Top 10 Practices for Resetting Your Time, Space, Body, Inner Critic, and Social Life | Laurie Santos and Gretchen Rubin

How to understand your tendencies and identify what's keeping you stuck. Plus: advice on treating resistance as data, reclaiming time affluence, and avoiding "procrasticlearing." Laurie Santos is the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University. In addition to her work on the evolutionary origins of human cognition, Laurie is an expert on the science of happiness and the ways in which our minds lie to us about what makes us happy. Her podcast, The Happiness Lab https://www.drlauriesantos.com/happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos-podcast, is a top-3 Apple podcast which has attracted 150+ million downloads since its launch. Gretchen Rubin is one of today's most influential and thought-provoking observers of happiness and human nature. She's the author of many bestselling books, such as The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, The Four Tendencies, and Life in Five Senses which have sold millions of copies in more than thirty languages. Her most recent book is Secrets of Adulthood. She's also host of the popular podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin https://gretchenrubin.com/podcasts/. In this episode we talk about: Why your intuitions often make stuckness worse, not better The difference between mindless drift and mindful, deliberate delay How to treat resistance as useful data instead of laziness Kristin Neff's three-part framework for practicing real self-compassion Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies and how they shape what gets you unstuck Why clearing physical space creates a felt sense of agency The "liking gap" and why reaching out matters more than you think How to satisfice instead of optimize when a decision feels stuck Related Episodes: Past appearances of Gretchen and Laurie Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Additional Resources: This episode is sponsored by: Rosetta Stone: Visit rosettastone.com/happier http://rosettastone.com/happier to redeem your 20% off Rosetta Stone Sapphire. Skylight: Go to MySkylight.com/HAPPIER http://myskylight.com/HAPPIER for $30 off your 15 inch Calendar. Cash App): Download Cash App Today: click.cash.app/ui6m/oh9jnxlq https://click.cash.app/ui6m/oh9jnxlq #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N. A., pursuant to a license from Visa U. S. A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Savings provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dan Harris?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Today, we're going to talk about smart strategies for when you're stuck, drifting, doubting yourself. I think for most of us, it's quite common to enter periods of time where we feel this way, even just in the middle of a normal day, or sometimes, unfortunately, for longer periods during our lives. I will say that the timing for this interview for me is perfect because I'm experiencing some pretty pronounced creative and professional stuckness that maybe we'll talk about a little bit. But anyway, with my guests today, we're going to talk about how to figure out what is keeping you stuck, how to talk to yourself in these situations, and how to get out of

• 0:46Dan Harris?

  them. I have two guests today, people I happen to love. Gretchen Rubin is host of the Happier Podcast and the author of multiple bestsellers, including The Happiness Project, Life in Five Senses, and her latest Secrets of Adulthood. And Dr. Laurie Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale University and host of another excellent podcast, The Happiness Lab podcast. Just to say quickly, this episode is part of an occasional series we're running this year where we're celebrating the 10th anniversary of this show. And during this series, we bring back some of our favorite guests and do a top 10 list. And so today, it's going to be a top 10 ways to get unstuck with Gretchen Rubin and Laurie Santos. Dr. Laurie Santos, Gretchen Rubin, welcome back to the show, both of you.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Hello, Dan.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for having us back.

• 1:35Dan Harris?

  So let's get right into the list. The first thing on the list is to know what is actually keeping you stuck. Laurie, let me start with you. How does one know what the problem is?

• 1:49Speaker 02

  One of the biggest problems that we see and that I talk about a lot on our podcast is just the idea that we are often very stuck because our minds are constantly giving us bad information about how to get unstuck, about how to feel good, about how to be mindful. Like, one of the big premises of my show, The Happiness Lab, is this idea that our minds lie to us about the types of things that make us happy, right? We're constantly going after the wrong stuff. And so I think part of getting unstuck is just recognizing that, recognizing that our intuitions might be leading us astray. And that recognition can help you commit to finding some better strategies that won't be misleading you over time.

• 2:22Dan Harris?

  So you're telling me that when I feel stuck, it's the wrong strategy to be cranky with my family and overeat Pringles?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yes. And, you know, for me, when I'm stuck, it's, you know, slamming the dishwasher never helps, like, you know, kind of like immediately binge watching terrible true crime shows on Netflix for hours at a time, also not super effective. Like, this is the sad thing. It's like, our brains have these go-tos that don't make things better, and in some cases, actually make things worse, right? And so I think recognizing that, recognizing that your intuition, what your mind is telling you to do right at that moment, that it might be leading you astray, I honestly think that that's strategy number one, because then you can open your mind up to what are some possibly healthier strategies.

• 3:06Dan Harris?

  Gretchen, when you, if you ever experience periods of stuckness or indecision, drift, getting, you know, in a rut, how do you figure out what the problem is?

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Well, this word drift, I mean, that is something that I have done in my life. And I do think that sometimes when you're stuck in kind of a larger way, not just on a particular day, but maybe, you know, in a big way, often it has to do with drift. And drift is when we make a decision by not deciding, or we do something because everybody else is doing it, or this is what people expect of us, or we don't want to cause an argument, or we don't want to disappoint somebody, so we just kind of go along with it. So you become a doctor because your parents are doctors. You get married because everybody else is getting married. I went to law school because I didn't know what else to do with myself. And I thought, well, it'll keep my options open. It's a great education. I can always change my mind later. I didn't mindfully choose that path. I did

• 4:03Speaker 01

  it, I just drifted into it. And I think sometimes when we're stuck, it's because we've drifted into something that we don't really want to be doing, but we didn't really even recognize that we were choosing it, because we just allowed ourselves to be carried into it. And the funny thing about drift is the word drift sounds so easy, like, ooh, this is the easy lazy choice. But actually, drift is sometimes extraordinarily difficult. It was really hard to go to law school, you know? It was hard every step of the way, but I did it just because I didn't want to face the question of like, okay, what do I actually want to do? And I think sometimes when we're stuck, it's because we're avoiding that big question, which can be really, really scary.

• 4:45Dan Harris?

