project I want.
I wanted one in my ordinary day, just sort of the natural course of my life.
Yes. I can do this in my own kitchen.
So tell me how did you start.
Tell us how to start thinking about it.
I thought about my life and how I wanted to be Gretchen and what I needed to work on for me.
And then and I divide.
I found 12 areas and gave one to each month.
And then I thought of a few manageable concrete resolutions that I thought would help me achieve progress in that area.
Gretchen began by first identifying the parts of her life that brought her joy, satisfaction and engagement.
Second, she examined the source that brought on feelings of guilt, anger, boredom and remorse.
Her resolutions helped her move more mindfully through her day, celebrating small moments by being present and grateful as she experienced them.
So one of my themes was marriage.
So kiss in the morning, kiss at night.
That was like a little concrete thing that I could try to do or with my with that to try to have a better attitude.
One of my one of my themes was attitude.
Sing in the morning.
It turns out if you sing in the morning, it really starts.
It's like a nice way to start doing that.
Just because you said in the book.
And Wald, what did you think?
It literally changes your vibration.
It does. It changes your vibration.
It's lighthearted. It's it's energetic.
Yeah. So right. And so this little thing that takes no time, energy or money ends up making a difference.
It's a little shift.
That's what we're talking about, making little shifts.
Manageable things. Because happiness is your spiritual practice.
Absolutely. And it's right to use the word practice because it's practice and that it's over and over and over and all these things, you know, a lot of the things I've worked on keeping my temper.
I have to work on that all the time.
Which is so interesting that you have to work at being happy.
People, you know what?
We live in a country where we believe that it's our birthright and people think that they're automatically supposed to have it.
What I really appreciated about the book was that you see that it's about developing a muscle for yourself.
And so when you organize month per month, did you stick to it all the time?
I really did. You know, I mean, I started in January and by December I was doing everything.
My last month was trying to be perfect on every front, which I did not do.
But but what I found is, you know, people often said like, well, but then there was so many things to be working on.
But almost all of them made me happier.
And so it didn't feel like a lot of extra work.
I love how you stayed in the book and I want everybody to think about what would be your own happiness project that everybody's happiness project would be different.
Yes. And so what you explore in a year's time in the book and you set up a year so somebody else could set up six weeks, three months, whatever it is for you to determine what would make you happier.
But everybody's is individual.
Yes. That's why it's a happiness project.
And it's not I can't follow yours and you couldn't follow mine.
No, because one person's happiness, like one person's interests and values and temperament and situation would be so different.
You can't you couldn't just copy it.
Part of what's fun and creative about it is figuring out what would it be for you.
And also you came up with your own idea of your secrets of adulthood, which most of them I actually all of them I agree with.
People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think.
Right. We all feel like it's the spotlight effect.
We all feel like everyone's paying attention to us, but they're paying attention to a lot of other things.
And so you can just remember like people like if I screw up and like people aren't paying as much attention.
I know I remember in the early years of me becoming a, quote, known person.
Every time somebody would say something about me that wasn't true, I would get so upset.
I mean, can you imagine?
Yeah, it's incessant.
It's incessant. And it was Quincy Jones who said to me one time, this exact law of adulthood, because maybe if you knew how little people were thinking about you, you wouldn't even be upset.
So people don't notice your mistakes as much as you think.
It's very reassuring to realize, like you mess up, you make a mistake.
Other people aren't as focused on it.
OK, it's OK to ask for help.
This is so hard. I don't understand why I struggle with this so much because it's OK to ask for help.
And usually when you ask for help, you get help and things get easier when you ask for help.
It's OK to ask for help.
And happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
Explain that one. Well, you know, it seems that sometimes when we're doing things that make us happy, it doesn't make us feel happy.
I remember a man who told me about how he was like spending a lot of time at the bedside of his very sick father.
And his father was had been a terrible father.
So they didn't have a loving relationship.
It was no fun to go to the hospital.
And he was saying, I don't know why I'm doing this.
Like, I don't enjoy it.
I don't have a good relationship with it.
But it was like, but he was living up to his idea.
Doing the thing of what you're supposed to do.
Well, he wanted to be a good son.
And like in one way, it was making him happy because he was doing he was being a good son, even if his father had not been a good father.
And that's what he wanted to expect from himself.
So in a way, it made him happy.
Sometimes people act like happiness is always like going to send us skipping down the street.
It doesn't always work out that way.
So you have to remember, well, sometimes it doesn't.
When you're doing something new and challenging, it can be very like it can make you feel really bad and insecure and defensive.
But then in the end, you're glad you did it.
So what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
This is very comforting with especially getting into habits.
Yes. Like if you're healthy most days, that day that you screw up, it's going to be OK.
Yeah. And so you wrote a book called happier at home.
I love happier at home.
