The Happiness Project

5 Common Happiness Mistakes -- "Boosters" That Actually Do More Harm Than Good.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 5 happiness boosters that actually do more harm than good.

Everyone has a few tricks for beating the blues – things you do when you’re feeling down to try to boost your mood. I've found out from long experience, however, that several of the most popular strategies don’t actually work very well in the long term. Beware if you're tempted to try any of the following:

1. Comforting yourself with a “treat.” Often, the things we choose as “treats” aren’t good for us. (That's why they're treats! We usually restrain ourselves!) The pleasure lasts a minute, but then feelings of guilt, loss of control, and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day. So when you find yourself thinking, “I’ll feel better after I have a few more beers…a pint of ice cream…a cigarette…a new pair of jeans,” ask yourself – will it REALLY make you feel better? It might make you feel worse. In particular, beware of…

2. Letting yourself off the hook. When I'm feeling down, I feel tempted to let myself off the hook, to think, “I’ll allow myself to skip the gym today, I need a break.” In fact, sticking to a resolution does more to boost my sense of self-esteem and self-control. (Plus, exercise itself boosts my happiness.) So NOT letting yourself off the hook might do more to boost your happiness. At the end of a bad day, you can say, "Well, at least I went to the gym/finished that horrible report/took my dog to the dog park."

3. Retreating to your sofa. Studies show that extroverts and introverts alike get a mood boost from connecting with other people. Although it can be tempting to isolate yourself when you’re feeling blue, you’re better off making plans with friends or family.

4. Expressing your negative emotions. Many people believe in the “catharsis hypothesis” and think that expressing anger by yelling, throwing things, punching pillows, slamming doors, cursing, etc. is healthy-minded and relieves their feelings. Not so. Studies show that aggressively expressing anger only aggravates it; as Plutarch observed, “Anger, while in its beginning, often can be ended by silence, or neglect.” I’ve certainly found this to be true; once I start yelling, I can whip myself into a fury. There are situations, of course, when my anger is a sign of a real problem that needs attention; I find that making sure that I express myself calmly means that I feel less riled up -- and, added bonus, that approach also elicits a better response from others.

5. Staying in your pajamas all day. One of the most helpful things I’ve learned in my happiness research is that although we think that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. As improbable as this sounds, it really works. Sometimes it can be fun to hang out in your sweats all day, but if you’re feeling lethargic, powerless, or directionless, not getting dressed may make you feel worse. Put on your clothes so you feel prepared for whatever the day might offer. While you’re at it, make your bed.

* Today, I got out of my pajamas and away from my sofa to meet the writer Alice Bradley, of the famous Finslippy blog. She is as funny in person as on her blog! Which is high praise.

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
-- Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 46,000 people get it)
-- Buy the book
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.

Do You Have Happy Memories of a Place Associated with Your Grandparents?

A few days ago, over on the Facebook Page, I asked the question, “What childhood places were most important to you?” I answered, “For me, the Plaza library in Kansas City. It has been renovated, and while it’s gorgeous and new, I wish I could still visit the library the way it was.”

More than a hundred people posted a response to this question, and I was struck by how frequently people mentioned a happy memory connected to a place associated with their grandparents.

Some themes:
-- the contrast between their usual home and their grandparents’ home – spending time on a farm, say, or visiting a very different city
-- being in the kitchen of their grandparents’ house
-- special activities they did when they visited their grandparents, like sewing or fishing

One person made a very interesting point. She grew up in a military family that moved a lot, so her grandparents’ house was important as the one place that stayed familiar; she observed that as people become more transient, this might become true for more people.

This subject is timely for me, because my older daughter just got back from a week's stay with my parents in Kansas City. My younger daughter went for her visit last month. Then we’ll all go back for another week in August. Their other set of grandparents lives right around the corner from our apartment, so it’s easy to plan times for visiting them. I’m so happy that they can have these visits, because I think relationships with grandparents are so important – and even the grandparents’ place.

Both my parents are from the same little Nebraska town, North Platte, and we would visit every summer. I could ride my bike from one grandparent house to the other. I remember so well the things we’d do, what we’d eat, the way each room smelled. And Fort Cody! I remember every aisle of that touristy emporium. (I just wondered: do they have a website? And here it is.)

