Very Special Episode: Resolutions Extravaganza
We mention the “Vital 9” categories into which most resolutions fall:
- Energy: exercise and sleep
- Productivity: focus, work, progress
- Relationships: connect and deepen
- Recharging: relax and rest
- Order: clear and organize
- Purpose: reflect, identify, engage
- Mindful Consumption: eating, drinking, spending, scrolling
- Mindful Investment: save, support, experience
- Creativity: learn, practice, play
If you’d like to hear us discuss the Vital 9, listen to episode 354.
We discuss comments from listeners about resolutions that worked for them, as well as some strategies that they’ve most found helpful.
We mention several resources:
- Don’t Break the Chain Tracker
- The Happier app
- The Happiness Project: Revisited course
- The “Four Tendencies” quiz: Learn whether you’re an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel
21 Strategies of Habit Change
We also review the strategies for making and breaking habits that I explore in my book about habits, Better Than Before.
To change your habits, you have to know yourself, and in particular, your Tendency—that is, whether you’re an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel.
2. Distinctions
By taking into account various aspects of our nature related to habit formation, we can avoid wasting energy, time, or money. For example, are you a morning person or night person?
3. Monitoring
We manage what we monitor. A key step for the Strategy of Monitoring is to identify precisely what action is monitored.
You might use the Don’t Break the Chain Tracker or the Happier app.
4. Foundation
First things first. We can strengthen our foundation by getting enough sleep; eating and drinking right; exercising; and un-cluttering—for this last aim, check out my book Outer Order, Inner Calm.
5. Scheduling
For many people, if it’s on the calendar, it happens.
6. Accountability
Many people do better when they know someone’s watching. For Obligers, most of all, external accountability is absolutely essential.
You can work with an accountability partner in the Happier app.
7. First Steps
It’s enough to begin; if you’re ready, begin now.
8. Clean Slate
When we go through a big transition, old habits get wiped away, and with that clean slate, new habits form more easily.
9. Lightning Bolt
Once in a while, we encounter some new idea, new information, or a new role—and suddenly, effortlessly, a new habit replaces a well-established habit.
10. Abstaining
When facing a strong temptation, “Abstainers” do better when they abstain altogether, while “Moderators” do better when they indulge in temptation sometimes, or a little.
11. Convenience
To a truly remarkable extent, we’re more likely to do something if it’s convenient, and less likely if it’s not. Likewise…
12. Inconvenience
We’re less likely to take an action if it’s inconvenient.
13. Safeguards
Plan to fail. Try to anticipate and minimize temptation, both in your environment and in your own mind. Use “if-then” planning to prepare for challenges that might arise: “If it’s raining, then I will exercise by following an online cardio video.”
14. Loophole-Spotting
We often seek justifications to excuse ourselves from a good habit. By identifying the loopholes we most often invoke, we can guard against them.
15. Distraction
When we’re tempted to break a good habit, we deliberately shift our attention away from unwelcome thoughts by finding healthy distractions.
16. Reward
External rewards can actually undermine habit formation.
17. Treats
Unlike a reward, which must be earned, a “treat” is a small pleasure that we get just because we want it. It’s easier to ask more of ourselves when we’re giving more to ourselves.
18. Pairing
Only do X when you’re doing Y. Pair two activities: one that you need to or want to do, and one that you don’t particularly want to do, and always do them together.
19. Clarity
The more clearly we identify the habit we intend to follow, the more likely we are to stick to it.
20. Identity
Our habits reflect our identity, so if you struggle to change a particular habit, re-think your identity.
21. Other People
Your habits rub off on other people, and their habits rub off on you, so associate with people who follow the habits you want to adopt.
Resource
Check out the Habits Hub on my website. There are many useful resources and links, as well as my “Manifesto for Habit Change,” relevant podcast episodes, and more.
What We’re Reading
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Gretchen
Hello and welcome to Happier! A podcast where we talk about ideas for how to be happier. Today is a very special episode. Every 10th episode is a very special episode and this is a very special episode on resolutions. We are coming up on the New Year, New you period where a lot of people make resolutions, and so we ask listeners for some of their best resolutions, resolutions they gave up, tips for keeping resolutions, all things resolutions.
Gretchen
I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, resolutions, and human nature. I’m in New York City, and joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister, Elizabeth Craft. And Elizabeth, you are not always as enthusiastic about resolutions as I am.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A. And that’s true, Gretchen. But this year I do have a resolution, a family resolution.