If you're at home. Yes.
That's when I decided to go really deeply into the idea of home because it seemed to me it's one of the few universals.
Almost everybody has an idea of home tied to happiness.
And if you're not happy at home, it's hard to be happy.
Because one of the things you explored so much in that book is the idea of clearing clutter.
How clutter is directly connected to your experience of happiness and gratification.
To kind of an uncanny degree, because you'd say like, oh, the fact that you have a messy desk doesn't mean like it seems trivial in the context of a happy life.
And yet for most people, it seems that outer order contributes to inner calm and that if you make your bed in the morning, you're just going to feel calmer and more both calmer and more energetic all day long.
I don't. I mean, I couldn't I couldn't sleep in an unmade bed.
Even if the bed had been left unmade, I would have to make it before I got in it.
Yes. So you realized that you you're you're craving for simplicity was also bringing you a sense of happiness.
Yeah, I mean, and it's funny because I realized that some people have more of an affinity for simplicity and some for abundance.
And I realized from what I did that I have a I really love simplicity.
But that doesn't mean just throwing everything away.
It means really carefully calling through so that I have only the things that I I need that I use that I like the way you say we can be more engaged with our possessions is to get rid of all the junk.
But I have. But when I was looking at all the differences and how people form habits, one of the things I notice is some people just love to have a lot of abundance.
They like lots of choices.
They like collections.
They like a lot of visual stimulation.
And to me, that's like, oh, don't you want to get rid of all that?
Like my younger daughter has collections all over the place and I'm like, don't you want to get some clear surfaces?
But for her, each one is meaningful.
And so we have different senses of what we want.
But if you know what suits you, then you can create the environment that's right.
I just realized recently I'm based I'm living in California where all these years I've lived in in in Chicago and I was standing in my closet and I realized my closet no longer makes me happy.
Oh, I think a lot of people would back you up on that.
My closet doesn't make me happy because my closet no longer serves the way I live.
So it doesn't have anything to do with me.
But I keep holding on to these dresses or this.
This heavy coat, heavy coat, because I think, well, one day you never know.
I might be cold. Or I love this.
I love this. Yes. Spent too much on.
Yes. And so to be able to start now pulling out that closet and reorganizing that closet and only having things in the closet that I know.
Yes. Which I know you did.
Yes. Two for a year.
Just having the things in your immediate environment that bring you joy or make you happy.
Yes. That's a big, big thing.
And I think I think we overlook the kind of spiritual dimension of material objects.
If you don't love it, it has no spiritual value.
Yes. I mean, there are things you don't use, but you do love them anyway.
And so they have a place in your home because you just love them.
Yes. There was a moment, I recall in the book, where you were passing a shelf and there was your daughter's little macaroni drawing or something on that.
And just looking at that little macaroni drawing, I think it was macaroni.
Yes, macaroni and cotton balls.
Yes. Macaroni and cotton balls brought you a sense of pleasure and happiness.
So that's a prized object for you of value.
And it's funny because I think when you're in a place that's full of things like that, it's not like they're alive, but they kind of have like a benevolent presence.
It feels rich. But then when it's stuff that like things you've never used, you know, like that kitchen gadget that you've never used, it just kind of makes you feel guilty to, like just let it go.
And it will live a long and happy life with someone else who will treasure it.
And then you'll have more space on your shelves and more space in your conscience because the stuff kind of weighs us down.
Isn't it amazing how the happiness that you got from just cleaning out your closet, it's cleaning out a drawer.
And then people blog you about, I cleaned my medicine cabinet and I feel like a new human being.
No, a friend of mine said, oh, I finally cleaned out my fridge and now I know I can switch careers.
Really? Yeah. And so there's also you write about psychic clutter.
Yes. Oh, my gosh, the to -do list, the undone things, the projects, the unfinished projects.
One of the things I did to clear that psychic clutter is every week now I have an hour called Power Hour.
Where I do a bunch of tasks that I've been procrastinating maybe months, years, the light bulb, the shredder, get a new desk chair, figure out where I lost my passport, all that stuff that just keeps getting shoved down the list.
And so it's just clogging up my mind.
You know, I keep thinking, oh, I should do that.
Oh, I don't want to do that.
Oh, I'll do that tomorrow.
Power Hour, march through that list.
Eventually everything gets done.
And it's so interesting because one of the things you write about is the fact that, you know, there's so much research done on unhappiness and most of it does not include any kind of reference to how decluttering can change your life.
But yet popular culture is constantly talking about the problem of clutter and how to organize it.
And so it's not that we're not aware of it because people clearly feel it very much, but it isn't a subject of much research, which surprises me.
I think that there should be research on that.
But order creates serenity.
What do you think you really gained from the Happiness Project?
You know, it's funny because, you know, on the one hand, someone would say, Well, did you fundamentally change?
