Update

If you’re giving my books as gifts, or you’d like to personalize your own copies, you can request personalized, signed bookplates. Feel free to ask for as many as you want. (U.S. and Canada only, alas; mailing costs.)

Elizabeth mentions giving the Memento Keepsake Journal to her walking group.

Try This at Home

Consider your aims for 2022. 

We mention the “22 for 2022” PDF, which is available now.

We review the “Vital 9”:

1. Energy: exercise and sleep
2. Productivity: focus, work, progress
3. Relationships: connect and deepen
4. Recharging: relax and rest
5. Order: clear and organize
6. Purpose: reflect, identify, engage
7. Mindful Consumption: eating, drinking, spending, scrolling
8. Mindful Investment: save, support, experience
9. Creativity: learn, practice, play

We discuss my new Happier app. Download it now in the Apple App store or Google Play – use the code HAPPIERNOW for early access. I mention my Four Tendencies personality framework. If you don’t know whether you’re an Obliger, Upholder, Questioner, or Rebel, take the free, quick quiz here (more than 3.2 million people have taken it).

Happiness Hack

Use an adjustable shoe stretcher to help shoes fit comfortably.

Chris mentions a FootFitter model.

Know Yourself Better Question

To help identify your aims for 2022, ask yourself:

• If you could magically adopt one habit, what would add the most to your happiness?
• If you could magically drop one habit, what would you drop?
• Is there something you could buy that would make it easier to follow a good habit?
• Is there a piece of information you could acquire that would make it easier to follow a good habit? Elizabeth and I talk about the KRUPS egg cooker that I gave her.

Demerits & Gold Stars

• Elizabeth’s Demerit: Elizabeth feels guilty when she takes a day off from work.
• Gretchen’s Gold Star: I give a gold star to the podcast Decoder Ring: “In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history, and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.”

Resources

• If you to start your “22 in 2022” sheet, you can download it here – it’s free, of course.

What we’re reading

• Elizabeth:  Still listening to The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Amazon, Bookshop)
• Gretchen: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Amazon, Bookshop)