Gretchen
And before we jump in, here is an update. I wanted to remind everybody about my five Senses quiz the What’s your Neglected Sense quiz? I’ve been getting so many emails and comments on social media about people taking this quiz and what they learned about themselves and what they’ve been trying once they identified their neglected sense. This is so much fun.
Gretchen
Keep them coming. And if you have not yet taken the quiz, go to gretchenrubin.com/quiz. It’s a super fun quiz to take. And I think it’s really interesting to think about, Well, how would you lean into your neglected sense if you do, let me know, because I’m always looking for new five senses experiences, and I get a lot of great suggestions from listeners.
Elizabeth
Yes. And for people looking for last minute gifts for someone, it can be a gift idea generator because if you know your partner is there, neglected senses, smell, you can maybe get them something that smells nice.
Gretchen
Absolutely. And now for the very special episode on resolutions. Elizabeth, should we call this resolution an extravaganza or resolution execution? What’s the better name, do you think?
Elizabeth
Well, extravaganza sounds more fun, execution sounds more practical. Yeah. So maybe, I don’t know, maybe the resolution extravaganza, execution resolution. Excuse no. Resolution. Execution extravaganza. Ooh, that’s it.
Gretchen
There you go. All right. I think that’s one of the cards in my muse machine is when faced with a choice, choose all or something like that. But before we talk about listeners, suggestions of resolutions that they’ve tried, it’s helpful, perhaps to review the vital nine, because these are the nine categories that just about every resolution falls into.
Gretchen
And it can be very clarifying to think about when you’re thinking about your own aims for yourself or what kinds of things you might want to try or think about what somebody else has done that might work for you. I think it’s useful to review the vital nine.
Elizabeth
Yeah. So the first one is energy, and that is exercise and sleep.
Gretchen
Then productivity. That’s resolutions related to focus, work, making, consistent progress.
Elizabeth
Relationships that’s connecting and deepening relationships.
Gretchen
Yeah. Number four is recharging resolutions related to getting more rest and giving yourself a chance to relax.
Elizabeth
And I like that one. Number five order, that’s resolutions related to clearing and organizing.
Gretchen
That’s the category that I like better than you will, is that number six purpose. These are resolutions that are related to taking time to reflect, to identify your values and engage in the values that are important to you.
Elizabeth
Number seven, Mindful consumption. That’s resolutions related to eating, drinking, spending, scrolling, or doomscrolling, as we like to say.
Gretchen
Yeah, So related to mindful consumption is number eight, mindful investment. So that’s about saving, experiencing, supporting through how we invest our time, energy and money.
Elizabeth
And number nine, creativity resolutions related to learning, practicing playing. So learning a language, practicing the piano, right?
Gretchen
yeah. We talked about the vital nine in greater depth in episode 354, if anyone’s curious to learn more, but I think it’s just helpful to have a framework like that. I love a framework, yes. Elizabeth, before we jump in with comments from listeners about their resolutions, do you have a resolution or a handful of resolutions that you’re making apart from the 24 for 24 and all that?
Gretchen
The trifecta.
Elizabeth
Yes. So, Gretchen, I’m doing one resolution. You know, I’m iffy on resolutions, but one resolution. And this is a family. Okay, So it’s Adam, my husband, Jack, my son and me all together. And our resolution is to do our posture exercises five days a week. So we all have bad posture. It’s a fact. We all want to improve our posture.
Elizabeth
And we’ve even talked to Jack’s pediatrician about it. We’ve done research into what are good exercises. Mom and dad had given us handouts on exercises. So we have a series of five quick exercises that you can do that are really supposed to make a difference on improving your posture. So we are going to do that as a family and I like that it says a family, because then I can like put a sign on the refrigerator, remember to do our exercises and it’s an activity we can do together.
Elizabeth
It’s more fun doing it together than to do it on my own.
Gretchen
Well, I think a key thing about that is that Adam and Jack want to do it because I tried to do this with my family because we also all have terrible posture and I got my own set of exercises, but everybody else was just eye rolling. And it’s very different. You know, it’s hard to push a rope and I think that the fact that everybody’s bought into it and is like, this is something that we all want for ourselves that’s different from me being a happiness bully, trying to badger people into doing it, even if theoretically they think, it’s a good thing to have better posture, like a better posture.
Gretchen
It sounds like your family’s a lot more bought in.