Well, I didn't fundamentally change.
I'm still Gretchen.
I'm still the same person I was.
But what I gained was that my experience of my life is different.
You know, I have less guilt and less anger and less boredom because I worked on it and I have more fun and more friends and more tenderness because I worked on it.
And and so I feel like although I'm the same, my experience of my life is so much richer.
And also, you know, one of the sad truths and you've talked about this is the only person that we can change as ourselves.
And that's very frustrating because do you think, well, I'd be so happy if other people behave properly.
Let me tell you what to do.
But what I found is that when I changed, then relationships changed.
And when I changed, the atmosphere around me changed.
And so you asked your husband at the end of the year, had he gotten happier or how he had been affected by it?
And initially, he said, no.
Right. Right. He said no.
But now he absolutely said, I mean, it's clear, it's completely all these things.
But he had changed in ways he didn't even know he was changed.
Absolutely. You're saying he was more willing to do things around the house without you even asking.
He now answers my emails, which doesn't sound like a big thing, but it represents major progress because, yes, it's like when I change.
When I was more when I stopped keeping score, he stopped keeping score.
And when I was more patient and thoughtful and lighthearted, he lightened up, too.
And so when I was behaving myself better and to living up to what I wanted to be more, then I think it helped the people around me kind of raise up to when you became better than before.
Yes. Yes. And you became better than before.
Better than before.
My motto. Yes. Better than before.
Not perfection. Yeah.
Better than before.
That's good enough.
Gretchen's life motto is also the subject of her latest book, Better Than Before, Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives.
She has fascinating insight on how our daily habits directly impact our happiness.
Makes sense to me. And how do we get to be better than before, Gretchen?
Well, one important tool in our toolbox, I would say, is habits.
That if we work on our habits, which is about 40 percent of everyday life, research shows, then we can really direct our lives in ways that are going to make us happier, healthier and more productive.
By mindfully choosing our habits, we harness the power of mindlessness as a sweeping force for serenity, energy and growth.
Yes, because, you know, habits are mindless in that they happen automatically.
But that's their strength.
You know, before I was a regular exerciser, I would just exhaust myself.
Today, tomorrow, should I go?
It's too cold. My foot hurts.
It's raining. And I would just exhaust myself debating.
But now that I just go, I mindfully made the choice to exercise.
So it just happens.
So when you decided to do Better Than Before, when you decided to step, take the happiness project to yet another level, did you sense that you had then reached a point where you could be consistently happy?
Could you be consistently happy?
You know, that's an interesting question because I didn't worry about that because I feel like I want to be as happy as I can be under the circumstances.
But I didn't expect myself to be consistently happy, like, all the time.
Did your base level happiness change because some people are just happier than us?
Tiggers and ewers. Yes.
Yes. Yeah. Like my friend, Gail, dear God in heaven, one of the happiest people I've ever known, consistently happy.
Right. Well, and about 50 % they think is genetically determined.
So that's just you just you're hardwired that way.
And then about 10 -20 % is lay circumstances.
So that's things like age and health and occupation.
And then the rest really is where our own thoughts and actions come in.
So you're right. We all have our like where we're set.
But then we can push ourselves up to the top of that range or push ourselves down to the bottom of that range on our conscious thoughts and actions.
So maybe one person's an ewer and one person's a ticker so their range would be different.
But we can all do the best with what we have because I think because you're right.
You're not going to put somebody in a completely different part of the.
That's right. So can did you change your baseline happiness level or did your baseline stay the same and just got enhanced?
I think my baseline stayed the same.
I think my range I took a test on a one to 10 scale and I was a seven.
Yeah. I think my range is like six to nine.
I'm not I'm not a 10 person but I think I'm a six time.
That's a good place to be.
And I think that instead of being around seven most of the time I'm around eight or nine most of the time now because of my conscious thoughts and actions because I've done so much to get rid of the things that dragged me down and to add the things that really lift me up.
So if somebody was going to attempt the idea of being better than before I know they should read the books first.
Fundamentally fundamentally what do you think is the shift that needs to happen.
I think when it comes to firming habits I mean it's just back to what we were talking about with happiness.
I think that the critical first step is to think about ourselves.
What is true for us.
Can we each be happier.
I think we can but I think what we would do to do that is different.
It's different. OK that's the thing.
And so you can't I can't say oh it worked for Oprah so it worked for me.
But wouldn't you say that there are some things that do work because constantly on Super Soul Sunday I'm reminded by everybody who sits in this chair in one form or another about the practice of mindfulness.
Yes I think being mindful in whatever you're doing which to me means being fully present being fully engaged being connected lifts your ability to be happy in any given situation.
That is absolutely true.
Now that's a general overall.
That's almost like who you are sort of the state of mind.
Are you engaged in whatever is happening.
