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Hello and welcome to More Happier, a podcast where we get happier.
If you're already exhausted by New Year pressure, you are not alone.
I joined Kendra Adachi on the terrific Lazy Genius podcast for a conversation about that feeling.
Her whole philosophy is that being lazy in the areas that don't matter allows us to be a genius in the areas that do.
Especially useful to remember in January.
We started by talking about how perfectionism can stop our progress, just as we're trying to improve our lives, and what to do when we notice that starting to happen.
Here's the conversation.
Well, as we start, we both spent a lot of time thinking about how to make every day better without making every day perfect.
And there is a difference between the two.
I don't know about you.
It took me a long time and a lot of therapy to actually divorce the two words better and perfect.
How do you feel about the word perfect?
How do you feel about the word better?
What's your relationship with those two words?
Well, one of my favorite lines is from Voltaire, who said don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And that is definitely my approach, which is don't make yourself bonkers, striving for perfection, which I know is exactly what you think too.
That's the new Voltaire quote, don't make yourself bonkers.
Okay.
So good.
But one thing that was really clarifying to me is to realize that perfectionism isn't about standards.
It's about anxiety.
Because I think a lot of times when people feel perfectionist anxiety, they think well, I have to lower my standards, but I don't want to lower my standards.
Maybe even my standards feel like a key part of my identity.
So how do I deal with that?
But in fact...
Perfectionism is about the anxiety around it.
So it's not about lowering your standards.
It's about understanding what's making you feel anxious.
So for me, something that makes me feel a lot less anxious is to start very early.
I find that once I get started on something, I'll feel a lot less anxious about it.
And so...
That's just something that I've learned.
As a way to manage my own worries about a task is that helps me feel calmer.
And, as you mentioned, control.
I think a lot of this is about the feeling of control and wanting control.
Wanting to control things you can't control, wanting to control other people who you can't control.
Okay.
Tell me more about what you mean by starting early.
Do you mean like when you know you want to begin something, you don't procrastinate, you don't overthink, or do you literally mean early in the day?
What do you mean by starting early?
Oh, that's interesting.
I didn't think of that, but both those things are true.
I'm a real morning person and if something's really important and difficult, I will often save it to do first thing in the morning.
So I'll say, okay, I can't deal with that now.
I'll write it down, and then I'll do it first thing in the morning.
If there's a really tricky email I have to write or There's something really hard that I have to understand or a big question I have to face.
I'll save it for the morning because that's when I just know my own mental energy is fresher.
And also the world around me is quiet, so it feels like I can think more clearly.
And I know I'm a real morning person, but I have all these night owl friends who say well, I feel the same way about midnight.
It's quiet and everybody's tucked away and I can think.
And I'm like, okay, well, that's not going to work for me.
But then I also do start early where...
A lot of things just get harder the longer you wait to start them.
And I found that just by starting something I will make myself, even if that's just like making a to-do list, it makes me feel like okay, I'm underway.
And that makes me feel calmer about things.
I like that word.
I bet that underway.
I bet that's a word that would resonate with people who do want to.
They do want to make life feel a little easier, feel better, feel lighter, feel just more human and like we're in it, rather than surviving it.
In my own work and in my own personal life, I'm really trying to avoid the word survival.
I don't want to survive my life.
I really just would like to enjoy it.
But that word underway it feels like progress and you're on the path.
But underway doesn't necessarily give you the destination.
It's just like, we're moving.
This is good. good.
We're moving in a direction that matters.
And I think that's why, for me, whenever we're in January right now, whenever I would hit January or the beginning of the school year or anything, that's like a faux new beginning, a new transition.
Whatever this comes from my own being the oldest daughter in a Southern home and doing everything right and being a naturally wired perfectionist that so much of those new times feel like the betterment of me is in pursuit of a line that I really will never reach.
And so I have to work extra hard in order to get that.
And you're right, that's such an anxious pathway.
One of the things I really appreciate most about your work is just that you're like you have time for the things that are important to you.
But that means letting go of things that aren't totally.
And that means making decisions and tradeoffs.
And sometimes we don't want to admit that.
No, I'm not.
I'm going to let this go.
And that itself can be a very difficult decision.
But then it's enormously freeing when you're like, you know what?
This is just right now.
This isn't for me.
Or maybe some other time.
It's like a lot of times with apps and technology.
It'll be maybe later, because they don't want you to say yes or no.
They always want to preserve the idea that, oh, you might sign up later.
So maybe later.
Maybe later.
I know.
Maybe later.
Yeah.
I absolutely, obviously agree, because that's the undercurrent of so much of what I want to teach and share.
And what's so funny to me is...
The reason that I'm passionate about talking about this is because I am the avatar for the person who is – I am Liz Lemon in 30 Rock, trying to eat her sandwich in the security line and screaming I can have it all.
I'm trying to actually be so good at everything possible and check all the right boxes.
And obviously, it's exhausting.
It's unsustainable, all of that.
And I have never met anybody who has encountered this idea and chosen to embrace it a little.
Try it out.
You're right.
I have to let some things go.
If I want to be a genius about and I'm using my own terminology if I want to be a genius about this thing, I have to be lazy about some other things.
And I get a lot of pushback from understandable pushback from people who haven't tried to do that yet.
And they're like, well, I can't let some things go because everything matters.
And I just think that everything cannot matter to everybody.
Like you just cannot survive believing that everything can matter.
So you have to make those choices and those trade-offs.