Elizabeth
From their boss. So we will see how we’re doing. I should probably put this in the habit tracker.
Gretchen
Yes.
Elizabeth
Because, you know, I’m more likely to do it, if I’m.
Gretchen
Honest, to put it in the happier app. Maybe throw it into the 24 for 24. Sometimes it helps to have something like reminders everywhere. Like you say, put aside ideas.
Elizabeth
Yeah. How about you, Gretch? What are your resolutions?
Gretchen
So, you know, I’m doing that. My happiness project revisited this year for the course. So that has been so much fun making resolutions, thinking about the month of month. So here are a few of the highlights. I’m doing many because I love a happiness project. I’m doing this one with Jamie So in a way it is like a family one.
Gretchen
So we want to have a monthly dinner party. We started that before COVID and COVID happened and now we want we have had a few and we want to keep going. I think that will be really great. So that goes to friendship for productivity. I often text myself or I text other people and I want to get in the habit of using voice instead of typing on a keyboard, because I think if I just got in the habit of that, it would actually be much quicker and easier.
Gretchen
And it’s just I just don’t have the habit of it. So I need to like make a thing so that I adopt that practice. So that goes to productivity. And then 2023, I had my 30 days of culture, which I loved, and this year maybe I would do 30 days of policy. I wouldn’t do them back to back the way I did culture, but going to lectures or watching documentaries or anything more about policy, which I think it will be a little bit harder to find those.
Gretchen
But I also want to tap into all the offerings on policy so those are some of my resolutions and I love a resolution. I find them very energizing. So I’m really.
Elizabeth
Excited. Well, you’re an upholder. I think resolutions are made for upholders. Yes.
Gretchen
So if anybody wants to follow along on me here about these and many more, if you go to happiercast.com and just look at the top, you’ll see the Happiness Project revisited. So sign up. Do your resolutions alongside me. We’ll all talk about them. It’s going to be so much fun. But for more inspiration, let’s hear from listeners.
Gretchen
So some of these were about resolutions that people found really worked, and that’s always interesting to know what really worked for someone. And then some of these are about strategies that they found particularly useful, which is also helpful. Like how did people approach an aim in a way that helped them to keep it?
Elizabeth
Yes. So this comes from Audrey. She said, grouping it by months so it doesn’t feel like everything has to happen right away.
Gretchen
I think that’s a really good advice, especially if you’re somebody who tends to feel overwhelmed or you tend to bite off more than you can chew. Yeah, remember, you don’t have to do everything all at once, Cynthia says. I resolved to always bring cloth bags to grocery shop. How I stick with it. If I forget, I leave my cart in the store and go back to the car to get them.
Gretchen
No excuses. Yeah, you do that a few times and then you remember. Yeah. That’s a strategy of inconvenience.
Elizabeth
Yes, Leah said. I’ve paired listening to audiobooks with taking an almost daily walk I found that listening to the books only when I walk motivates me to get out and walk.
Gretchen
Yeah, that’s a great one.
Elizabeth
That would work for your strategy of pairing.
Gretchen
Elizabeth said No frivolous spending. It changed how I approach spending money on things or extra this and that we don’t actually need, Kaitlyn.
Elizabeth
Says as a rebel, the only resolution I’ve ever managed to stick to is resolving to be even more authentically me. And I’m okay with that. I’ve been learning that my energy and enthusiasm cycle, so sometimes I go to the gym a lot and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I read a lot and sometimes I don’t. But no matter what happens, I learn about myself in the process and I get a little better at being me with every passing year.
Gretchen
So let me just say, this is so rebel. This is exactly this idea of putting your identity out into the world and living up to your identity is something that is really powerful for rebels. If you do not know if you are a rebel or an upholder or question or obliger, take the quiz and get the report.
Gretchen
Little little cheat sheet at gretchenrubin.com/quiz that this is great approach for rebel like do you yeah and be true to yourself and your actions will follow. Aaron said get dressed I realized I love clothes and colors and stripes and I have always loved these things. I used to let free clothes, other people’s opinions and fluctuating weight dictate my fashion.
Gretchen
Now I utilize a style planning app to select my outfits, and I make it easy by designating each day with a color days ending in one I wear white or gray, two is pink and so on through the rainbow ending in navy blue and then black. I don’t have to wear the color on that day, but it narrows it down and makes the decision easier.
Gretchen
If I start with that day’s color on the 31st, I wear rainbow. You know, I love color and I love I just I just think this is so charming. What a fun way to spice it up and to also eliminate decision fatigue.