In addition to getting to spend time with my beloved grandparents, one thing I love about those trips to North Platte is that it gave me another hometown – another place where I really knew the streets, the stores, the parks, the history, the best places to get ice cream. I’m very happy that my daughters will have this feeling about Kansas City, because as much as I love New York City and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, it’s a very weird hometown. I remember Calvin Trillin (a fellow Kansas Citian transplanted to New York) writing that it took him a long time to realize that his children weren’t from Kansas City. I knew exactly what he meant.

How about you? Do you have any particular happy memories related to your grandparents? And the places associated with them?

* I really enjoyed checking out Simple Mom -- "Live simply, stay sane. Life hacks for home managers."

* There's been a lot of interest in the one-page discussion guide for book groups. Because so many people mentioned that they're reading The Happiness Project with their church group, or in a spirituality book group, and the like, I wrote another one-page discussion guide that focuses on the spiritual aspect. If you'd like either discussion guide (or both!), email me at grubin at gretchenrubin dot com.

“A Lifetime Can Well Be Spent Correcting...One’s Own Faults Without Bothering about Others.”

“A lifetime can well be spent correcting and improving one’s own faults without bothering about others.”
-- Edward Weston

* A reader send me the link to this terrific blog, The Adventures of ALS Boy. This particular post, So I had a dream this morning, particularly struck me.

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin at gretchenrubin dot com. Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Re-Consider the Rules of Thumb You Use in Everyday Life.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

My adventures in the lands of happiness research led me to the concept of heuristics. Heuristics are “rules of thumb,” the quick, common-sense principles people apply to solve a problem or make a decision. They aren’t “rules for living” that you consciously try to apply; rather, they're deeply embedded, often unconscious, rules that you use to make decisions, answer a question, or decide a course of action.

Usually heuristics are useful, though sometimes they lead to cognitive bias. Take the availability heuristic: people predict the likelihood of an event based on how easily they can come up with an example. This is often helpful (is a tornado likely to hit Manhattan?), but sometimes people’s judgment is skewed because the vividness of examples makes an event seem more likely than it actually is. People become very worried about child abduction, say, when in fact, it’s a very rare occurrence.

I realized that I have my own idiosyncratic collection of “heuristics” for making decisions and setting priorities. Well, maybe these don’t fit the precise definition of “heuristics” — but they're rules of thumb I apply when deciding what to think or how to act, mostly without quite realizing that I'm using them. They flicker through my brain so quickly that I had to make a real effort to detect them, but I identified a handful:

My children are my most important priority.
Exercise every day.
People don’t notice my mistakes and flaws as much as I think.
My husband is my top priority.
“Yes” comes right away; “no” never comes.
Get some work done every day.
Whenever possible, choose vegetables.
I know as much as most people.
Try to attend any party or event to which I’m invited.
My parents are almost always right.
Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.
If I’m not sure whether to include some text in my writing, cut it out.
When making a choice about what to do, choose work.
I'm too busy to do that.

Looking at these rules showed me something. Several of them were difficult to balance. How could my kids, my husband, and my work all be top priorities? Also, I was pretty sure that my husband operates under the heuristic of “Try to skip practically any event to which I’m invited.” That explained certain ongoing marital debates.

Some of my heuristics were unhelpful. “I don’t have time” ran through my head dozens of times each day. I've been working to change that heuristic to “I have plenty of time for the things that are important to me.”

I asked my friends if they had any personal heuristics, and I collected quite a few:
There’s no wrong decision.
Always say hello.
People in business, small or large, will take advantage of you if they can.
What would my mother do?
Actually, this is good news.
Say yes.
This is the fun part.
Do nothing, go nowhere.
Do everything all at once.

What heuristics are shaping your behavior? Though I may be mis-using the term. I mean – what are the rules of thumb that you apply to figure out what to think or do? Not what you WISH you thought (“Always take a moment to appreciate the sunshine”) but what you actually think (“Any parent who misses a school function has bad values”) -- whether or not you actually agree with that thought! What springs to mind?

* At last, an answer. The CHICKEN did come before the EGG.

If you're also looking for some great summer reading, please consider The Happiness Project (can't resist mentioning: #1 New York Times bestseller).
Order your copy.
Read sample chapters.
Watch the one-minute book video.
Listen to a sample of the audiobook.

"Flirting, Watching Clips from Broadway Shows and Nature Documentaries, and Reminding Myself to 'Suck It Up and Deal With It Now.'"

Happiness interview: Natasha Vargas-Cooper.