  Can it be hard to even know when you're drifting?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some sort of questions that can make you aware of the fact that you're drifting. Like, do you often feel like other people are making decisions and you're just being carried forward? Do you ever fantasize about, like, your life being blown up? And like, you break your leg and you can't do something? Or like, a friend of mine who had drifted into marriage, I said, imagine that something happened to him, and he had to go to China or something. It's not that he, you know, he wasn't sick, but he just couldn't get married. How would you feel? And she said, oh, I would feel tremendously relieved. That's not a good sign. Do you, do you feel like you're living somebody else's life? Like, there's kind of a dreamlike quality. Is there something

• 5:29Speaker 01

  where if people talk about doing that, it makes you like, want to burst into tears? Like, a friend of mine said when she heard about somebody who was auditioning for a play, and she was so upset by hearing about that, because that was like, her secret aim for herself, and she was denying that. So those are the kinds of signs that can point to drift.

• 5:50Dan Harris?

  Laurie, let me just come back to you on this. Like, I, just speaking personally, I mentioned at the top of the show, I've had some creative and professional stuff recently. I don't think I'm in a state of drift. In fact, I actually think sometimes my problem is that I'm

• 6:05Speaker 01

  The opposite.

• 6:08Dan Harris?

  tripling down on shit I shouldn't be doing, or trying to do too many things at once. And that can create a kind of overall feeling of just malaise. So, yeah, stuckness, in my experience, can take many forms.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, one for me that I noticed, and maybe this is relevant for the drift idea too, is just this sense of resistance, which I think is something that psychologists don't understand very much, but we all know it when we feel it, where it's like, you're supposed to do that thing, and you want to do anything, but you're coming up with every excuse to avoid it. While you're doing it, you just hate it the whole time. Like, that resistance is annoying, but it, for me, has often been a really honest signal that I am off track, that I need to interrogate what's going on and why I'm experiencing that. Because usually, it's your, like, emotional system, like, throwing up some red alerts to be like, pay attention, this is not right. Like, and that, for me, happens when I'm doing the opposite of drift, when I'm like, stuck on this thing that I just shouldn't be stuck on anymore.

• 7:05Dan Harris?

  So resistance as data?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, as a good signal, right? Like, as a fire alarm in your brain telling you that something is off track.

• 7:15Dan Harris?

  That's really interesting.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  It's interesting, because you think of like envy, resentment, anger, guilt, being really good signals. And I never thought of resistance as a signal too, but you're right, it's a really helpful signal.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  And it's one we ignore, right? I mean, especially like, type A, like, the people on this call, maybe, like, and push through, right? Stiff upper lip, why am I being so procrastinatory? I should just get to it, right? But yeah, useful signal. Hard, hard to make changes when you notice that useful signal, but a really useful signal nonetheless.

• 7:46Dan Harris?

  All right. So let's, let's talk about how we make changes. Laurie, I'll stick with you just to start on this entry number two in our little artificial top 10 list here. Practice self-compassion first. In other words, like, tweak how you talk to yourself, or at least watch how you're talking to yourself.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, this one is really my go-to when I'm feeling stuck and for just like many emotional problems, right? You know, self-compassion is just treating yourself like you would treat a friend. And my favorite research on this topic of self-compassion comes from Kristin Neff, who I think is someone that you've had on the show before. She defines it as having these three parts. First is one that listeners of 10% Happier will know really well. It's just the act of mindfulness. You just need to non-judgmentally notice what's going on. I'm feeling resistance. I'm feeling stuck. I'm being very avoidant right now. I'm feeling guilty about being very avoidant right now. This doesn't feel good, right? That's step number one, mindfulness. Just non-judgmentally, here's the state that I'm in. Second step, though, is the tricky one for intense folks, and that's what Kristin

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Neff calls common humanity. This idea that you just say, and, that's normative. Everybody goes through periods like this. It makes sense that I'm experiencing resistance. I'm not a freak of nature, like, nothing's going wrong. This is just like, my body doing a common human thing. You kind of normalize the emotions that you're going through. And step number three is self-compassion, is this idea of self-kindness. That's the part where you treat yourself like a friend. You take something off your plate. You talk to yourself like you might talk to a friend, rather than screaming yourself like a drill instructor. You say, it makes sense you're going through this. It's okay. What do you need right now? Like, how can I help? And this idea of talking to yourself like a friend is helpful for me, because sometimes we equate self-compassion with self-indulgence. We

• 9:29Speaker 02

  think that if we're thinking about why we're stuck and feeling bad, if we were nice to ourselves during that moment, that we would be kind of indulging ourselves. We'd be letting ourselves off the hook. We wouldn't be pushing ourselves that much. But if you think about how you talk to a friend, if your friend was really stuck, if they were actively screwing up, you wouldn't be indulgent with them. You'd maybe be like, oh, it's fine. Like, you know, stay on the couch and don't do, you know, like, don't do anything. You'd be like, I want to check out on you. What is going on? Can I coach you? Can we figure out together what's, what's happening and how we can problem solve here? That's the sort of coachy, problem-solving voice you bring to yourself as part of this self-kindness. And, you know, Kristin just has tons of data showing just how effective this is. It reduces procrastination. It makes you just a nicer person in general, because when you

• 10:13Speaker 02

  practice compassion on yourself, you can be compassionate with other people. It just seems to be this magical elixir of a go-to strategy to start with, whenever anything is emotionally off, but especially if you're beating yourself up about feeling stuck.

• 10:26Dan Harris?

  People who listen to the show have heard me go on this rant before, but I'm going to go on it again, which is that I just think it is so, I mean, in some ways, I think of Kristin as a world historic figure for sort of uncorking this idea on us that, that

• 10:45Dan Harris?

  You can rewire your inner dialogue or monologue, or whatever you want to call it. Like, we all know intuitively, we have this capacity to be good mentors, parents, uncles and aunts, and teachers, and whatever, friends. But, but do we know that you, we can harness that capacity and direct it toward ourselves? That, it's just so cool that that's possible and now backed up by data. I would just add that our mutual friend, we, the three of us, have a mutual friend, Ethan Cross, from the University of Michigan, whose work has shown that you can really supercharge part three of the self-compassion practice, the talking to yourself part, by using your own

• 11:28Dan Harris?

  name, or I sometimes use bro or dude, to create some distance. In fact, it's called distance self-talk. So yeah, there's a lot here.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  And it fits so nicely into Kristin's work, right? Because this idea of talking to yourself like you talk to a friend, if you talk in third person, which is how you literally might talk to a friend, you know, or talk about a friend, it can be incredibly powerful, right? If you talk to yourself, hey, you, you got this dude, whatever, oh my gosh, that's literally using the language that you'd use to talk to a friend.