Elizabeth
Yes. Barb says, Well, I have set resolutions each year and even write them down and revisit them. I usually fail miserably at achieving them. However, this year, doing a 23 for 23 list of goals I would like to achieve over the year has proven to be more successful. Have I accomplished them all? No. But I have accomplished some and I don’t feel bad about the ones I haven’t because I feel I have made progress.
Elizabeth
Excellent.
Gretchen
Good, ta-da is just as important as to do. Yes, Joy said. I’m a rebel who tips toward obliging and a long time listener. If I’m making a resolution that requires an identity change, I always try to make a new friend so that there’s someone who only knows me that way. For example, if I start a new hobby, I make a new friend who now has only ever known me as someone who hikes.
Gretchen
I find it easier to start something new if it also feels like a new me. I recently started a small business in a field I have 16 years experience in and was very confronted by imposter syndrome until I joined a networking group where no one knew me. To all of these new acquaintances, I’m a professional, not the kid they watched fumble around in college.
Elizabeth
That’s a great idea. Yeah, Sylvia says I quit smoking cold turkey on New Year’s Eve, 1987. At midnight, I flush the remainder of my last pack down a toilet. As a symbolic gesture, I knew continued smoking was essentially treating my health and my earnings in a similar manner. There weren’t many left and no plumbing damaged. I’m usually more of a moderator than an abstainer, but when it came to smoking, I was all or nothing.
Elizabeth
I had quit for three years, then decided I could manage smoking socially. I was chain smoking again within a month. Thankfully, the end of the year was approaching and seemed an auspicious occasion to swear off for good. I’m also a questioner, so the arbitrary date might seem an odd choice for me, but I was determined that this would be my last time quitting and wanted a date that would be easy to remember.
Elizabeth
I am ever thankful to have that nasty habit behind me and celebrate the decision to quit each New Year’s Day.
Gretchen
that’s so great. That’s a huge thing. Well done. Well done.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
Laura wrote, I have points throughout the year where I sit down and intentionally make tweaks to my goals. For example, my weight lifting program changes slightly every couple of months to keep me motivated. I might evaluate if something else I’m working on is working for me as a questioner. I like to continue to evaluate and watch goals evolve as time goes on.
Gretchen
Often they become better and more meaningful as I work on them a bit. I think resolutions often get cast aside because people view them as a concrete thing. They said that one day, which the questioner in me just finds so arbitrary. Good point.
Elizabeth
And finally, Kim said, I write a blog post at the end of every month updating my goals that I established at the beginning of the year. So that’s sort of her own accountability to keep her resolution and.
Gretchen
To keep them uppermost in mind. So these were great, great ideas for resolutions, great strategies, fascinating to read about everything that people have done.
Elizabeth
Yes. Coming up, we’re going to talk about some strategies of habit change to help us keep these resolutions. But first, this break.
[music]
Okay, Gretch, we are back talking about resolutions. You wrote a whole book about habit change called Better Than Before, which very much dovetails into the resolution idea. Yes. So what have you learned that can help us all with our resolutions?
Gretchen
So resolutions often keeping resolution involves changing a habit, making or breaking a habit. And what I found when I was working on better than before is that there are 21 strategies of habit change. And the fact is, sometimes people say 21 is too many. Just give me like the five most important ones. But the fact is, it’s good that there are so many because we each need to pick and choose the ones that are right for us.
Gretchen
There is no magic one size fit solution. And it turns out when you know yourself and you set yourself up for success, it’s a lot easier to keep a resolution. For instance, a lot of the listeners were talking about their tendency. If you know your tendency, then you know how to set yourself up to achieve an aim much more easily.
Gretchen
You just know how to set yourself up for success. So what I thought would be fun was just to race through the 21. We can’t do an in-depth discussion of each, but I just think it’s good for people to remember because with an important resolution you might use several of these strategies to really try to lock it into place.
Gretchen
So it’s good to remember you’ve got this whole huge menu. So pick the ones that seem right for you.
Elizabeth
So the first, as you mentioned, is the four tendencies. Take the quiz. Find out if you’re an upholder or a questioner and obliger or a rebel.
Gretchen
Go to happiercast.com/quiz and so much will be revealed. Related to this self-knowledge is the strategy of distinctions, which is really think about what makes you different from other people. Are you a morning person or a night person? Are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Do you prefer familiarity or novelty? Do you like competition or do you prefer to collaborate?