But it's so hard to do.
I understand.
Until you try it, it's so hard to do.
Yeah.
Well, I had a friend one time where we were talking about something with her children or whatever.
And she goes, well, Gretchen, I hate the outdoors.
And I was like, you hate the outdoors?
And she's like, yeah, I hate the outdoors.
I didn't know that was possible.
Are we allowed to do that?
Are we allowed to just hate the outdoors?
But then I was like, that's fantastic.
It's fantastic.
When I had a little kid, somebody said to me I was like oh yeah, we're going to the playground, whatever.
And he said, oh, I always hated going to the playground.
It's so boring.
And I was like, oh, wow, you can say I don't like going to the playground.
And that doesn't mean you're not going to go to the playground because your child likes it.
But you don't have to kid yourself that you enjoy it or that you value something for its own sake.
I think sometimes people are like there are all these things that are objectively good and worth pursuing and therefore I should do it instead of saying I do nothing related to cooking.
Nothing.
I don't do cooking.
I don't do food shopping.
Nothing.
I would be happy if everybody ate scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the rest of our lives.
That's not the person that I am.
But that means letting go.
And sometimes people want to control things, but then they also don't want the work.
Right.
If you want to control the outcome, a lot of times you have to do the work, and that's how people get resentful because they haven't let go of things.
As you say, they have to say, well, this has got to go because I've got to be lazy about this.
There's also a grief in that that people don't always pay attention to.
I actually am like your friend.
I don't love the outdoors.
I like the idea of the outdoors.
And I like the outdoors that do not make me physically work very hard.
So I enjoy looking at birds through my window.
If it's a temperate 67 degrees outside.
I'm like, sure, let's go outside.
But I don't do heat.
There's a lot of things about the outdoors I don't enjoy.
And that includes gardening.
And I used to feel so badly because I want to be a person who loves to put her hands in the dirt, because that feels like what we're supposed to do.
And there was actually.
It sounds silly, but there was like a little bit of grief that I had to process.
Hey, that's just not who you are and that's okay.
You can be sad and you can wish that as a part of you.
But if you hold onto that, without processing the grief, without accepting that, then it's just going to cause resentment.
And if you try to turn yourself into a gardener at the expense of things you do like to do, which is like a baker and a reader and whatever, you're going to resent all of it?
None of it's going to work well.
So we have to grieve those losses too.
Well, one of my secrets of adulthood is we want to accept ourselves and also expect more from ourselves.
And that's a really hard line because, on the one hand, we do want to accept ourselves and not get drawn into some fantasy self or the way we think we ought to be or what other people expect from us.
We want to recognize the limitations of our nature.
And you're right.
There's a sadness to that.
There are things that I could do that I will never do.
Like, I wish I loved fly fishing.
Everything about fly fishing appeals to me except for fly fishing.
But we also want to expect more from ourselves.
So we do want to push ourselves and go outside our comfort zone.
But only each of us individually knows where that line is.
Where the line is to say oh, maybe I could grow to embrace this or push myself out of my comfort zone.
But then sometimes you just have to say, that's just not my thing.
And it just never will be.
But you're right.
There is a sadness to admitting that you're letting go of something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And to everybody listening who is in that very understandable headspace at the biggest fresh start ever in the beginning of January, when we really do have desires that we're trying to pay attention to that.
You're better off using your energy to change how you think about your habits and yourself and your betterment and the grief around that than to find some new like set of system and tools to get you to a place before you actually really know you speak the language that you need to speak about yourself, like it's very worthwhile energy to spend time naming you know i'm actually really sad that my best energy to get things done is at midnight, but i am a mother of three kids under six years old and that's just not my season of life right now.
That's real to hold that and name that and grieve that.
And there's a kindness that you can offer yourself as you move through it.
And you make better decisions for yourself when you're honest about how you're feeling about your season, when you're honest about that.
So how you think about it is absolutely going to determine what you do.
But now is the time where everybody's do this, do that.
Here's your list.
And so I just want everybody to just take a beat, man.
Take a beat.
And be honest about where you are and that you don't have to be better at everything right now, and that there are things that you might care about that this season does not allow you to care about in the same way that another season might.
And it's okay to be sad about that.
Absolutely.
I totally agree.
Let's talk about the idea of a clean slate, because I think that's a big yeah like a message right now is it's like a fresh start and a clean slate.
And that is a very appealing idea.
So I'm curious your thoughts on like why that's an appealing idea.
And also, is there a time and place where that is a workable, sustainable idea, or have we just gotten clean slates, totally wrong?
Well, it's interesting because two, the opposite of a profound truth is also true.
And two things that are opposite are both true.
One is that research shows that people often do better when they have some kind of fresh start, when they start something on the first day of the month, or when they start something on the first day of the year or even the first day of the week.
There's something auspicious about it.
And people do feel like there is this sense of Okay, I'm taking a deep breath.
I'm starting over.
I'm going to begin.
And so we want to take advantage of that.
And I do think that, although many people dismiss New Year's resolutions as an artificial time, because obviously we could decide to do this at any time, there is something about.
Having a time where culturally, everybody stops and says well, maybe it's worth thinking about.
Well, what do you want from the upcoming year?
And what have you learned from experience in the last several months?
And research shows no surprise that people who intentionally set out to achieve a name are more likely to fulfill it than people who don't intentionally set out a name.
So there is a positive sense to it.
But what's also true, and one of my favorite proverbs is the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.
The second best time is now.