• 11:57Dan Harris?

  Indeed. Gretchen, let me come to you on this, because this is, for type A people, and I felt this way for a long time, you hear this and you're like, I don't know, but you draw the distinction between self-acceptance, which people get nervous about, and let's say, weakness or self-indulgence.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think it's important to know that when you're just trying to have sort of toxic self-care, when you're trying to just let yourself off the hook, because, oh, it's too nice a day for me to expect myself to do something, or I've been good in the past, now I get to give myself a break. I think we want to know when we want to accept ourselves and, and maybe show ourselves a little grace, and then when we really want to ask ourselves to step up. And the way I think about this paradox or this tension, which comes up all the time in happiness, is we want to accept ourselves and also expect more from ourselves, because, and they're both important, because I agree, I 100% agree

• 13:00Speaker 01

  that self-compassion is so important. But also, we do know that sometimes we want to expect more from ourselves, that we do know that we can push ourselves outside of our comfort zone. We know that there are things that are within the limits of our nature and that aren't accepting some kind of fantasy self-version of ourselves, where we can say, like, yeah, you know, I'm scared of public speaking, but I can learn to get up and present in front of my team. And I'm just gonna have to push through that and accept that it's gonna be really uncomfortable, because in the end, I think I'll be happier with it. So on the one hand, you want to accept yourself, and you also want to expect more from yourself. And the reason this is tricky is for each of us, we have to decide that line for ourselves. When am I just indulging in a fantasy self and expecting something from me that's not

• 13:44Speaker 01

  right and isn't even true? And when am I really, you know, pushing myself in that positive way? Because sometimes, you know, we have to do things that make us uncomfortable, or that we'd rather not do, or deprive ourselves of something in the short term in order to benefit in the long term. So, and I think sometimes people do think, like, well, if you're just showing yourself self-compassion, then you're being complacent. And that's just not true at all. It's not about being complacent. It's about this true self, self-acceptance.

• 14:15Dan Harris?

  Just to jump in on that, Gretchen, like, I find a useful heuristic, to use the kind of fancy word that Dr. Santos and her colleagues use at Yale, that a useful paradigm or mindset or frame to put on this is switching from an inner drill sergeant to an inner coach. Many of us, and I certainly did for much of my life, and I think in my worst moments, I still think it, that we need an inner cattle prod, that we need to be brutal with ourselves in order to get anything done. But Kristin Neff's research has shown consistently that self-compassion, which is not self-indulgence, it's just good inner coaching, makes you more effective, more likely to reach your goals.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, it's funny, on the Happier Podcast, we have a whole series of "treat yourself like," which is, kind of gets to this distant self-talk type thing. So one is, like, treat yourself like a toddler, meaning, don't let yourself get too hungry, too cold, too sleepy. Like, if you're dealing with a toddler, you manage that toddler's physical state. Another one is, treat yourself like a grandchild. Show yourself that kind of indulgence, that kind of unconditional love, those like little treats, and like, maybe that's not the actual grandparent you had, but you could treat yourself like the grandchild you wish you had. Or you could treat yourself like a factory, where you're like, factories need scheduled downtime, or else they break at all the wrong moments, and it leads to all chaos. So they, instead, they like, schedule regular maintenance. And

• 15:42Speaker 01

  so it's fun to have, like, this "treat yourself like," and I like this idea of, like, maybe treat yourself like a fifth grade member of a soccer team. How would I talk to a fifth grader who's on a soccer team? Well, I would be clear, I would be firm, but I would also know, like, okay, like, let's be reasonable, let's cut these folks some slack, they're learning, they're getting there. They may wander off, but they'll come back. So I think, I love this idea of, like, finding indirect ways, because sometimes when we're, like, looking directly at ourselves, I think it's very confusing. So these kind of different methods of thinking about it, I find, at least in my own life, very, very helpful.

• 16:22Dan Harris?

  Having interviewed Kristin and her longtime collaborator, Chris Germer from Harvard, having interviewed them many, many times here on the show, I've learned that one of the preeminent self-compassionate questions to ask yourself is, what do I need right now? And it's a very useful north star.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Oh, I have a good update to that one, because sometimes, what do I need right now, for me, feels very heavy. I'm like, I don't even know, I need everything. But is it just like a softer one? What do I know about what I need right now? Do I have any hints about what I might need right now? And that, that I can, that I can tackle even when I'm feeling really overwhelmed.

• 16:57Dan Harris?

  That's a nice refinement. And you did it without using the word heuristic, which is so impressive for somebody from Yale.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  I'm supportive, supportive of heuristic paradigms, all the big words, let's do it.

• 17:09Dan Harris?

  A quick note before we hear from our sponsors, who, for the record, I actually like, we are very diligent, to the point of being quite annoying to some of our business partners, very, very diligent and picky when it comes to picking our sponsors. That said, I get it, not everybody loves listening to ads, and that's why I want to tell you about a way to get this show ad-free. It's called 10% Happier Plus. It's a subscription, right inside Apple Podcasts, doesn't matter what app you're on right now, you can find it right there. Every episode, ad-free, plus a bonus guided meditation every Sunday from teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sebene Selassie, and Vinnie Ferraro. It's $4.99 a month, or $49.99 a year. Quick note, if you already have my app, 10% with Dan Harris, you're

• 17:52Dan Harris?

  covered, you don't need this as well. It's really for people who just want this podcast ad-free. And the money does not just fund the show, it also helps us give free app memberships to people who can't afford it. Look for 10% Happier Plus in Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe. We'll be right back after this.

• 18:12Dan Harris?