Gretchen
When you think about these kinds of distinctions, you can establish habits in the ways that are best suited to you.
Elizabeth
Number three is monitoring. This is a big one for me, and I think for a lot of obligers we manage, what we monitor, keeping close track of our actions means we do better in categories such as eating, drinking, exercising, working, TV and Internet use, spending, and just about everything else.
Gretchen
So this is people who love the Don’t Break the Chain tracker, which I have the journal that’s the tracker or in the Happier app is of, you use both yes questioners often like monitoring too because they like the data tracking. But it’s something that that works for just about everyone. There’s just that satisfying factor. And then the thing about monitoring is it just you just have a much better sense of what you’re doing or not doing.
Gretchen
So that’s very helpful. The strategy of foundation is do first things first. You will set yourself up for success. If you get enough sleep, get some exercise so that you get the energy and boost that comes from exercising for a lot of people, outter order contributes to inner calm. And so taking time to declutter your environment can help give you the energy.
Gretchen
So this is just kind of about doing the basics so that all the other strategies are easier to apply.
Elizabeth
Number five, scheduling. For many people, if it’s on the calendar, it happens. That’s that’s how that’s how I am. Habits grows strongest and fastest when they’re repeated and predictable ways. And for most of us, putting an activity on the schedule tends to lock us into doing it. Scheduling an activity also protects that time from interference.
Gretchen
Yes, but can I say if you are a rebel, be very wary. Scheduling may be counterproductive for you. It’s up to you. But just know that scheduling works very well for some people. But it often does not work for rebels. And then similarly, accountability. The strategy of accountability. For many people, this is the most essential strategy. It is a strategy that many people find to be useful.
Gretchen
Creating accountability for yourself for obligers outter accountability is essential. If you are an obliger, remember, you need outer accountability. Even to meet an inner expectation. Also, remember that sweethearts and spouses tend not to be good outer accountability sources. But if you are a rebel writing partner.
Elizabeth
Yeah.
Gretchen
Yeah. But if you are a rebel accountability, you might feel like I don’t want somebody looking over my shoulder. If that ignites the spirit of resistance. And you just remember no tool fits every hand and accountability may not work for you.
Elizabeth
Number seven first steps. If it’s enough to begin. If you’re ready, begin now. And while starting is hard, starting over is often harder. Yes, once started. Try not to stop. Don’t break the chain.
Gretchen
Yeah. So you want to think very much about the starting and then continuing. Also, the thing is, don’t get discouraged if you think like, my gosh, why didn’t I start this a long time ago? So now people are like, I’m already so far behind, I don’t even want to take the first step. But just remember, the best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago.
Gretchen
The second best time is now. So take those first steps. It kind of related to first steps is the clean slate. And this is the idea. This is in research shows this is when you go through a big transition, it’s often easier to start new habits because your old habits are wiped away. This is why they often recommend that if you move your house, that’s a really good time to quit smoking.
Gretchen
So you want to take advantage if you have a clean slate, like you have a new relationship or you’ve moved to a new city or you’ve moved to a new apartment. So take advantage of the clean slate. But then also remember that temporary tends to become permanent. So you want to start the way you want to continue. Don’t say like, you know, the first couple of weeks of work, I won’t try to exercise during my work day.
Gretchen
I’ll I’ll ease into it because pretty soon that clean slate will be wiped away and you’ll be locked into place, and then it can be harder.
Elizabeth
Number nine, the lightning bolt. Everybody see? Yeah. Once in a while we encounter some new ideas, new information, or a new role. And suddenly, effortlessly, a new habit replaces a well established habit. The strategy is enormously powerful, but hard to invoke on command. Examples might include a documentary or a book, a diagnosis, an accident, a conversation with a stranger.
Elizabeth
Parenthood. Gretchen you read Gary Taubes book and overnight completely changed the way you ate.
Gretchen
Yeah, and it’s frustrating because the thing about the lightning bolt is it’s the only strategy that kind of happens to you. You can’t invoke it. So it’s an attractive strategy because it’s sort of effortless, but it’s frustrating because you can’t make it happen. It’s just sort of something that happens to you. It’s it’s interesting in that way.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
Strategy of abstaining. This is an interesting strategy because it works very well for some people, but not for others. It will often apply in some contexts, but not in every context. The question is, when you’re facing a strong temptation, would it be easier for you to abstain altogether or to indulge in moderation. For abstainers, it’s much easier to just give something up altogether.