Now is always the right time to begin.
If somebody was listening to this conversation, April 21st, November 11th, 2026.
Anytime.
It's never the wrong time.
Now is always the best time to begin.
But things that can happen at any time often happen at no time.
And so if you're always like, oh, yeah, I've really been meaning to get back into playing guitar.
I really want to practice guitar more.
I know that would make me so happy, but it just month after month slides by.
And we all know that years can pass by in a flash.
So I do think there is something helpful about saying okay, now is the time where I'm going to sit down and really think okay well, what would it take for me to bring this into my life in a realistic way?
Would I take lessons?
Would I sign up for a YouTube course?
Would I have an accountability partner as a friend and she's going to practice piano and I'm going to practice guitar and we're going to swap thumbs up emojis every day after we practice.
Maybe a child and I will take a class together and I'm like well, I want to model good practice for my child.
So I have to practice.
So they'll feel like they have to practice.
There's a million things you can do, but you have to say well, now is the time where this is coming into my focus.
Or you might say, Hey, look, this is not the time to get back into guitar.
Save it for later.
I'll look forward to this.
Come back to it.
I'm not giving my guitar away, but I'm going to put it in the back closet for a while because it's just not realistic.
And I don't want to make myself feel defeated and discouraged because I'm setting myself up for something that is just not practical given everything that's going on in my life.
And so I think that these are hard trade-offs.
As you said, the lazy and the genius, it can be hard to figure out what to put in which buckets.
Yeah.
And that feels exceptionally true for at least in my experience for parents, and particularly mothers.
Not always and not exclusively.
But there is a sense of loss of self in certain seasons of life.
And your time is so...
It's so significantly dedicated to the well-being of other little lives.
And the number of women who have contacted me over the many years of doing this.
When I talk about hey name, what matters in your season of life right now, or like you want to do, what makes you feel like yourself and move in that direction?
Like the guitar is such a great example of.
I really used to enjoy doing this and I don't make time for it anymore.
So I'd like to add that back in because it's something that I really enjoy.
Even knowing that fill in the blank of play guitar feels so foreign to so many people who have just really been sacrificing so much of themselves and their time for so long.
It doesn't necessarily have to be with children.
It could be caring for an aging parent.
It could be an incredibly demanding job.
That you just come home at the end of the day and you're done.
You have nothing left.
We both know people who are in just really demanding roles.
And so I think that's one thing that I do love about Fresh Starts is if you can disentangle the fresh start January, new you energy, particularly from diet culture over the last couple of decades, where so much of that energy was focused on like how can we control our bodies?
It feels like now let's find ways that like make you feel like yourself.
What are things that you, what is not even things?
What's one thing?
What is one thing that you can add into your life, or perhaps subtract from your life, that is, taking you from things that matter to you.
For example, I was working recently.
I was out of town.
I woke up early and was about to go get to work.
But I opened up my phone real quick.
And I have pretty strong boundaries around social media and Instagram.
And I have a time limit set on my phone for how long I'm spending on it.
And I opened up the app and I started watching funny things.
And it felt five minutes later, my limit came up.
And I was like, your time is out.
And I went, you're telling me that I've been sitting here watching stupid videos for 40 minutes?
And I thought to myself oh, that's really sad, because I would have rather spent my 40 minutes on something else, man.
And so it is that exchange.
But how about we use this?
We leverage this fresh start, new year energy and leverage it towards something, one thing that makes you feel more like yourself.
Spend the energy finding what that thing might be.
Do you have any thoughts about how to get there?
It's interesting because my next book is going to be about the empty nest stage as a forced reckoning of adulthood.
And it's interesting because there are many people who say, who am I now?
They truly have lost themselves. in parenthood.
This is true for mothers and fathers alike.
And it's interesting to me, I have to say, because I don't experience this myself.
I haven't had that feeling.
And it was really interesting to me how many people do feel like they have subsumed themselves into this role.
And I've really been trying to understand it.
I think that there is a freedom that comes from surrendering your own desires and aims and the conflicts and the trade-offs and the anxieties. and the ambitions and all of that, where you just say, well, my family comes first and I'm going to make the decision that's best for my family and not say, well, I'm going to fight for yoga night and I'm going to, it's going to be a hassle and I'm going to have to argue and I'm going to have to rush and I'm going to have to pay and I'm going to have to count.
It's on the calendar and I'm going to have to track it.
It's just going to be hard. to hang on to yoga night.
And you know what?
I'm going to let yoga night go.
But sometimes that is the better choice.
It's the right choice.
But at some point you have to say who am I if I don't have Kendra?
I know you love music and you love baking and you love reading and you love talking and you love solitude.
And it's like all these things take time and time has to be wedged out of the schedule.
And it can be really...
Especially if you have a very intense situation.
I mean, I think for some people it's simply not realistic for them to do it, at least at some periods of their life.
But I think, when we can, it is really important to hold on to those things and make time for those things.
Yet you want to keep in touch.
Here's a story that I'm haunted by.
Oh, I love a haunting story.
Okay, here's a haunting story.
So I was at a holiday brunch and I saw a woman who I hadn't seen in years and we had kids in nursery school together.
And she's one of those people where you're like, oh, she's the one that got away.
I always wanted to make her into a real friend.
Yeah, totally.
But we never really made advanced, right?
And I always.
It was like on my to-do list oh, I should invite her out for coffee or we should do something.
And we never did.
So I was really happy to see her because I'd always really liked her.