  Most of us can remember being about 15 and feeling completely invisible, or worse, extremely visible, but for the wrong reasons. I remember one year, when I was a teenager, I had a pimple in the crevice of my nose for the entire year. I didn't like that. Either way, even if we have painful memories of that age, most of us tend to soften it in memory, and it was actually harder than we remember it now. That is the territory of Carrie, now streaming on Prime Video, the first ever television adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. Eight episodes from Mike Flanagan, with Stephen King as an executive producer. Flanagan had described this show as a tragedy. It's about a girl who doesn't feel seen by

• 18:55Dan Harris?

  anyone, and about how small, everyday acts of unkindness compound into something nobody meant to cause, which happens now at a speed and scale that would have been unimaginable not long ago. What I really appreciate about the show is that the show takes Carrie seriously as a person, rather than as some sort of symbol, and the season keeps circling around one major question, are you watching the making of a hero, a villain, or something more complicated than either of those options? Carrie is now streaming on Prime Video.

• 19:35Dan Harris?

  Gretchen, let me go to you for tip number three. This will hearken back to your book, The Four Tendencies, which is a great book and really changed a lot of people's minds about like how to think about themselves in the context of getting unstuck or forming new habits or breaking bad habits. Fittingly, tip number three is to know your tendency. What does that mean?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  So in my Four Tendencies framework, I divide people into four categories: upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels, to do with how they respond to expectations, which sounds super boring, but ends up being like really, really juicy information. And this is all on my website. You can go to GretchenRubin.com and like take an actual quiz to find out your tendency, but most people can tell what they are just from a brief description. So in a nutshell, we all face two kinds of expectations: outer expectations, like a work deadline, and inner expectations, like your own desire to keep a New Year's resolution. So depending on whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectations, that's what makes you an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or rebel. So upholders are people who readily meet both inner and outer expectations.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  They meet the work deadline. They keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss. So they're the people who say, "Discipline is my freedom." They probably have the least problems with getting stuck because they're just good at figuring out how to get unstuck. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they need reasons, rationale, justification. They don't like anything arbitrary. They can get stuck if they don't have perfect information. So their motto is, "I'll comply if you convince me why." So if they're stuck, it's often because they haven't really been convinced that this is the best way for them to move forward. Obliger is the biggest tendency for both men and women. Like you're an obliger, or you have many obligers in your life. And obligers

• 21:23Speaker 01

  are people who readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So these are the people who say, "Why is it that I keep my promises to other people, but I can't keep my promises to myself?" If they are stuck, almost always the answer is to get outer accountability. They need outer accountability even to meet an inner expectation. And so, you know, you like, if you want to read more, you join a book club. If you want to exercise more, you work out with a friend, or you work out with a trainer who charges you, or you raise money for a charity, or whatever it is, you just need to get that outer accountability. They make great team members, great friends, great family members, great leaders. You know, their motto is, "You can count on me, and

• 22:05Speaker 01

  I'm counting on you to count on me." And then finally, rebels. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. So they want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time. They can do anything they want to do, but if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist. So they're like, "You can't make me, and neither can I," is their motto. So if they're stuck, it's often because other people are trying to get them to do something. So if you're a rebel, or you're around a rebel, just like back off and let them do what they want. And for, and get, get, get very clear on what you do want. That's the way to move forward for a rebel.

• 22:42Dan Harris?

  Lori, where do you fit in this, in this paradigm?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm like a thousand-

• 22:46Speaker 02

  I know what Lori is. We've talked about this many times, and I know what you are too. I'm like 1,000% an obliger. And incidentally, a lot of my moments of getting stuck is when my obliger tendency pulls me too far, when I hit what I know Gretchen has called obliger rebellion, which is like when you have too many external expectations on you, and you're like, "Ah, I can't even," and you kind of burn out from them.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Yeah. And Dan, you're a questioner, right?

• 23:11Dan Harris?

  Yes, but also with an upholder, I'm kind of annoying in that, like, and I think you, you might be an upholder too. I don't actually struggle too much to make or break healthy habits, as long as I can be convinced that they're the right habits to make or break. In terms of getting unstuck, though, yeah, I'm pretty good at getting myself out. What I have found, though, given my tendencies and nervous system, is like, I'm in a state right now where I got some pretty bad news about a creative project I've been working on for a long, long time. And I might know myself well enough to know that I need to

• 23:52Dan Harris?

  not try to solve it right away. I need to like, let the bus hit me and, and let it roll through my nervous system.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  That, that sounds like great self-knowledge and great advice, which is, I do that myself whenever I get a major edit. I like, look at it, and then I go into shock, and then I read like a children's book for the rest of the day because I know I can't, like, yeah, I know exactly how, how that feeling is.

• 24:17Dan Harris?

  Now we're back to treating yourself like a toddler.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 24:21Dan Harris?

  Lori, I don't want to give you a short shrift here, but in terms of like knowing your tendency, or thinking about like, how to make the habits that can get you unstuck, anything else pop into your head? I, I believe in my research packet, which I have right in front of me, you were interested in talking about the fresh start effect.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, you know, just because we're having this conversation at the start of fall and being a forever academic, you know, the back to school season feels like a real moment when everybody is turning over a new leaf. We have an open blank notebook that we can, you know, fill in with whatever habits we want. It just feels like a great moment for a fresh start. And this idea of the fresh start effect comes from the research of Katie Milkman at Wharton Business School. She's found that at these moments that we think of as these interesting temporal changes, like the start of fall, your birthday, the new year, these are moments where our minds are particularly motivated to take on new habits. It's like a time where we're like, "All right, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm ready to start something new." And so I guess my advice would just be like, "Don't

• 25:23Speaker 02

  waste it," right? Like, if you're into the back to school season too, like, this is a moment, you know, if, and I think it's a particularly good moment to tackle getting unstuck, because it can give you permission to harness the motivation of these temporal boundaries, to think of something new, to try something new, to experiment in a way that you haven't before.

• 25:42Dan Harris?