Gretchen
I very much have a sort of abstain or mindset, but moderators often get kind of panicky and rebellious if they’re told that they should abstain. So this is really a place to know yourself and realize that what works for you may not be what works for other people.
Elizabeth
Number one, convenience. To a truly remarkable extent, we are more likely to do something if it’s convenient and less likely if it’s not. Yes, the amount of effort, time or decision making required by an action has a huge influence on our habits. Make it easy to do right and hard to do wrong.
Gretchen
Well, and this is a pair. So there’s the strategy of convenience and the strategy of inconvenience. They’re like flip sides of each other. So with inconvenience, if there’s something that you don’t want to do, make it inconvenient. So I’ve heard of people who sleep in their exercise clothes so that they’re ready to work out first thing in the morning.
Gretchen
And then people who put the remote control for their television set on a different floor. So they can’t just easily turn on the TV set. They have to go fetch the remote. So these are really powerful. They work for just about everyone. So think about convenience and inconvenience.
Elizabeth
Number 13 Safeguard. Plan to fail. Try to anticipate and minimize temptation, both in your environment and in your own mind. Use if then planning to prepare for challenges that might arise. For example, if it’s raining, then I will exercise by following an online cardio video.
Gretchen
This is just anticipate what might go wrong. What happens if I travel? What happens if I’m sick? What happens if I have a day off? Think about those.
Elizabeth
Safeguards. Okay, Gretch. Coming up, we’re going to go through the rest of the 21 strategies for habit change, but first, this break.
[music]
All right, Gretchen, we are back with our 21 strategies for habit change to help us keep our resolutions.
Gretchen
So number 14 is the strategy of loophole spotting. And I have to say this is my favorite chapter to work on and better than before because loopholes are so hilarious. There are ten categories of loopholes which are the justifications that we give ourselves for letting ourselves off the hook. I won’t go through all ten. I’ll post a link in the show notes, but some of the most popular ones are like the tomorrow loophole.
Gretchen
Like, it doesn’t matter what I do today because tomorrow I’m going to be so good. Or my personal favorite is the false choice loophole, which is like, I can’t go to the dentist because I’m so busy writing like I have to choose between these two things. So anyway, they’re really, really funny. But when you know the loophole that you tend to invoke and really we all probably invoke all of them, it’s much easier to kind of reject.
Gretchen
So you want to spot them so that you can reject them?
Elizabeth
Yes, I invoke a lot of that.
Gretchen
We all do it. We all do it.
Elizabeth
Number 15 Distraction. When we’re tempted to break a good habit, we deliberately shift our attention away from unwelcome thoughts by finding healthy distractions.
Gretchen
Sometimes distraction can be bad, but sometimes distraction can be very helpful. So we want to harness the power of distraction. Number 16 Strategy of reward. This is a very tricky strategy. External rewards can often actually undermine habit formation. Remember the best reward for your good habit is the good habit itself. The reward for yoga is yoga. The reward for yoga is not an extra glass of wine tonight.
Gretchen
And so rewards can get very, very tricky. They can actually derail good habits. So you want to you want to think carefully about rewards. But let me say, treats are different from rewards. So the strategy of treats is everyone’s favorite strategy, which is that we all need to give ourselves healthy treats. And here’s the difference between a treat and a reward, because people often confuse them.
Gretchen
You have to earn a reward. You have to justify it, a treat you get just because you want it. You just need a treat. You get a treat. You feel like doing a crossword puzzle. You get to do a crossword puzzle. And because it’s just something that you give yourself, it helps us all feel energized and contented and cared for.
Gretchen
And so we don’t get in that depleted, drained mode where a lot of times we will break our good habits. But these treats have to be healthy treats because you don’t want to do something to make yourself feel better. That just ends up making you feel worse in the long term. So you have to think, is this a treat that I will look back on with pleasure.
Gretchen
So for me, like, you know, I love my perfume samplers and sometimes I’ll just go and sample a few perfumes and for some reason I find that to be like I get a big kick out of that. So that’s a good, healthy treat for me. Yeah, we all have very idiosyncratic treats, but you want to identify those treats so that when you need a treat, you can give yourself a treat, which is not the same thing, as rewarding yourself for good behavior.