Are you even experiencing the experience of what's happening.
And that's whether it's washing dishes or skipping through the grass right.
And it's interesting because I think habits have an unusual they're sort of in this funny place there because on the one hand you want to shape them mindfully.
But it is true that part of the power their power comes from the fact that you you're not making decisions you're not using self control.
So better than before you talk about this and you say that when we change our habits listen to me super solace we change our lives.
We can use decision making to choose the habits we want to form.
We can use willpower to get the habit start it.
I love that because there is a difference you know.
Then and this is the best part we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over.
We take our hands off the wheel of decision our foot off the gas of willpower and rely on the cruise control of habits.
That's the promise of habit.
And we all have our own habits have a habit of bathing I hope.
Or showering I hope brushing our teeth.
I hope and that's what happens when you make something a habit you take your foot off the gas of willpower so you don't need willpower to brush your teeth.
Right. You decide it's not agony because a lot of times people say to me well I really want to make more healthy choices in my day.
And I think we know you don't want to make a lot of healthy choices because every time you choose you can choose wrong.
You want to make a healthy choice and then stick to it.
So it's like I'm going to choose to bring my lunch to work every day.
Every morning I don't decide a new that's my habit.
I don't have to decide.
I don't have to use willpower because it's just it's done.
OK. And that's why you call it better than before mastering the habits of our everyday lives.
And so it first comes with a sense of as it does everything a sense of self self awareness about what would it take to make your life happier.
Tweet tweet. So I thought it was interesting how you mentioned that and this is I think for everybody who is has any level of awareness.
You're happier if the clothes aren't all over the floor in your bedroom.
You just are. You don't even know how much happier that makes you to walk into a room into your bedroom where the clothes are put away.
Yes. But you used to be the kind of person who would put the clothes away and then want your husband to say oh you put the clothes away.
Right. Yes. Now I'm a gold star junkie.
I constantly want praise and appreciation.
I saw myself in that story of yourself.
I thought oh geez so am I.
Oh yeah. You know what because nothing made me happier in the third grade than to get that gold star right.
Yeah. So satisfied.
Yeah. No. And but what I found is that when I would do something thinking like oh good this is going to get me a gold star especially for my husband.
And then I didn't get one.
I was if you didn't notice that you did it.
You didn't notice oh I cleaned up the kitchen.
He didn't say anything like what.
You didn't notice like I did this whole nice thing for him.
And so then I get angry and resentful and I realized that if I would just acknowledge that I love a gold star.
But I'm not going to expect them from him.
I'm not going to expect a standing ovation every time I do something giving up calculation.
That's giving it's all tied together.
Yes. Yeah. But then then it didn't matter how he reacted because I think this this desire for gold stars really gets you into this really negative balance with people where you're at least for me.
I was wanting to get something from them and angry when I didn't get it.
It was on my head. Are you happier now.
I am. I am. My experience of my life is a lot happier.
Everything I've done.
Why do you think we're all here Gretchen.
What are we all doing on the planet.
What's our purpose as human beings.
What are we all here doing.
I think our purpose is to accept ourselves and to expect more from ourselves to understand who we are and to expect ourselves to live up to that ideal better.
Leave better than we came.
Yes. Better than before.
Better than before.
Do you think that being happier made you a more soulful connected spiritual 100 percent.
I'm the least mindful person on the planet and really working on it like this really helped me connect to a more spiritual way of living.
It seems like also living a life that's that allows you to be better than before living a life where happiness and mindfulness is your is at the core of your center.
It would bring you to a greater sense of awareness and fulfillment and gratitude.
Like you would live in the space of gratitude.
No. Absolutely. I mean I think the sense of thankfulness appreciating the grandeur of everyday life just the ordinary day and really taking the time to take it in is absolutely crucial.
And then when you have that thankfulness also then so many other negative emotions get washed away like resentment and anger and you know grievances grudges because you're just so thankful for what you have.
It really puts it and it also it's better with a sense of humor.
It helps me keep my sense of humor because it helps me keep my sense of perspective.
And your advice to people who are stepping into this path into their own happiness project.
You know I mean from my observation it seems like sometimes people get discouraged they feel overwhelmed or they've struggled with things before and they haven't succeeded and so they feel concerned or drained.
But really from what I've done with myself and what I've seen from other people is that when you take the time if when we think about what's really true for ourselves and think about how to put that into practice in our everyday life.
There really are things that we can do to really make ourselves happier and healthier and more productive and have the life that we really feel like we were meant to have.
Well I thank you because you made me want to do my own happiness project.
Excellent. Yeah terrific.
And I'm already pretty happy.
Yeah. Yeah. But I'm going to up the ante.
There you go. I'm going to send you two emoji thumbs up.
Yeah. Excellent. Excellent.
Thank you. Thank you.