  Gretchen, let me go back to you for item number four in our list here. And this, this is, to some people, going to seem superficial, but actually, having spoken to you about it many times, I, I believe it has a real depth. And that is, if you want to get unstuck, one great way to do that is to clear your physical space.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. For most people, outer order contributes to a sense of inner calm and inner focus and just a sense of energy. I remember a friend of mine said, "I finally cleared my fridge, and now I know I can switch careers." And I thought, "I know exactly how you feel." Now, we all have to beware of procrasticating. And this is when you're procrastinating on a big project or something that you don't want to do, and you're like, "Okay, now I have to like vacuum every, every floor in my apartment, or I have to alphabetize my bookshelf for the first time." And that's just using clutter clearing as a form of procrastination. So that's something to watch out for. But I do think that for most people, like putting things away, clearing spaces, donating stuff they're not using, putting

• 26:48Speaker 01

  things in their proper place, even like closing down tabs, can contribute to a sense of just energy and focus, and more than it should. And I mean, we can all agree that in a happy life, or, you know, like a focused project mindset, something like an overflowing in basket, or like a crowded coat closet, is insignificant. And yet, over and over, people tell me, and I feel this way myself, that there is something about getting control over the stuff in your life that makes you feel more in control generally, and makes it easier to sort of sit down and focus on what is, what is most important to you. And so I think this is something that, you know, you can use when you need to get a

• 27:32Speaker 01

  boost. I will often do it, you know, just to like set myself up for a very difficult task.

• 27:38Dan Harris?

  Lori, you're the scientist here. Any evidentiary basis for Gretchen's assertions?

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think for, for lots of reasons, our spaces matter, right? There's studies showing just that the clutter in your space can steal your attention away. Kids do worse in classrooms where there's like tons of stuff on the wall instead of stealing their attention. And so if you think about everything that you talk about on this show, right, just having your ability to stay mindful and be present, not be taken up by the clutter on your desk, and like the fact that your closet is in disarray, I think that, that can be huge. But I think a bigger reason why clearing our stuff when we're feeling stuck works, is that we get a little piece of evidence that we are agentic, that we can make a change, right? We get evidence that like, "Oh, I can do something." And that kind of convinces us, that's a little foot in the door, to get our behavior ramped

• 28:28Speaker 02

  up to take on the big thing. And I think those little mini steps, seeing those tiny wins, can be super effective. I'll also just share one of my favorite recent like hack your space tips that I heard from the psychologist Leidy Klots on my podcast a few weeks ago. He had this wonderful tip of surroundings before screens, which is different than clearing your space. It's like noticing the thing that's in your space that might be bringing you down, which is your screen. And his hack is like, whenever you like wake up, whenever you kind of register, you know, coming up from your laptop and working or reading a book- Notice your surroundings before pulling up a screen. Just commit to that. And it's powerful what that can do to just broaden your horizons, to not let you like in that loop of screen, screen, screen, bad news and all this stuff we normally pay attention to.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  It's been a hack that I've used and it's been tremendously helpful for getting me unstuck in those little workday moments where you're just caught up in the grind.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  And here's another hack I'd throw in, which is the one minute rule, which is anything that you can do in less than a minute, go ahead and do without delay. If you can put a dish in the dishwasher or print out a document and file it, or hang up your coat instead of throwing it on the chair. And this just gets rid of sort of that scum of clutter that's on the surface of life. But you're not like taking an hour to clear things up or an afternoon. You're just doing it and just as you go about your day. And getting rid of this, these little things often makes you feel more able to do big things. It's back to this idea, Lori, that you were saying about like feeling like you're in control and that you can make a difference. There's something about clearing this stuff away of all the things that I talk about so many things about happiness. And so often this is the one that people are like, this really changed my life.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  I'm thinking this changed, the one minute rule changed your life. But sometimes, you know, we get to the big things through the little things. And, um, and this is something that you really can do without much effort during your day.

• 30:17Dan Harris?

  Just to say here, just as a little plug for you, Gretchen, she wrote a whole book about this, Outer Order, Inner Calm. I will drop a link in the show notes to the interview with Gretchen on that book. Okay, Lori, tip number five, reclaim your time. What does that even mean? And how does it help you get unstuck?

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is getting at this very recent social scientist notion of time affluence, the feeling that we have a lot of time, we feel wealthy in time. This is the opposite of what many of us experience, which we might better call time famine, where you literally feel like you're starving for time. And studies by researchers like Ashley Willens at Harvard Business School show that if you self-report being time famished, that's as big a hit on your well-being as if you self-report being unemployed, right? We all, if your listeners are working right now and they lost their job suddenly tomorrow, that would suck for their overall happiness. Just not having any time is just as bad. And so the tip that we need to do is to really promote our time affluence, to find some. And the good news about time affluence is it's not the objective amount of time that

• 31:16Speaker 02

  you have, it's the subjective sense that you have some time. And that means you can hack it without really opening up huge parts of your schedule. And one neat empirical way to hack your time affluence is to use money to buy back time. Studies show that any level of discretionary income you have, if you spend some of that discretionary income to get back more time, you know, you hire the neighbor's kid to mow the lawn, you buy the pre-chopped veggies, whatever it is, that actually can lead to an interesting boost in your happiness. So that's, that's one to take is like spend your money to get back time. Another big hack that really seems to work is to make good use of the free time you do have. The journalist Bridget Schultz coined this term that I love called time confetti. These are the little pieces of time that we have floating around that are like little

• 32:00Speaker 02

  pieces of confetti, you know, the five minutes when the meeting ends earlier, the 10 minutes when your kid falls asleep, you know, unexpectedly soon. We tend not to realize those are decent amounts of time, so we tend to just blow them. You know, we check our phone or scroll through something on social media, but those kinds of moments add up. And so one of the suggestions I love is again by Ashley Willens, whose work I mentioned, she recommends making a time confetti wish list, right? Which is not a to-do list. It's like, when I have that five minutes, maybe that's when I do a little self-compassion check, or I get in a quick 10-minute meditation, or I text a friend, right? Just do something that will really promote your happiness in those windows. That's what you can do to make your time count.

• 32:41Dan Harris?