I was like, what have you been up to?
And she's, oh, I went on a ski trip with my family.
And I was like, oh yeah, we don't ever really do that.
And she's, oh, you should go.
It's so beautiful.
You're out in nature.
It's great exercise.
It's a family adventure.
It's beautiful.
It's so helpful and it's so fun.
And she was going on and on.
And I was like, you know what?
All that sounds great, but I'm really uncoordinated.
I'm not good at anything athletic.
I really suffer from the cold.
I cannot stand to be in the cold.
And I'm really bad with equipment, like handling equipment.
One of my favorite things about my husband is he's got this really bum knee.
So there's just no way he could go skiing.
So it's just off our family list.
It's not something that we ever consider doing.
I get it though.
It sounds like you guys had a wonderful time.
It's just our family's not going to do that.
But here's the thing.
So we were talking and then we got pulled away as you do at a party.
And then a half an hour, she came up to me again and she said, you know what I realized?
I don't like skiing either.
Whoa.
I did not expect you to say that.
So this is the thing.
It's fine to go skiing because everybody else loves skiing.
We all do that in family life.
We go to amusement parks and playgrounds and all kinds of things because it's fun to be together.
And it's fun to do things that I think Jerry Seinfeld said there's no such thing as fun for the whole family.
But to kid yourself, to lose track of what you truly like to do, because if she's not having fun, then she's not saying hey guys, this afternoon I'm going to sit by the fire and read a novel, because that's what I really enjoy doing.
She had lost touch with that.
And so I think part of it is just even knowing, even if you can't do it, but just recognizing.
Boy, I cannot wait till I can get back to the guitar.
As soon as I can, I'm going to pick up my guitar.
I'm looking for an opportunity.
Maybe we will take mother-child guitar lessons.
Let me find my opening rather than just saying, this is in the attic.
It's over for me.
Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
That's such a good story.
I will also now be haunted by it.
And I wonder for real, and I actually wonder if an interesting exercise that I kind of want to do now and I've done this loosely in the past but what if we anybody listening?
What if you, instead of to make making a list of this, is what I would like to do in the new year?
What if you're like, this is what I'm not going to do.
I'm not going to do this.
Yes, 100%.
I'm not going to do this.
A won't do list.
There's to-do list, to-da list, today list, and don't do list.
And don't do them.
No, on my list, it's to get, because 26 is two plus six.
I want to delegate or eliminate eight tasks.
So I got to figure out what are eight things that I can either delegate or stop doing altogether.
That's really fun.
I love a numerology situation.
Yes, whimsy.
Embrace the whimsy of the number.
I love it.
That's great.
But yeah, like knowing that I don't garden often. knowing that I don't do anything athletic either.
So if a friend is like, hey, do you want to come play tennis?
No, like at all.
I love you so much, but that is not how we're going to spend time together.
Just knowing the things that you're not going to do.
It actually opens up some of that brain space to go.
What do I do like to do?
It just clears the decks a little bit.
And it also gives you some clarity on your yeses and your nos.
And you're like, I'm absolutely going to be lazy about this or completely let this go.
And that's great.
We all need that.
We actually all do it.
We all do it, whether we do it intentionally or not.
But if we don't do it intentionally, then sort of everything is sacrificed to a degree.
So if you can intentionally say I'm not doing those things, then it's like a deep breath in the direction of the things that you do want to do.
But I also think something that's worth reminding people is that other people adjust.
And sometimes we don't give people time to adjust.
Because if everybody's in the habit of you being home every night and then you're like okay, I have yoga night, people are going to grumble.
It's going to take them a while to adjust to that.
You have to accept the fact that change always creates uneasiness discomfort, a little bit of work and everything.
And then if you stick to it, they'll start to make their patterns around you.
But I think a lot of times people try it that everybody's, but wait a minute, I wanted mom to do it.
And then they're like, oh, I guess I can't do it.
Instead of let people get used to it, let things settle into place, because it does take a little bit of getting used to.
And so I think that sometimes people think that it's going to be that if it's inconvenient for anybody else or it doesn't fit naturally that it's not manageable.
Instead of really trying to hold on to it and letting other people's habits shift as well, because we're all social creatures and we're all relating to each other.
And so give other people, don't expect them to get on board right away.
Certainly don't expect them to be enthusiastic or encouraging.
I think that's a big mistake.
You do what you want yourself.
Don't wait for other people to give you permission.
Suggest that you should do it, be enthusiastic, do it for yourself.
Yeah.
That is a incredibly simple yet profound take is that if you expect the addition of something that matters to you to be just a seamless addition to your life, when your life involves more than you and even sometimes if it is just you, if you have that expectation,
It will not be met.
And therefore, you will think it's not worth doing.
Right.
So just going in, expecting, yeah, they're going to whine a little when I leave.
It's okay.
They'll be fine.
They'll get used to it.
That's not my responsibility.
Yes.
And it is another way to model to the people that you live with and love that like hey, we're all allowed to schedule things for ourselves.
Everybody has that, should have that opportunity.
And we want to be able to empower every single person to be able to do that within the boundaries of their own lives.
And so I just, I love that take and that permission.
I hope I could.
I know that some people let's see what you say and that we're like about it that way.
Because they've been stopping doing things because it wasn't easy out of the gate.
And it's not going to be.
It's not going to be.
No.
Change is hard.
I mean, if your daughter starts taking ballet class, it's a huge hassle to get it up and running.
What equipment do we need?
