Gretchen Rubin I’m very happy to be talking to you.

Gretchen Rubin I decided that I was going to spend a year thinking about my happiness and happy habits for every couple. I had this realization that when I thought “What do I want from life anyway?” I realized I wanted to be happy but I didn’t spend anytime thinking about whether I was happy or if I could be happier. I decided to take a year because a year felt like long enough to make real change but short enough to be manageable. I identified 12 elements in my life where I thought I could make improvements for my happiness and happy habits for every couple. I wanted a theme for every month. In each month, I found 3-5 concrete manageable resolutions that I thought would help me make progress in that area and to see if I made these very small changes, I could actually make myself happier.

Gretchen Rubin Yeah, I love happy habits for every couple and radical happiness projects like when Elizabeth Gilbert went to all those foreign countries and the guy who gives up the internet for a year, and Thoreau, moving to Walden Pond. I love reading about that but that’s not the kind happiness project I wanted. I wanted something that was just part of the natural order of my life. Part of it is I didn’t really want a big adventure and even if I wanted a big adventure, I really couldn’t take a big adventure. I had two little kids, my work, my marriage, my responsibilities. I couldn’t really go off and do something drastic. But I didn’t even really want to do something drastic. I really wanted to do something as part of my ordinary routine.

Gretchen Rubin One of the things people often say to me, “I want to do happy habits for every couple and a happiness project but my sweetheart is not interested in doing it.” And the fact is mine wasn’t either. My husband is a wonderful guy and I love him with all my heart but this isn’t the way he goes about his life. It would have been a waste and a frustration for me to try to get him on board. I’ve heard of married couples or couples doing happiness projects together and I think that would be fantastic. But the fact that your sweetheart is not interested in doing it with you does not mean you can’t do it or it’s not going make difference in your relationship. What I found is, the only person that we can change is ourselves and that’s frustrating because at times you think “Well, I would happier if somebody else would behave properly” and think of a bunch of things for that person to do. But you can’t make somebody change. You can only change yourself. When I changed, my relationship changed. And when I changed, the atmosphere of my household changed. I was able to bring about changes in my relationships, my marriage, and my relationships with my children just by working on myself.

Gretchen Rubin It’s interesting because one of the happy habits for every couple that I formed and I write about this in Better than Before is the habit of kissing my husband every morning and kissing him every night. Some people scoff at this and they’re like “Well, that’s just so fake” and like “Kissing is supposed to be spontaneous and heartfelt and if you got on the calendar, like that’s just meaningless.” But what I found in my inexperienced is if something is out on the calendar, it doesn’t get done. If something’s important to me, you have better have its own slot and by doing something like making a happy habits for every couple of it, I make sure that it gets done. One of the things that’s freeing and energizing about happy habits for every couple is we don’t have to use decisions. We don’t have to use our self-control. We just do something automatically. So every morning, I don’t think like “Should I kiss my husband before I get out of bed?” No, I just always kiss him. That’s just my habit. And the fact is you’re happier in a relationship when there’s more kissing. You find this when you practice happy habits for every couple. Even if it’s a habit but I just feel more tender and affectionate when I’m behaving in a tender and affectionate way and so, I think there really is room to use happy habits for every couple to make sure the behaviors that help us connect with other people and help us behave in a thoughtful, loving, attentive way, actually happened. If you wait for the thought to occur to you, you just might not think of it for 2 – 3 months but if it’s a habit, then it just happens automatically.

Gretchen Rubin One of the interesting things and this is a good thing and a bad thing at once, is that habits tend to deaden feelings. If you feel positive feelings, it’s going to kind of dead on that. Like the first time you have that morning cup of coffee, it’s amazing. But as it becomes a happy habits for every couple, you experience it less and less intensely. You get less pleasure from it. On the other hand, if there’s something upsetting to you or makes you feel anxious or angry, as it becomes more of a habit. That’s going to dead on your experience. If there’s something that makes you anxious, by making it into a habit, you’re going to soothe your feelings. You’re going to become more at ease with whatever that habit is. That’s one way habits can change our emotional response to something. But also, a lot of times we want ourselves to do something. We want to have something incorporated into our lives and we become very frustrated when we’re not doing it. One of the ways you can get yourself to do it is work on making it into a happy habits for every couple. And then, you can wear yourself out every single day.