  Gretchen, I know you have thoughts on this.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And it's so important to treat time seriously and not to like hand wave it. Laura Vanderkam, who's a time use expert, like one of the things she points out is that we often treat weekday evenings as kind of like lost time, like, oh, what can you possibly do? We got to deal with the kids, we got to have dinner, like put everybody to bed, we're tired, it's the end of the day, maybe you're checking your work emails. And we don't think of it as being really time to value. And so she talks about these as being the golden hours and like really try to set aside 30 minutes or an hour where you're really doing something intentionally that's fun. You and your kids are going for a neighborhood walk, or you're going out for ice cream, or you're doing a puzzle, or you're reading a novel, whatever it is.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  But again, it's this idea of the time confetti, like they're the little bits of time, like five or 10 minutes. But then there's also sort of the big chunks of time where we just sort of treat it like, ah, what are you going to do with all that? Where if you think about it intentionally, you can really protect it. And, and I think you have to treat it as real time, like non-negotiable. I put things on the calendar, even things like read a novel in bed. Sometimes I'll put it on the calendar so that it really has that weight of like a dentist appointment, you know, like that's what I'm planning to do with my Saturday afternoon. I need to schedule time to goof off. Like one of the things I do is I go to the Metropolitan Museum every day because that's like something that goes on my schedule that allows me to sort of daydream and wander.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  And so I think that this basic point that we sort of treat some time as not real time, that can't really be used for anything that's really valuable, is just not so. I mean, whether it's sprinkles of confetti or golden hours, I think that we can reclaim a lot of time with intention.

• 34:29Dan Harris?

  Last night, when I was really at the depths of my stuckness, we took our son for ice cream and then Bianca and I took a walk through the neighborhood. So we, even without hearing you talk, we did what you recommend.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  And it's so fun. You think, why is it hard to get myself to do something that's actually fun and good for me? And the question is, it's hard. Like you really have to like make a point to do it, or otherwise it just doesn't get done. It's baffling, right? But we've all been there.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  I think we also like to get stuck in our stuckness. You know what I mean? Like Dan, I could imagine a moment where your wife's like, hey, let's go out for ice cream. You're like, no, I just got really bad creative news. Like, how do you suggest I go out for ice cream? But then it's like, we actually have control over whether or not we feel better if we do something that will make us feel better. But yeah, sometimes we have to need to give ourselves permission and putting it on the calendar, making it part of your daily schedule can really give you that permission that you need.

• 35:27Dan Harris?

  I will say, I didn't resist because 10 years of hosting this show, I am 10% less of a moron. So like I know when somebody's trying to help me with a wise suggestion. Gretchen, let me stick with you for tip number six, which is to engage your senses deliberately.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  For years, I just treated my body like the car that my brain was driving around town. But when we like get up in our heads, that is one of the most common ways to get stuck. And deliberately having that sensory engagement is such a good way to connect to the moment, to connect to your own physical experience. And it's always, and it's available to us, even no matter what sense. Sometimes we don't have all five senses, but whatever senses we have, we can, they are at hand, like literally all the time. Like one thing I love is, and this is something people talk about all the time, which is using music. Like you can have an audio apothecary, you can have your calm down music, you can have

• 36:26Speaker 01

  your pump up music, you can have your bittersweet music that can help you get into whatever emotional state you want. I think, you know, sometimes people will use music as a focusing device. I had a friend where every time she sat down to start working on her PhD thesis, she played like this one favorite song, and that was kind of like her signal to her brain, like, okay, you know, bring it on, this is happening. And it, and it just got her in the mood and got her to focus and it became part of a ritual. Research shows that one of the quickest, easiest ways to intervene in our moods is through music, but, but you can use, I love touch. I think people don't think about using touch, even though now people are using like Play-Doh, what do you call that?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Therapy, therapy dough and pop toys and things like that as a way to use touch to calm down or just to focus. I just, I think tapping into the senses, it's so energizing. And the funny thing about the senses is no matter what you want to accomplish, you can do it through your senses. If you want to calm down, you can. If you want to pump yourself up, you can. If you want to connect with the present, you can. If you want to connect with the past, you can. If you want to think outside the box and be creative, you can use the five senses for that. Or you can use the five senses to help you like really focus down on really drudge work. So I think tapping into the senses is something that's always worth thinking about. And there's just something so appealing about it. It's a very energizing strategy, I find.

• 37:53Dan Harris?

  Lori, what say you on this score?

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Oh, I think this stuff is so important. And, you know, I'll pick up, Gretchen gave so many of the reasons that tapping into your senses are important. I mean, for me, a big one is just tapping into the present moment, right? Like my brain will be everywhere, mind wandering, you know, like doing all the things. And folks who listen to your show, Dan, know a billion techniques that you can use to become more mindful, especially meditation. But sometimes like sitting down on a cushion to meditate feels heavy. But for me, if I can just get present in my senses, I think all of a sudden that is super helpful for me to be paying attention to what's going on, to get out of that loop that's in my head. And not to do, another plug for fall, but I'm totally obsessed with the season. I'm like pumpkin spice, you know, basic girl, like full, full stop.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  But no, but this is a time of year when you just literally look at the trees, like they're, they're just gorgeous, right? They snap you out just by having a color that you don't expect. You know, the fall brings me back to the nostalgia of smells. When I feel that smell, the like, you know, dead leaves on the ground, it takes me back to like playing in the leaves with my dad. And, and those moments can be incredibly powerful for making you present and shutting off that rumination loop, right? So much so that clinical psychologists have this five senses technique that they talked about, which is especially if you're in a stuck spiral, what are five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste, right? And I promise you, if you do that, if I was to do that now, I'm like, well, I can see, you know, my podcast lights, I see both of you on my screen while we're talking, I see,

• 39:23Speaker 02

  you know, my coffee mug. Like already I can't be in a ruminative spiral and I haven't even gotten through all the things I can see yet, right? It's like you put your brain on what you're really seeing, feeling, experiencing in the world, and all of a sudden, all that stuff in your head goes away.

• 39:38Dan Harris?

  Just to get back to your fall obsession, so instead of sporty spice or posh spice, you're pumpkin spice.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  I'm completely pumpkin spice. Yes, yes.

• 40:20Dan Harris?