How are we going to get there?
How are we going to pick it up?
Things take energy.
They just do.
And you're allowed to take some of that energy for your own things.
They don't always have to be the things for your children or your partner or whoever.
So yeah, it's so good.
It's just so good.
Well, and also when you give more to yourself, you can expect more from yourself.
And so I think it's important that all of us do things that are restorative, because then we can keep our temper and stay tolerant and with a sense of humor.
And we can stick to our good habits even when it's hard.
But if you're just going all the time and everything feels like work and nothing feels like fun, it's very easy to just get to the end of your rope.
And that's when people start really often abandoning good habits in a major way or really experiencing an issue with that.
Yeah.
And we'll be back for more of my conversation with Kendra.
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I've shared this before on the podcast a while ago, but have this strange transition between the school year and the summer for that filling up of myself in order to be kind and whole and tolerant, and all of those words.
And I take Fridays off during the school year when my kids are gone.
And it's the best day of the week.
I don't do anything productive unless I just really want to.
But it is a day where I read and And I might go for a long walk, or I paint and watch a movie, or I'm just sitting in my house and it's quiet and it's just me and I'm not responsible for anyone.
Like having a chunk of hours every single week for me in that way is so huge.
Now I recognize that there are things that make that possible for me and not for a lot of other people.
But, you know, we all find what we can where we can.
But then summer comes.
Yeah.
And the people are home.
And it took me like a couple of summers, several weeks in where I'm like, why not do?
I want to strangle everyone.
What is going on?
And it's because I had taken away that scheduled rest.
That's one of the 13 Lazy Genius principles.
One of the original principles is to schedule rest, because if we don't schedule it, we don't actively plan it, it's not happening at all.
And that was my scheduled rest that was deep every single week.
And then I forgot about it.
The schedule changed and therefore the rest did as well.
And so to pay attention to the depth of the power of when you care for yourself.
I'm not saying that everybody has the capacity to take six uninterrupted hours every week to just lay there.
But also I want us to all be more vigilant about filling that bucket on a regular basis, like a little bit every day, a chunk every week, if you can, wherever that fits.
Because it really does.
A lot of people will assume that selfishness.
You know that you're taking so much time for yourself.
And also, it's not, but it makes me more me.
It makes me more available for other people when I am full and whole and happy and like...
I've been challenged or I have rested or I've just done something that was just for me that was fun.
It makes me a better Kendra to all the people that I'm with.
And I'm like nicer.
I'm so mean when I don't take care of myself.
I'm so mean to everybody.
I don't want to be mean to my people.
I don't want to be like that.
Wait, can I talk about my four tendencies framework?
Because I feel like I would love to.
This is because I wanted to ask you to.
Yes, please.
OK, because I feel like this is very relevant because.
OK, well, the four tendencies framework is this personality framework.
I don't even think I created it.
I feel like I discovered it in the world.
Like. germ theory or something.
And it divides people into four categories, upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels.
And when you know your category and it's really easy to know your category once I describe them, you'll know your children, your coworkers, your family members.
We could do the Game of Thrones characters.
We could do The Office.
They're really obvious once you know them.
It tells you how to set yourself up for something like taking time for yourself, and why you might find that harder than other people.
So what the four tendencies looks at is how you respond to expectations, which is this very narrow thing, but really important.
So we all face two kinds of expectations outer expectations, like a work deadline, and inner expectations, like your own desire to read every day.
Depending on whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectations.
That's what makes you an upholder, a questioner, an obliger or a rebel.
So upholders are people who readily meet outer and inner expectations.
They meet the work deadline.
They keep a New Year's resolution without much fuss.
They're disciplined.
They're self-executing.
They tend to just, they get things done for themselves and for other people.
Their motto is discipline is my freedom.
Then there are questioners question all expectations.
They'll do something if they think it makes sense.
So they're making everything an inner expectation.
If it makes sense to them, they will follow through.
But they resist anything arbitrary, ineffective, unjustified.
They tend to love research.
They tend to love to customize and monitor.
Things have to make sense to them.
They're often told they ask too many questions.
So their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why.
The third category is the biggest category.
For both men and women, this is the category the biggest number of people belong to, obligers.
And obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations.
So these are the people who say why do I keep my promises to other people, but I can't keep my promises to myself?
And the answer for obliger is that they need outer accountability even to meet an inner expectation.
If you want to read more, you need to join a book group where they really expect you to read the book.
You have an accountability partner.
You track your, you share with other people how much reading you're doing every day.
You tell your kids, I'm going to read while you're doing your homework.
And if I'm not doing my reading, you don't have to do your homework.
There's a million ways to create outer accountability once you know that is what you need.
It is not self-care.
It is not priorities.
It's not motivation.
It's having outer accountability even for an inner expectation.
Obligers make great leaders, great team members, great friends, great family members.
I've had employers tell me that they only want to hire obligers.
They want to know how to screen for obligers because they are so valuable.
But 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 then there's finally rebels.
And this is the smallest group.
Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike.
They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time.
They can do anything they want to do or they choose to do.
But if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist.
And typically, they don't tell themselves what to do.
They don't say...
I'm going to practice guitar every Saturday at 10 am because I think I don't know what I'm going to want to do Saturday at 10 am.
And just the idea that I'm supposed to do one particular thing is going to annoy me.
So their motto is you can't make me and neither can I, And most people can tell what they are right away.
But there is a quiz on my website, GretchenRubin.com.