My love for all things Twilight, books and movies, both fascinates and puzzles me. Obedient to my Personal Commandment to "Be Gretchen," I wear my passion on my sleeve, and so last year, a movie-critic friend emailed me to say, "Hey, I know you love Twilight stuff. You should check out this review."

I read the attached review of New Moon, and I recently read the review of the new movie Eclipse, and I was blown away by the writing of Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Mary H.K. Choi. This kind of crazy, high-low, jumping style looks playful, but is very, very hard to do well -- pyrotechnical effects combined with real insight and analysis. As G.K. Chesterton observed, "It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light."

I'm a big fan of this writing, but these reviews are crammed with graphic sexual language, curse words, and possibly offensive remarks. So much so that I'm not even going to link to them here, but if you're curious, and don't mind that kind of thing -- and a fan of the Twilight "Saga" of course -- you can look on The Awl where they appeared. Reader, know thyself!

For a broader audience, Natasha has a book that just hit the shelves yesterday, Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America. If you're a Mad Men fan -- and all my favorite people are -- you''ll love it. I confess that I've only seen three episodes; I'm dying to catch up and join the frenzy, but first, I want to watch every episode of Vampire Diaries, the show my sister is now writing for. (Hmmm...odd vampire theme emerging in this post.) Then, Mad Men. I don't have much TV time, but this book made me very impatient to get started.

The book is heavily and fabulously illustrated, and highlights intriguing aspects of the Mad Men milieu -- topics like Polaroid, Stewardesses, California Cool, Puffing While Pregnant, Suburban Rococo, Cheever Country, just to name a few. But before I read a word, I turned every page to look at the pictures. I love that 60's look.

I wanted to ask Natasha about her views on happiness.

What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Flirting! It’s the first honest answer that popped into my head and I know that it’s true. I am super naturally good at it!

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
Mostly that short cuts to happiness will intensify unhappiness later. Avoiding the yucky awful things like break ups, confrontations, quitting jobs so you can simulate being content will eventually make you miserable. So just “suck it up and deal with it now! You’ll thank me,” is what I would say to 18 year old me.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
I tend to brood. Once I’m in a bad mood I try to stay there. The sad music comes on, I self induce nostalgia, and mope. Tremendous effort goes into moping.

Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”)
“Breathe and don’t drink.” I’m not even a drunk! But in the recovery world, this is what people tell themselves when they feel overwhelmed. It’s the simplest axiom, but it saved people’s lives. So if something as complex and overpowering as addiction can be kept in check with that saying, it gives me hope that any issue that comes before me is manageable.

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost?
Showtunes! I like to find clips from Broadway shows because growing up listening to musicals you could only imagine would it be like to watch Chita Rivera sing a solo but now on Youtube you can see it! You can see the dream!

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
I’m young so in my cohort the people who I know are miserable are usually angst ridden because they feel overwhelmed by circumstance; Either an awful job or dysfunctional relationship or lack of direction. So they idle, and all their feelings clot into a these big sad blobs. They just congeal, making any movement forward or backward or even lateral too painful to do. Idling is a destroyer.

Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy – if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
I am at my most full tilt depressed when I work for some who is a bad leader. Not just bad manager, but a person or group of people in a position of power who don’t know how to lead other people. It makes me act out I spend all of my time making sure that every one around me is also angry. When I’ve have been at my unhappiest is when I’m in that position. I go bonkers.

Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
I spend the last hour of my day watching nature documentaries. I don’t read or TV before I go to bed. This has made me miraculously calmer person. It humbles me and inspires me and always puts ideas into my head so I wake up the next morning feeling good because I went to bed serenely. I think this is how some people feel about prayer? Richard Attenborough is my god!

Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t – or vice versa?
I thought being alone would make me crazy with unhappiness. I never thought I could steer my life on my own. The notion used to fill me with dread and some days it still does. But in general it’s great! My default is now ‘solo’. I never thought I would enjoy hanging out with me so much. Let me tell you, I am a delight.

* On the subject of writers-I-admire, my friend Amy Wilson's blog, Mother Load -- "musings of a former perfectionist and current mother" -- is hilarious and thought-provoking. Her book, When Did I Get Like This?: The Screamer, the Worrier, the Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget-Buyer, and Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be, came out recently, too.