Gretchen Rubin “Should I go to the gym today? Tomorrow? “It’s my birthday.” “My foot hurts”. “It’s too cold.” “I’m going to go tomorrow.” “The gym is a little bit too far away.” “I’m going to go later in the day.” You can spend hours in that kind of thinking and never get to the gym or you could just feel like, “It’s Monday. I go to the gym first thing.” and then, you just go. With habits, there are no decisions and no self-control.  It just happens automatically and that preserves a lot of your energy that you can direct to other things that are a lot more interesting and more demanding. That’s where I feel happy habits for every couple can really help us have the lives we want because they make these behaviors automatic and so we don’t have to wear ourselves out and figuring out whether or not we’re going to do something.

Gretchen Rubin Of everything I wrote about in Better than Before, my favorite chapter was The Strategy Of Loophole Spotting. I identified the 21 strategies that we can use to make or break our habits and we use the same strategies whether we’re making them or breaking them. But the funniest strategy is the strategy of loophole spotting because I identified 10 categories of loop holes that we use when we’re trying to explain and justify why we’re not keeping happy habits for every couple. We’re like cellphones searching for a signal. It’s like, “Oh, there’s got to be a reason why I’m off the hook. Oh, wait! I just spotted one.” “Life’s too short not do the brownie.

Gretchen Rubin Oh, I just thought of that.” That’s the false self-actualization loophole or there’s the tomorrow loophole. “It doesn’t matter what I do today because tomorrow I’m going to be so good.” And then, there’s the concerned brother’s loophole, which is “Oh, I have to eat this because my host will feel bad if I don’t partake.” There’s this 10 categories and we’re so good that we can think of a loophole for any situation. They’re so imaginative and they’re so hilarious. I loved cataloging the loopholes.

Gretchen Rubin You’ve spotted the pattern before I did because I had the Happiness Project and Happier at Home and before I realized that habits were such a central thing. That took me a long time to realize. I think a lot of is shear mindfulness. I think a lot of it is just recognizing what we’re doing and it sounds so obvious but it’s like, if you catch yourself saying “You know what? I’m at this party right now and I am invoking the one coin loophole right now.” Just having a name for it and realizing that it is a loophole. The one coin loophole is like does one coin make a man rich? No, but if had one coin and one coin and one coin. At some point, you say a man is rich.

Gretchen Rubin If people said to themselves “What’s the point of going to the gym? What’s one trip to the gym? What’s one brownie? What’s one glass of wine? It’s insignificant.” That’s true! It isn’t significant. But the only way you form the habit of doing something is one time plus one time plus one time. The one coin loophole is to say “It doesn’t matter what I do this time because it’s just this one time. Why should I wear my helmet today? What are the chances I’m going to get into an accident today?” Practically not. But it’s only about wearing your helmet every single day that you protect yourself. It’s the same thing with nagging. Also, it does not work. It isn’t effective and it’s just a habit that you get in like, “I’m just going to keep repeating myself and I’m just going to keep insisting that things be done on my schedule.” Is it working? No! It’s not working. So give it up. Try something else. Figure out ways to work around it. What I’ve found for myself is that when you think about how to get out of the habit of nagging, you really find much better solutions like writing a note. Because then, you don’t have somebody’s nagging voice in your ear but I notice actually a much more effective reminder or saying to yourself, “Things don’t need to be done on my schedule. I want this to be done right away.” It doesn’t need to be done right away. Somebody else is going to do this. If they’re going to do the work, they can choose how to do it on their own schedule. If I want it to be done now, I have to do it now. That’s a choice.

Gretchen Rubin I use my checklist quite a lot because I sort of enjoy it when I was writing The Happiness Project. One of the things that often happened when I would talk to people about The Happiness Project or Happier at Home, they would ask, “But how did you get yourself to stick to doing all this? How did you actually follow through? Was it the resolution chart? Was it this checklist? How did you actually make yourself do it?” And the fact is, I used this checklist and I really enjoyed using them but they weren’t so crucial and I didn’t have trouble keeping them. As I was writing about happy habits for every couple, it became clearer and clearer to me that people have really different aptitude for forming habits and really different attitude towards habits. That fact is, I find it pretty easy to form happy habits for every couple and I feel very positively towards habits. Neither one of those things is universally true. One of the things I do in Better than Before is identify four tendencies. I divide all humanity into four tendencies and while I began writing that book thinking I was pretty typical when it came to habit formation. As I was writing the book and came up with this framework, I realized I’m not typical. I’m part of the freaky friend and I really had to rewrite half the book once I understood I am not typical. I am an extreme personality, which by the way came as a surprise to knowing to me. But, I didn’t understand that about myself.