Like three and a half million people have taken this quiz.
It's free.
It's quick.
And it'll give you a little report.
But like I say, most people know what they are. just from hearing a description.
And it explains so much about why you might struggle with certain kinds of habits or practices.
So I read your book when it came out.
When did that book come out?
It was a while ago.
The Four Tendencies book?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it came out several years ago now.
Yeah, good memory.
So I remember reading that book because I love a framework, man.
I love anything where I can put myself in a box.
It's my favorite.
You sure do.
And I remember reading that and actually struggling to – I knew that I wasn't an obliger and I knew I was not a rebel.
And I did some wrestling between upholder and questioner.
And part of it, what I came to realize is that I was almost raised to be an upholder.
And my personality is such that I do like things to be a certain way.
And so if I care about it enough, I will actually put in the effort to make that happen.
I also...
I'm a pretty high capacity person.
I was always like the one that the teacher put in charge of the class when she had to go to the bathroom.
Like I was very naturally responsible.
And so a lot of the qualities that I noticed in an upholder, I recognized in myself.
But holy moly, do I question, why are we doing this?
Does this really matter?
This is like the essence of your work.
Why would you do that?
Like, you don't have to do that.
Just because everybody said so doesn't mean you have to.
Well, it's also very customized.
And questioners often love to customize and to improve systems.
They tend to love research.
So that's interesting.
But upholders and questioners overlap.
So there are, like I'm an upholder who tips the questioner, and it might be that you're a questioner who tips the questioner.
The tipsy upholder, sure.
But it's funny.
Upholders don't necessarily have high standards.
Whatever they want to do for themselves, they can do.
But I have met slacker upholders.
It's funny.
It seems like there are all these associated qualities.
Yeah, that's true.
Or people think that obligers are people pleasers.
That's right.
No, some obligers don't care about people at all, but they'll only do something if they have to.
And so it's hard.
Or people think, well, all creative people are rebels.
I'm like, 100% not true.
Mm-hmm.
But so it's interesting.
But yeah, because you're like, well, why would you do that?
Why would you do that?
Why would you do that?
Yeah, I feel like I ask that all the time.
And part of my initial work.
For a while I called myself a professional permission giver, because it really is just being like hey, you don't have to do that right.
If that doesn't matter to you, you don't have to do it just because everybody told you to.
Whatever everybody is, whoever that is, that arbitrary everybody, you get to decide for yourself.
And if it matters to you, do it.
And so I think I wanted it's that same – it's a similar – desire and grief.
And I wanted to be an upholder because that sounds like a person of such integrity and realizing, oh no, I'm just putting that in a very specific box.
And that's not entirely true.
And we need people who question just like we need people who, we need all four.
It's lovely to work with people in that way, but it did take me a while to accept, and then embrace, that I was a questioner.
That's interesting because a lot of questioners feel like questioner is the best tendency.
Definitely.
My husband, who's a questioner, definitely thinks that being questioner is the best tendency.
That's amazing, yeah.
I didn't at first.
I didn't at first.
But there is no best.
Yeah, that's the thing.
There's no best.
There's wildly successful people and also people who really struggle, because it's not a question of what tendency you are that makes you a success.
It's how well you work with your strengths, your weaknesses.
Do you put yourself in a place where you can really do your best work and feel like as a questioner, Like if you're in a place where questioning is rewarded.
That's great.
If you're in a place where they're like you're not here to answer questions, you're here to do what we say, then you're not going to thrive there.
So it's just a question of getting yourself in the right place and taking advantage of your strengths and figure out what to do about dealing with your weaknesses.
As an upholder, I'm very rigid.
It's very hard for me to change.
It's very hard for me to be flexible.
And I had something come up recently where people kept saying, oh well, you're having all these people over for a little party.
Why don't you just postpone it?
And I said, for me, it's more comforting to stick to the plan.
I know that you're trying to be helpful by saying you don't have to stick to the plan.
Let yourself off the hook.
But actually, for me, that would be more unsettling.
Let me execute on the plan that I made.
That is what will be comforting to me.
But what do you call that?
Rigidity.
And so but I know that about myself now.
And I can say to people, I understand your loving gesture, but that's not what works for me.
Whereas before I would have been like oh, I should let myself off the hook, even though that's not what I actually wanted.
I was because sometimes I think we're so used to thinking, well, this is how people feel.
This is how people react.
And I was like, actually, that doesn't make me feel better.
That makes me feel that makes me feel uneasy.
Oh, that's fascinating.
Because yeah, something that I say often and that it feels like it comes.
It feels like a lot of clarity talking to you about the four tendencies, but I say in my work all the time, I think it is more valuable to learn to pivot over learning to plan, because life requires so many pivots.
And it's great to, and I'm a planner, like I love to plan things.
I love to set things up, but I had to come to a place where I saw plans as pass fail for so long that you just do every part of it.
And if you don't do every part of it, then it didn't work and it was a failure and it was just very binary.
And so now changing that language for myself and in my own work of hey, a plan is an intention and you just make an intention.
And sometimes things have to adjust because a kid throws up, or I mean.
They're just things that happen, right.
And we are gonna be thrown these curve balls that we have to pivot.
We have to adjust around.
It doesn't mean you have to change the entire plan.
And I just, I wonder if the skillset To plan is, there's a lot of information.
There's a lot of resources for us in learning how to plan.
I don't feel many resources in learning how to pivot.
Well, Eisenhower said plans are worthless, but planning is essential.