* If you'd like a personalized, signed bookplate to put in your copy of The Happiness Project, email me your name, or someone else's name, and the address to which I should mail the bookplate, and I'll send it right off. Feel free to ask for as many as you like. My email is grubin [at] gretchenrubin [.com]. Don't forget to include your mailing address

"The Things That Go Wrong Often Make the Best Memories" -- and Further Secrets of Adulthood.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: More Secrets of Adulthood.

What have I learned, with time and experience? Not much, I fear. Here are my latest Secrets of Adulthood. Although these items may not seem particularly profound, each one was a revelation when I finally figured it out:

The things that go wrong often make the best memories.
Approval from the people you admire is sweet, but it’s not enough to be the foundation of a happy life.
If you don't really want something, getting it won't make you happy.
It’s enormously helpful, and surprisingly difficult, to grasp the obvious.
The quickest way to progress from A to B is NOT to work the hardest.
Go outside.
It’s easier to prevent pain than to squelch it. (This is true literally and figuratively.)
Where you start makes a big difference in where you end up.
Remember to choose your boss carefully.
There’s no place like home.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. (Actually, Voltaire came up with that one, not me.)

Here are my previously identified Secrets of Adulthood:

The best reading is re-reading.
Outer order contributes to inner calm.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
You manage what you measure.
It's nice to have plenty of money.
By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.
People don’t notice your mistakes and flaws as much as you think.
Most decisions don't require extensive research.
Try not to let yourself get too hungry.
Even if you think they're fake, it's nice to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day.
If you can't find something, clean up.
The days are long, but the years are short.
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
It's okay to ask for help.
You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you LIKE to do.
Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.
You don't have to be good at everything.
Soap and water removes most stains.
It's important to be nice to EVERYONE.
You know as much as most people.
Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.
Eat better, eat less, exercise more.
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you--and vice versa.
People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
No deposit, no return.

I've modified one Secret of Adulthood to replace "Someplace, keep an empty shelf" with "Someplace, keep an empty shelf; someplace, keep a junk drawer."

One of my favorite things to do on the Happiness Project Toolbox (okay, my favorite thing) is to see what other people are saying. A few of my favorite Secrets of Adulthood from other people include:

Some things are worth waiting for, some things are not.
It's okay to like watching cartoons (even if you are 36).
A job where someone pays you to do nothing is not awesome, it's boring.
Maturity doesn't mean acting serious all the time.
If you buy an item that has a part that will frequently need to be replaced, go ahead and buy a replacement at the same time.
When someone is mourning a loss, don't worry about saying the right thing. Just say something.
You need old friends and new friends.
Seek mentors for more than your career.
It is what it is.

I'm tempted to keep going. but will force myself to stop here. How about you? Have you identified a helpful Secret of Adulthood?

* I love getting the chance to see other bloggers face to face, so am very happy to be meeting Emily from TheMotherHood this afternoon.

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
-- Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 46,000 people get it)
-- Buy the book
-- Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
-- Watch the one-minute book video
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.

Video: Be Happier -- Put Your Values into Action in Your Everyday Life.

2010 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2010 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2010 a happier year – and even if you haven’t officially signed up for the challenge -- this month's theme is Eternity. Last week’s theme was Do good, feel good. Did you try to follow that resolution? Did it help to boost your happiness?

This week’s resolution is to Put your values into action in your everyday life.

How about you? What ways have you found to put your values into action in your everyday life?

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
A new way to celebrate Valentine's Day -- and one that doesn't involve shopping, crafts, or calories.
What's an obstacle to your happiness?
A happiness lesson from...Simon Cowell? Yep.

If you're new, here’s information on the 2010 Happiness Challenge (or watch the intro video). It’s never too late to start! You’re not behind, jump in right now, sign up here. For more ideas, check out the Happiness Project site on Woman’s Day.

* If you've read Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, or Lori Gottlieb's Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, you might enjoy this short story, The Butterfly, by Hans Christian Andersen. It develops the same ideas in fairy-tale form.

* Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel. To get the weekly video by email, right in your email in-box, you can:
-- On the GretchenRubin channel page, after you subscribe, click "Edit Subscription" and check the box, “Email me for new uploads.” Or...
-- Go to your main drop-down box, click “Subscriptions,” find the GretchenRubin channel, click “Edit Subscriptions,” and check “Email me for new uploads” there.

Do You Ever Feel That You Have Two Personalities, Existing Side by Side?

I'm re-reading, for the fourth time, Carl Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

One of my chief preoccupations (along with happiness, of course) is a subject that I call "symbols beyond words," so I can't get enough of this book. Its vision is so huge.