Elizabeth
And then. 18 Gretch, I love this one pairing. Yeah, one of our listeners mentioned pairing audio books and walking. Yeah, classic. Because you only do X when you’re doing Y pair two activities, one that you need or want to do and one that you don’t particularly want to do and always do them together. Yeah, so that’s like watching The Real Housewives on the treadmill.
Elizabeth
Yes.
Gretchen
Or like in college, I could only shower on a day when I exercised. So those things were paired and that got me exercising. Number 19, the strategy of clarity. This is particularly useful for questioners. The more clearly we identify the habit that we want to follow, why we are doing this, why we are asking this of ourselves exactly how we plan to ask ourselves to do it, the more likely we are to stick to it.
Gretchen
And so with any habit or resolution, you want it to be concrete, manageable and measurable. And this is important for everyone. We’re just that makes it a lot easier to stick to resolutions. But it is something that I find that questioners will often invoke the strategy of clarity.
Elizabeth
Number 20 Identity. Our habits reflect your identity. So if you struggle to change a particular habit, rethink your identity. Every identity athlete, artist, environmentalist, reliable parent, strong leader carries certain habits with it. I know this is good for rebels.
Gretchen
Yes, it’s important for everyone because it’s sort of like once you had this idea, like I am a hiker, then a lot of times it’s like, of course I’m going to do this because I hike. But it is particularly important for rebels because that’s often one of the main ways that they tackle their habits, as the listener said earlier.
Gretchen
And then the final one is the strategy of other people and to a kind of surprising degree, we really pick up habits for other people, like your habits will rub off on the people around you and their habits will rub off on you. So you want to think about that. You want to associate with people who follow the habits that you want to adopt.
Gretchen
This can even be things like reading websites or magazines related to that identity and to that behavior, because it’s just going to give you the idea of like, this is something that people do and this is the kind of person I am, and this is the kind of thing we talk about. So and I mean, this is even like they’ve shared it with married couples.
Gretchen
If one quit smoking, the other one is much more likely to quit smoking. So for good and for ill, we’re always exchanging habits for each other. But again, okay, so that’s the 21. And again, some of these will work for some people and not for others. And some of them are available to us at certain times in our lives, but not at other times.
Gretchen
For example, the strategy of the clean slate. You don’t always have a transition, so you want to take advantage of it when you can. But it’s good to know all 21 because then you know, like Elizabeth, you know, that pairing works really well for you. So then you could like when you were trying to do night flossing.
Gretchen
Yeah, pairing. So let us know again. What are you trying? What’s working for you? What’s not working for you? What resolutions are transforming your life? This is endlessly fascinating. We can all learn from each other. A whole new year is coming up. So many opportunities to make resolutions or do all kinds of new things. As we approach the new Year, let us know on Instagram, Threads.
Gretchen
Tik Tok, Facebook. Drop us an email at podcast@gretchenrubin.com Or as always, you can go to the show notes we mentioned a lot of things in this episode. You can go to happiercast.com/460 for anything related to this episode.
Elizabeth
What’s the resource this week?
Gretchen
Well, related to that, resources that are available, if you go to happiercast.com/habits, there is a whole habits hub there that will help you think through what you want to work on. Give you popular categories of resolutions. It will have the 21 Strategies for Habit Change listed there. My manifesto for habit change all kinds of things.
Gretchen
If you’re thinking about your resolutions and thinking about the strategies that you might harness in order to make those resolutions happen. But Elizabeth, I’m making a resolution related to reading. I want to read more. 2024 What are you reading now?
Elizabeth
I am reading The Woman in Me by Britney Spears.
Gretchen
And I’m about to reread A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. We hope this very special episode was useful.
Elizabeth
Thank you to our executive producer Chuck Reed and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in Touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram and Tik Tok and Threads at Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram and Threads at Liz Craft. Our email address is podcast@gretchenrubin.com.
Gretchen
And please resolve to rate and review our show and even better, tell someone else about the show or email them a link to this episode. That is how most people discover our show. We really, really appreciate it when people do that.
Elizabeth
We sure do. Until next week, I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward. So, Elizabeth, what got Daisy and Nacho so riled up at the beginning of the recording? Like what was setting them off?
Elizabeth
They don’t know. They must have seen a squirrel in the yard or something. It’s something got them going.
Gretchen
It’s funny to just have this mysterious inner life that we don’t understand.
Elizabeth
Start barking at exactly the same time for no reason.
Gretchen
Awh that’s fun.
[music]
From the onward project.