So I just it's an interesting thing to offer options to people when they are feeling outside of themselves or overwhelmed by their lives or Wishing that something were different, to give them language and frameworks and opportunity where they can see themselves and can find a way out where it's oh, I know who I am here.
This is a good place to be.
So, okay.
I want to ask you about some specific.
I think it'd be fun for us to close up by talking about some specific issues, either habits we do or routines.
What do you?
What is a routine or a habit or just a rhythm in your life that you depend on, that if it left, it would just be the saddest thing for you.
Oh, I have so many.
I have a bazillion.
I am a creature of habit.
I get up really early and that's what I do my most intense writing.
So I love that.
I really protect my bedtime so that I can protect my wake up time.
You hear that everybody?
It's connected.
Those two things are connected.
Yeah.
You care about the morning.
You have to care about the night.
You just do.
We're going to take a break and then we will be back with more of my conversation with Kendra.
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I visit the Metropolitan Museum every day.
I'm incredibly fortunate.
I live within a walking distance of the Met.
And for my book, Life in Five Senses, I decided I would go every day for a year.
And I love it so much.
I go every day.
So that is like a highlight of my day every day.
So I'd be very sad if the Metropolitan Museum closed down for renovations for 10 years.
I would be very sad.
I go for a walk every day, either in Central Park or around.
I love walking in New York City, so that's super fun.
Oh, this year I did something so fun.
So this guy, Simon Haisel on Substack, has a Substack called Footnotes and Tangents and he led everybody in a slow read of War and Peace.
War and Peace has something like 360 chapters.
So you read a chapter a day over the course of the year and my whole family did it.
And we would talk about war and peace the way people talk about their neighbors.
We'd be like, oh my gosh, it was just so annoying the way Pierre just keeps just wandering around whatever.
That was really fun to do.
Like I'd never done something like that where you read just like very little bit every day.
It's like binge watching a television show versus watching it week to week.
It just penetrates more deeply because you're going slower.
I tend to gobble when I read.
I love to read for hours.
My favorite thing is a same-day book when I read a book in one day.
So reading this way was unusual for me, and I really enjoyed it.
Gosh, I am a creature of habit.
I love to take naps.
I decided to embrace napping because I'd read so much research about napping.
And oh my gosh, now I love napping.
So I do that every day.
I got a million habits.
That's so good.
So I went to New York over Thanksgiving because my son.
I read about it in your Substack or your newsletter.
I don't know if it's on Substack.
It's not on Substack, but it was in my newsletter.
Yes.
And so I read your... That was very funny.
You had a lot of adventures.
We did have a lot of adventures.
And I remember saying I don't know if I wrote this in the newsletter or not, but when we were walking through Central Park, which I think that's my favorite place in the city
It's just, oh my goodness, it's just so amazing.
But when we were walking through Central Park I said to my friend I was like man, if I lived here, like maybe I would get tired of this.
But I just don't know that I would ever get anything done, because I would just want to wander around here all the time.
So the fact that, and the Met was like, I've been three times, three or four times.
I love that you get to do both of those things every day and that you actually still go back home and do work.
That's the discipline required because I'm like, we just live here now.
We live in Central Park now.
This was fun.
But you know what, though?
They hung on my conscience.
They really like I was uneasy about the fact before I started going.
All the time it felt like this treasure that was right there within my reach.
And yet I wasn't availing myself of it.
And I really did feel like it was it hung on me.
And then, when I started going every day, I felt like it was this feeling of kind, of earning it, not in a moral sense, but just I was reaching out for everything that the world was offering to me.
And so it is very satisfying to think this is a treasure house and I am taking advantage of it because for so long I didn't
Yeah.
I would say to that as well.
The people who are listening, who don't live within walking distance of the Met or who might not actually live in a place where there is not a stereotypical, there's not a stereotypical treasure trove.
There's not an art museum.
There's not something that is within reach that is open to them.
I have talked to people.
One guy said to me I go to my big chain drugstore every day because there's always so much going on in my big chain drugstore.
I'm like, there's so much going on in a big chain drugstore.
Everywhere.
I can absolutely see going every single day.
Just for the fun of watching it change over time.
Like, I think you're right.
It doesn't have to be the conventional.
No.
But then so many people after I talked about that, so many people were like well, I live within driving distance of the beach or the lake, or there's this great park or this trail, or just my neighborhood.
It doesn't have to be something fancy.
I mean, the medicine is like a thing, but it doesn't have to.
I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri.
Just like walking around my neighborhood was amazing.
Exactly.
So that's what I want to invite people who are listening, who might be in a season of life that is yeah, maybe just like a tough hang right now or you feel maybe you don't really love where you live.
This is why one of the things I say is good is here right now.
It's okay for you to not enjoy your season of life.
It is okay for you to be like, We moved here for this job and we just hate it.
Like it didn't go the way we thought or we're having trouble making friends.
There are things that are really difficult.
And so to kind of name like, hey, you can feel that way.
And at the same time, I believe that there is a treasure trove everywhere.
Like even within your own home, that if you like look out the window, if you look at your baby on the floor, if you look in the dag of mirror, like there are so many beautiful good, true things around everyone.
And so to not hang your hat on the fact that it has to look a certain way like going to the Met every day, which is amazing.
I would love to go to the Met every day.
That is so fun.
And also that I can say to myself I'm going to go sit on my porch swing every day for 10 minutes and look around and see what's changing and see which birds come through and notice that my neighbor always mows on this day.