Gretchen Rubin One of the things that lead me to be interested in happy habits for every couple was that, so many people were curious how to get yourself do these things and that wasn’t really the hard part. I realized for a lot of people, that is the hard part. The follow through is the hard part. That’s what Better than Before is all about like what are these 21 strategies and depending on who you are and what you’re like. Different ones will work better for you or will be less effective and each one of us has to pick and choose the ones that work for us. Just because something works for you, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for me. Or, just because something works for my husband, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for me. Sometimes, that can lead to a lot of conflict because one member of a relationship thinks “Oh, this is the right way to do it. Let’s do it this way” and the other person is like, “No! My way is the right way.”

Gretchen Rubin I call it a Resolution Chart, which is just I wrote down every resolution I wanted to keep and I check off every night whether I did it or not. That’s using the strategy of monitoring to see whether you’re keeping a habit, which is just paying attention whether or not you are keeping a habit. The fact about monitoring is we all tend to do a better job of something when we monitor it like making a loving comment to your spouse. Check that off. Monitor that habit and find happy habits for every couple. As we monitor something, we tend to do a better job.

Gretchen Rubin Sometimes people think “Well, this is too important” or “This is too transcendent to be monitored.” If it counts to you, figure out a way to count it. I want to have quality time with my daughter. Well, every week I try to spend 2 hours with her by herself doing something fun. I can check that off or not. That’s a quantifiable thing that I can actually measure. And I think it’s really helpful to not to have vague aims like, “I want to be more present in a moment. I want to have more meaningful relationships.” Translate your goal into actual action that you can measure because then you really know what you’re expecting from yourself. That’s how I use checklist and there’s the rest on my website, gretchenrubin.com. We talk about happy habits for every couple. There is a sample of my resolution chart and a blank template for anybody who wants to see how I used it and wants to fill in one for themselves because I do think that this really does help people change a behavior.

Gretchen Rubin Absolutely. You might have many things that you want to do, little actions you want to take everyday that you want to stay on top to see if you’re really doing them.

Gretchen Rubin Like a big gift on Valentine’s Day is going to be less important than being loving in a smaller way the other days of the year.

Gretchen Rubin I think it’s helpful to think about what you can do will strengthen like a habit we have in our house now. Not just for me and my husband, for my children too but is probably most important for my husband and me is every time somebody comes and goes from the apartment, they get a big hello and goodbye. Because I realize we were sort of just vaguely acknowledging each other coming and going and that was sort of a bad feeling. Now, it’s like, if my husband walks in at the end of the day, I put down my book, I get up out of my chair and I go to him. Give him a hug and say “Hello! How was your day?” Instead of just barely lifting my eyes on the page and grunting out “Ahhh”, which is what I used to do. Until I realized that wasn’t the habit I wanted. It makes a big difference. It doesn’t take a lot of time, energy or money but this habit of really acknowledging when people come and go. It just makes you feel like you really matter to people. That they really care about seeing you leave and seeing you come back and that they really care about you and your experience and want to connect with you every time they see you. It is surprising to me what a difference that habit made and the atmosphere of my home. Again, it’s not a big deal. It’s not hard to do.

Gretchen Rubin Your dog! Right?

Gretchen Rubin That’s what everybody said. I get the big greeting from my dog and then, my family members can care less. That’s not good. You don’t want to get a bigger greeting from your dog than from the love of your life. You want at least this good if not better.

Gretchen Rubin One of the things that struck was the research that shows married couples treat each other with less consideration than they treat friends or even strangers. So the person you treat with the least consideration is the person who’s your soulmate. One of the happy habits for every couple that I try cultivate is to treat my husband with the same consideration that I would treat somebody else. An example is I said to my husband, “Oh, I’m going to the drugstore. Do you need anything from the drug store?” It’s a tiny thing and it doesn’t take any extra effort but it’s just that little bit like, “Hey, I’m just thinking. Is there anything I can do to make your life a little easier?” Even if you don’t need something from the drugstore, it’s nice to be asked. I really had to cultivate that habit at myself. I have to say, I was not in the habit of doing that.

