Why Knowing What’s Different about You Helps with Your Happiness & Habits

It’s Wednesday– time for an installment of  “Happier with Gretchen Rubin.“

Updates: we have listeners in 192 countries! Zoikes. And we’ve heard from a lot of people who have successfully used the “one-minute rule” that we discussed in the first episode. Great to hear that it’s working for people.

This week:

Try This at Home: Cultivate a shrine. As promised, here are photos of Elizabeth’s Shrine to Mugs and my Shrine to Smell. If you’d like to read more about shrines, check out Happier at Home.  

Better Than Before Habit Strategy/Know Yourself Better: Use the “Strategy of Distinctions” to figure out the habits that will work for you. Which might be very different from what works for other people.  The book I mention is Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired by Till Roenneberg.

Listener Question: “How do you stick to your habits for the long run?”

Gretchen’s Demerit: Gretchen confesses to “hostess neurosis,” which is our family term for the irritable, demanding frame of mind that descends when it’s time to act as a hostess.

Elizabeth’s Gold Star: Elizabeth gives a gold star to Jeff and to the website CaringBridge. Elizabeth’s longtime friend Suzanne is dealing with cancer, and her husband Jeff is doing a great job of keeping everyone updated on CaringBridge.

As always, thanks to our terrific sponsors. Check out The Great Courses for a wide variety of fascinating courses. Special offer for our listeners: go to thegreatcourses.com/happier to order from eight of their bestselling courses, including Practicing Mindfulness: an Introduction to Meditation, and get up to 80% off. Limited time.

Also, thanks to Squarespace — the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store. Go to squarespace.com, and enter the offer code “happier” at check-out to get 10% off.

Want to get in touch? Email: podcast@gretchenrubin.com. Twitter: @gretchenrubin and @elizabethcraft. Call: (774 HAPPY 336).  Facebook Page. Or comment right here.

And we would love to hear from you — whether you’ve cultivated a shrine. Comment here, or even better, post a photo of it on Facebook! Also let us know your questions and any other comments.

To listen to this episode, just zip to the bottom of this post and hit the red “play” button.

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Want to know what to expect from other episodes of the podcast, when you listen to “Happier with Gretchen Rubin?” We talk about how to build happier habits into everyday life, as we draw from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, lessons from pop culture—and our own experiences (and mistakes).  We’re sisters, so we don’t let each other get away with much!

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HAPPIER listening!

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Gretchen Rubin is the author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. She writes about happiness and habit-formation at gretchenrubin.com. Follow her here by clicking the yellow FOLLOW button, on Twitter, @gretchenrubin, on Facebook, facebook.com/GretchenRubin.

Photo: Gretchen Rubin