There is goodness and beauty everywhere if you look for it.
So you can be just as intentional about your front stoop as you are going to the Met.
That's absolutely true.
I do think there's something special about doing something every day.
Not everybody is attracted to this.
And so if this sounds like, oh my gosh, the world is so full of variety, why would I limit myself to doing the same thing every day?
But I think, to a certain personality.
It is interesting to see how your particular if you did the same 30 minute walk with your dog every morning like to see how the light changes over the seasons and see how the trees change and see how the neighborhood changes.
And there's something about doing something every day, but I've always been very interested in repetition and familiarity.
So to me, that's very appealing.
But I would just suggest to people that there is a lot of interest in that because of subtle changes that are interesting to notice.
Yeah, agreed.
Some of mine, the things that I do every day, that if I lost it, which when I do in the summer, it's such a bummer.
You read every day.
I know.
I read every day.
I do.
I read every day.
And it's interesting.
I have found that if I don't read from an actual physical book every day, it doesn't feel quite the same as if I only listen or only read online.
So that is something that is – 100%.
It's not something that is – terribly rhythmic or methodical for me.
It's not very intentional right now pick up a physical book, and that's something that i care about in moving into this next year.
A word i'm usually not a word of the year person, actually ever, but this year i really feel tied to the word flourish, that i want to do things.
That is what i said before about i don't want to just survive my life like.
I really want to flourish as a person in my life and i want to tend to things.
Does this contribute to to my flourishing?
Does this contribute to my family's flourishing?
Does this contribute to my city's flourishing?
That really matters a lot to me.
And I think that, for my own reading, what makes my reading flourish is to read from a paper at least 10 minutes every day.
So that is something that I'm really holding on to.
But I do.
I read every day.
I love reading so much.
I take a nap every day.
I try to – like I do something enjoyable when I eat lunch every day, because we're not like an eat lunch at the same time family.
Even if we're all home, everybody just does their own thing when they're hungry.
And so I will either read or I'll watch a show or I'll go out on my porch.
But I really try to enjoy my lunch and that really matters a lot.
And I take my day off. once a week with however I want to spend it.
And I also think the other- You're like an artist day.
Yes.
And I think the other thing that I've been able to identify over the last couple of years is how important connection with my friends is.
My friendships are just deeply important to me.
And so if I do not connect with at least one person who I don't live with, who I'm not responsible for every single day, I can feel it.
I can feel it.
And so that's another thing that feels really important.
I think I'm less of a creature.
Actually, no, not I think.
I'm less of a creature of habit than you are.
But I do really love, I'm more of a rhythm person.
This feels pretty good, but it's that questioner thing.
It's well, if I don't really want to do this piece of it today.
I don't have to, because there's no reason for me to do that today.
I don't see the reason for me to do this today.
And I think that's okay for all of us to approach it differently, obviously.
But those are a couple of the things.
Love those.
Okay.
Well, if you were to say one thing to people in January, energy is they're struggling to know what to name, what to focus on, what habit they might want to do.
There's a lot of choices that people could make right now.
Do you have one message to people as they move through this January?
Get enough sleep.
If you get enough sleep, everything, I would start there.
I'm just going to go ditto.
I think that is correct.
I think that is absolutely correct.
We need to just, and maybe like, maybe wash your face before you go to sleep.
I care about that a lot.
If I go to sleep with a clean face, I mean, I feel like a queen.
Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Get enough sleep.
Well, this was so fun to talk and I'm excited about what people are going to, what small thing people might walk away from, to feel just more encouraged in this January.
But thanks for having this conversation with me.
This was really fun.
Oh, thank you.
We're interested in so many of the same things.
We could talk all day.
I know.
It's so great.
It's so great.
Well, thanks for being here, Gretchen.
We'll see you soon.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Many thanks to Kendra for having me on the Lazy Genius podcast.
If you take one thing from our conversation as you move through the new year, let it be this protect your sleep.
Kendra and I both agree that sleep is foundational.
And I've noticed that especially in this season of new starts, my body needs a lot of rest.
I'm trying to pay attention to that.
Thanks for listening.
Remember, the best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago.
The second best time is now.
Hi, Gretchen, Craig Robinson, and my little sister Michelle here.
We host a new podcast called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.
We know you're the queen of giving advice, so we wanted to get a few tips from you.
You know, Gretchen, a lot of our listeners are going through some major life changes.
What advice do you have for folks who are trying to stay grounded in the midst of major life transitions?
Craig and Michelle, I am so happy to be talking to you.
Here are a few questions that might help us gain perspective.
So consider questions like this.
What activities take up my time but are not particularly useful or stimulating for me?
Do I spend a lot of time on something that's important to someone else but is not very important to me?
If I could magically change one habit in my life, what would I choose?
And here's a question.
Would I like to have more time in solitude restorative solitude or would I like to have more time with friends?
You know, just thinking about questions like this can help us start to figure out how we might make our lives happier.
With greater self-knowledge, we're better able to make hard decisions that reflect ourselves, our own nature, our own interests, our own values.
In my own case, I have found that the more my life reflects my nature, the happier I get and the more grounded I feel when I'm going through a period of major change or transition.
For more great advice, search for IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson wherever you get podcasts.
You can listen to Issa Rae on letting go of certain friendships, Kiki Palmer on why disappointment is actually the key to career success, Seth and Lauren Rogan on caring for aging parents, and so many more.