  Let me stay with you, Lori, because tip number seven is to get your body basics right.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Yes, we so often forget that our minds are connected to our bodies. And like, when in doubt, over your mind being in a spiral of being stuck, sometimes moving the body can be all you need. And like, the studies here are just so clear. A half hour of cardio movement a day can be as effective as taking a prescription of antidepressant medication. We know this from meta-analyses, which are these big studies of studies, right? So, moving your body can sometimes get your mind moving in ways that you need. But another big one that, for me, will definitely fall by the wayside if I'm feeling stuck, is getting some sleep, right? Sleep is the thing that, especially when I'm super busy and I'm traveling and that kind of thing, it's the thing that I don't get in, but it's often the thing that can

• 41:09Speaker 02

  make whatever problem has come up feel just like, much less frantic. And this is feeling very salient for me right now. I'm just, as you can probably hear from my voice, I'm like, overcoming a cold. And I had one of these, like, you know, cough hack, post-nebbles drip, yuckiness, that like, it was just making me cough, so I couldn't sleep. And so, for the past couple nights, I'd been getting like, you know, five hours of sleep, six hours of sleep. And just like, every personal thing, like, an email would come up, and I would just be like, "Oh, I can't, I don't know how to deal with this," right? But then finally, like, my cold is breaking, and I got like, nine hours of sleep last night. And this morning, I woke up with this, like, zen, like, everything's fine, I have no problems in the world. And I was like, nothing that was happening in my life has changed. It's just like, I finally got some sleep, and now everything seems just like, so much easier.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  And all of that is because bodies connected to minds. If, when in doubt, start by treating your body well, and a lot of the other stuff will come along, being fixed along for the ride.

• 42:04Dan Harris?

  I'm glad you're feeling better. Gretchen, people might hear the exhortation to move your body or get more sleep and think, "Yeah, I've tried that, but I can't get into the habit." What would you advise?

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Well, take it back to the tendencies. So, if you're a questioner, really read these studies. Like, there is so much research about why it is so important to get a certain amount of movement in your day, and how valuable that can be, about the importance of sleep for every kind of, like, physical functioning that we do. And think, and really think, "Well, what's the most efficient form for me? What's my chronotype? I do best when I go to bed at 10:00 and wake up at 7:00," and really figure that out. If you're an obliger, think about your duty to other people. Like, if I'm hangry and exhausted all the time, then I'm not going to be a good family member, I'm not going to be a good friend, I'm not going to bring my best efforts to work, I owe it to other people, people are counting on me, I need to do it.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Now, as an upholder, I'm always thinking, "Well, you should do it for yourself. It doesn't matter if other people need it." But if, for an obliger, that can be a really helpful thing to think, like, "I need to put on my own oxygen mask first, if I'm going to help other people put on their oxygen mask." And then for the rebel, for rebels, it's often really good to lean in, like, "Whoa, like, they're trying to, you know, like, oh, they're trying to keep me glued to a screen, they think their algorithms are going to keep me out of my bed, but they are not, because no one is going to boss me around, nobody's going to keep me from jumping into bed at 10:00 PM, because that's what I want, that's what I choose." Or, I talked to a rebel, and I was like, "How do you exercise every day?" And she said, "Oh, I go during my lunch hour, when I'm supposed to be working." You know what I mean?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Like, so, different people find different ways to do it. And I think sometimes, back to this idea of self-acceptance that we started with, sometimes you think like, "Well, there should be a way that I could get myself to do it." Like, I should sign up for a class if I want to exercise, and that will mean that I will exercise. But for some people, signing up for a class is actually counterproductive. They don't want to do it that way. And so, if something's not working for you, try it a different way. There's many ways to get yourself to get some movement into your life. There's many ways to get better sleep. If one way isn't working for you, then try a different way. I think a lot of times, we need to experiment on ourselves. I find listening to a podcast is super helpful in making, helping me to fall asleep. And other people, it's like, it just keeps them awake.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  So, sometimes you just have to experiment with tools and find the way that's right for you, whether that's your tendency or some other aspect of your nature.

• 44:38Dan Harris?

  I'm trying to make this show boring enough that people just drip off.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Well, there's the Sleep With Me podcast, right? Where he just tells you a really long, boring story.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Think you're just going to use, like, more ASMR, Dan?

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Like, just whisper, you know, talk, yeah, talk really slowly.

• 44:52Dan Harris?

  Occasionally, people come up to me on the street and say, "But your voice is so soothing." And my wife's always like, "I don't find it soothing at all."

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:02Dan Harris?

  All right, tip number eight, Lori, I love this. Counterintuitive, but in my experience, incredibly helpful. Do something for somebody else.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Yes. This is one that I think modern culture gets wrong all the time, right? Go on the internet, and you'll see this idea of self-care, or treat yourself, right? But often, the way we can treat ourselves best is to do something for other people. And this just comes straight from the research. Pretty much every available study of happy people show that happy people are really other-oriented, right? Controlled for income, happy people tend to donate more money to charity than those who self-report not being so happy. And so, one of the ways you can help yourself out is to do something nice for somebody else. You get the warm glow, that feeling of doing something nice for somebody else, but you also wind up getting that kind of sense of agency again. You know, we talked about this before, sometimes to get yourself unstuck, what you really need

• 45:54Speaker 02

  to do is just gain a sense of control. If you're the one that's going out and helping somebody else, if you're taking action to do something nice for somebody else, that convinces you that you have your own agency. It can help you figure out what you can do for yourself, too. And so, it's being, doing these pro-social actions for other people isn't just a great hack for your happiness. I think it can also convince us that we have the agency to get unstuck when we need to.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Well, and also, Lori, picking up on your idea of time affluence, I've read research that suggests that people who volunteer their time actually feel like they have more free time, which is a very paradoxical, how could that be? How could, how could you feel like you have more free time if you actually objectively have less? But it's this idea of, like, because I have time to give to other people, I feel more in control, I feel more abundant in time.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. It's kind of like, well, if I could give this time away to somebody else, I must have some, right? You know, this is the, our brains are dumb, right? You know, so many of the, so many of the ways our mind works.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  That's a great podcast title, right there. I feel all of our podcasts could have that title.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  But if we can hack the dumbness of our brains, then all of a sudden, we're kind of using them in an effective way. And then, this is, this is a clear case of our brains being dumb, right? It's not the objective amount of time you have, it's how you feel. Doing something nice makes you feel like you got more time.

• 47:11Dan Harris?