Gretchen Rubin I’m kind of like, “If you need something from the drugstore, pick it up on your way home. It’s not a big deal.”

Gretchen Rubin Every checklist should include something that could be done in the first five minutes for the morale boosting purposes because they can become quite overwhelming.

Gretchen Rubin My habit project was incredibly thorough and I did a million things and you don’t have to do all those. You could just pick and choose a few. I think it is really helpful to think, “Where do I want to start?” Like, be more kind. That’s a great example. That is very vague. It’s a great aim but what does it mean to be more kind? How would that actually translate into action? Is that like I’m going to say ‘hello’ to every person I know when I drop off my child at school? Does it mean I’m going to yield when people are trying to merge into traffic?

Gretchen Rubin Does it mean I’m going to exchange a few words with every sales clerk? What does that actually mean? Because, you may come to end of your day and you’re like, “Was I more kind?” It’s hard to say. Or maybe you remember one kind thing that you did and you’re like, “Oh my gosh! I was kind all day.” It’s better to think of what are the specific actions best that you could turn into habits. Start from the beginning. One of things I talked about in Better than Before, and I certainly saw this in The Happiness Project and Happier At Home though I hadn’t really analyzed it properly, was that there’s certain habits that are foundational to other good habits. If you’re going to start anywhere, these are really good places to start because they going to make it easier to do everything else.

1. Eating and drinking and not letting yourself get too hungry.

When people are hungry, then their self-command drops and that’s when you’re irritable, you lose your sense of perspective and your sense of humor. And what I found is when I feel bad, I act in a bad way and then, I feel terrible and guilty by the fact that I just snapped at my children or snapped at my husband. Then I behave worst because I feel terrible. That’s not a good thing. Drinking lowers inhibitions. That’s part of what’s fun about it, so it’s not good if you want to exercise.

2. Getting some exercise

Its boosts energy. It doesn’t deplete energy so you want to move around. You don’t have to train for the marathon.

3. Getting enough sleep.

You got to get enough sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’re going to be just exhausted and drained.

Gretchen Rubin For a lot of people, out of order contributes to inner calm. Cutting a handle on junk, getting rid of stuff you don’t use or you don’t love or you don’t even know what it is, throwing it away, giving it away, getting it in its right place is something that often makes people feel more energetic, more creative, and more loving in a weird way. Over and over, people tell me that when they get control over this stuff in their life, they feel more in control of their life generally and they just feel more cheerful, more loving, more creative, and more energetic. Obviously, that can be a big source of conflict within relationships. One person is like “Hey! Let’s spend the weekend cleaning up the house. That sounds amazing. I would love to have a clean and orderly house,” and the other person’s like “Are you insane? I’ve worked all week. I just want to lie around on the couch. I don’t want to clean up the basement.” I have a lot of suggestions for how you can handle that kind of situation because it’s certainly is something where people have different tolerances for disorder and different senses of what’s the right level of order. That can be difficult to manage sometimes within relationships.

Gretchen Rubin On my site, I have several 21 day project courses. For 21 days, you get a reminder and idea for something you can do. Most of them are $4.95. The relationship challenge is free for people who want to test it. Again, it’s a quick and easy idea. It’s something to think about every day for 21 days. Just to get you thinking like, “What are the little changes I could make that are going to get me that more loving relationship that I want.” A lot of times, it’s not hard. It just has to occur to you. Sometimes, hearing what works for other people sparks ideas for yourself about changes you could make.

Gretchen Rubin The thing that I’ve come to believe most in all my study of happy habits for every couple, happiness, and habits is that there are no magic, one size fits all solutions, and we all have to find out what’s true for us. We can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own nature, our own habits, our own interest, and our own values. Since I’m in a relationship, the better I understand myself, the better I can understand my husband because, I see how he’s alike and I see how he’s different from me. It’s not that one of us is right and one of us is wrong but how do we get to a place so we can both thrive and we can both have this warm, loving relationship. And it’s really through self knowledge that that comes. You think being focused on yourself would take you away but actually, when you understand yourself, you’re more able to turn outwards.