Each time I read it, I'm struck by different passages. This time, I was particularly interested in Jung's discussion of his "No. 1" personality and his "No. 2" personality.

Somewhere deep in the background I always knew that I was two persons. One was the son of my parents, who went to school and was less intelligent, attentive, hard-working, decent, and clean than many other boys. The other was grown up -- old, in fact -- skeptical, mistrustful, remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures, and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever "God" worked directly in him...Beside [No. 1's] world there existed another realm, like a temple in which anyone who entered was transformed and suddenly overpowered by a vision of the whole cosmos, so that he could only marvel and admire, forgetful of himself.

Later in the book, Jung continues...

Through No. 1's eyes I saw myself as a rather disagreeable and moderately gifted young man with vaulting ambitions, an undisciplined temperament and dubious manners, alternating between naive enthusiasm and fits of childish disappointment...No. 2 had no definable character at all; he was a vita peracta, born, living, dead, everything in one; a total vision of life....Here was meaning and historical continuity, in strong contrast to the incoherent fortuitousness of No. 1's life, which had no real points of contact with its environment.

I have to resist the urge to put here everything that Jung writes about No. 1 and No. 2 -- these brief quotations don't do justice to his ideas -- but that would go on for pages. Well, all right, just one more. Jung makes this observation about the two personalities:

The play and counterplay between personalities No. 1 and No. 2, which has run through my whole life, has nothing to do with a "split" or dissociation in the ordinary medical sense. On the contrary, it is played out in every individual. In my life No. 2 has been of prime importance, and I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.

I know exactly what Jung is describing. Do you share this feeling?

* I had an interesting conversation with Australian journalist Sarah Wilson, and she sent me a link to a great column she wrote about trying to "Be Sarah."

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin at gretchenrubin dot com. Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

"To Study and Learn How To Know Ourselves...Is the Foundation of Wisdom and the Highway To Whatever Is Good."

“The most excellent and divine counsel, the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practiced, is to study and learn how to know ourselves. This is the foundation of wisdom and the highway to whatever is good.”
--Pierre Charron

* As a person who reads every possible minute that I can, I'm always looking for good reading recommendations and for places to read about, and revel in, books (whatever physical form they may take). I loved finding this blog, Nathalie Foy -- "on books about books."

* In a book group? Considering reading The Happiness Project? Email me at grubin at gretchenrubin dot com if you'd like a one-page discussion guide. If you're reading it with your church group, your spirituality reading group, or the like, you can request a guide that focuses on the spiritual aspect of the book. Or request both!

Want Some Tools To Boost Happiness? Try the Happiness Project Toolbox.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

I love visiting this blog’s companion site, the Happiness Project Toolbox – it’s fun to add to my own Inspiration Board, keep up with my own One-Sentence Journal (mine is a journal of what I’m reading), check my Lists, etc.

But I’m really addicted to the site because I love looking at what other people are writing. I can’t get enough of reading other people’s favorite quotations on the Inspiration Boards, seeing other people’s Personal Commandments, and all the rest. (To see what other people have added, you can click on the Tools listed across the top, or on the “more” running down the right side.)

Today, instead of proposing one of my resolutions for your happiness project, I gathered six of my favorite resolutions from that section of the Toolbox:

1. Proactive not reactive
2. Participate -- life is not a spectator sport
3. No one notices your toe polish
4. Skip junk
5. Try a little tenderness
6. Laugh out loud each day

One of my all-time favorite resolutions from the Toolbox is "No pressure knitting.” I have never knit a stitch in my life, but that resolution gave me such a clear picture of that person and that happiness project! I laughed out loud; I know exactly what that means.

One note: we all have a limited capacity for sticking to resolutions, so I try to make sure I'm getting the biggest happiness bang for the buck. For example, I'm probably be better off using my precious resolution-energy toward going for a ten-minute walk instead of trying to drink more water.

The Toolbox has a great new feature: if you're on Facebook, you can also post your entry to Facebook, so your friends can see what you're up to -- the resolutions you're making, the books you're adding to your Inspiration Board, etc. It's a lot of fun.

What resolutions have proved most helpful in your happiness project?

* I got the BIGGEST KICK out of this Funny or Die video: the very well-known singer Jewel went in disguise to sing her own songs at a karaoke bar. It's really worth watching.