  Gretchen, I believe your point is, like, doing something nice doesn't actually need to require that much time.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  That research is more that it just, it kind of has this effect of making you feel like you have more time. But it is very true that a lot of times, you can make these, make these gestures or do these behaviors without spending a lot of time. Like, just saying a warm hello and goodbye to somebody is a really good way to feel connected to them. Reaching out to somebody, I love, like, if there's a way you can help people, like, get work, like, make recommendations, make suggestions, make introductions to people who need them. These, you know, these don't take a lot of time, they can sometimes be extraordinarily valuable to other people, and it gives you that feeling of, like, constantly being on the lookout for how to help other people. Also, like, one of my favorite things is picking up trash, like, in your neighborhood.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Like, it's such a little thing, and yet you feel that sense of, like, well, I, just as I'm going about my day, I'm trying to do something to make the world a little bit better off.

• 48:10Dan Harris?

  Yeah, especially at a time when people feel particularly anxious about politics. That's, that's why you hear the phrase, "Action absorbs anxiety." Just doing anything, even if it has nothing to do with our political scene, like, picking up trash, or being nice to your friends, or volunteering, can just give you some, one of you earlier used this, this term, "agentic." It gives you a sense of agency, and it's, yeah, it's quite powerful. Tip number nine, Gretchen, I'll stay with you for this. If you're feeling stuck, make a decision, any decision.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yes, because sometimes we just get stuck. I sometimes say, like, "Do I need more information, or do I just need to make a decision?" Because sometimes you sort of say, like, "Well, I need to ask this person," or "I need to, you know, discuss this decision with them." And it's like, "Do you really? Or are you just putting it off?" Like, I will often, that's something I often do when I'm stuck, is I pretend like I need other people to weigh in, but what I really want is either to delay, or I want to shift the responsibility to decision-making on them. Like, "What time do we need to leave for the airport? Like, I can figure that out, and I should figure that out." There's a quotation I love from George Bernard Shaw, when he says, "To be in hell is to drift, to be in heaven is to steer."

• 49:27Speaker 01

  And I think that sense of steering, it comes back to this idea of agency. Again, like, am I taking action according with, to what I want to get done, or where I want to go? You know, sometimes, just by posing a question to yourself, you kind of know the answer. Like, you're thinking, "Okay, I just wrote this really angry email, should I send it?" It's like, no, you should not. But if you're asking yourself a question, like, "Am I a good enough parent?" It's like, well, the, probably, people who are worried about being good enough parents are probably good enough parents. Like, that's, you sometimes, to ask a question, is to suggest the answer. If you think, "Am I drinking too much?", maybe that's a sign that you know the answer.

• 50:11Dan Harris?

  Laurie, I mean, I can imagine people hearing this. And obviously, it's self-evident in its wisdom in some ways. But also, for those of us who struggle sometimes to make a decision, the notion of just making a decision can be terrifying because what if it's the wrong one?

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Right. I think so many of us, especially these days, get into like optimization head, right, about the like stupidest thing, right? You know, I'll give an example. I was visiting New York recently. And it was like, what restaurant do I want to go to? Like, probably most of the places I would choose would just be like fine restaurants. But it wasn't just like, pick a restaurant that's good. It's like, you know, with the available time I have and in the borough I am in, I'm going to pick the best restaurant possible. And I'm spending, you know, my visit to New York scrolling through Yelp reviews to try to figure out like, oh, that one's only a 4.3. I don't know, we should find one that's 4.5. And it's like, if we just decided on a restaurant, we could have gone to the restaurant and had some drinks and like had a good time. But it was like, I was wasting time trying to optimize something. And I think sometimes what we need to do is just give ourselves the gift

• 51:15Speaker 02

  of overcoming our own choice paralysis, right? You know, there is a psychological phenomenon of choice overload. When you keep too many options open, you wind up making worse decisions. And even if you make a good decision, feeling bad about it, right? You know, I had this in New York where it's like, you know, we ended up going to a crepe place and was like, did I really want a crepe? Maybe I should have gone for Mexican food or maybe I should have gone. You know, it's like, no, no, no, it was just fine. So I think giving yourself the gift of making that decision and admitting, having some self-compassion over like, I'm not going to optimize. I'm just going to satisfy. I'm going to make a B-plus decision, but it will be made and therefore we could eat our meal and just get to it and enjoy it.

• 51:52Dan Harris?

  I'm having a brain cramp, but there's that professor at Harvard, Ellen Langer, I think maybe is her name. And she often says, don't worry about making the right decision. Just make whatever decision you make right.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  That totally lines up. The other thing that we know is that we have all these mechanisms that will convince us that as soon as we make a decision, it was the good one, right? There's some lovely work by Dan Gilbert, also at Harvard, not to get too Harvard-focused in this, in this discussion. But Dan Gilbert basically finds that we have this entire psychological immune system, right? As soon as you make a decision, all of these mechanisms are going to come into play. They rationalize, be like, oh, that was a great decision. You did such a good job. You're going to start revealing what that decision tells you, which is inevitably going to have some good stuff. You know, the crepe place had some, you know, nice Nutella and whipped cream. I that wouldn't, I didn't think about that when I was making my decision, but now I get to experience it. Most decisions are just going to be fine. Especially if you're having a tough decision, that means you're between two good things,

• 52:47Speaker 02

  what researchers call an approach approach conflict. And usually the best way out of that conflict is just to pick one.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  But I also think that sometimes you just have to recognize that you're going to have regret either way. I think sometimes we fall into this trap of thinking, well, if I really think this through, there is a right decision that I will feel 100% happy with. And it's like, no, if you move to Florida, you're not moving to Vermont. And you're going to regret all the things that Florida would have given you or you're going to regret all the things that Vermont would have given you. There's just no way to have both. And so I think sometimes you just have to accept that life has trade-offs and you're going to make a decision. But it doesn't mean that you're not going to sort of wish for, you know, the sliding doors if you had made a different, made a different decision. And it's just understanding that that's, that's inevitable, that there is no perfect choice that is going to relieve you

• 53:36Speaker 01

  of just the natural limitations of our decisions.

• 53:40Dan Harris?

  Let me just press you both on this slightly, just in a very selfish way. I keep coming back to the fact that I've, I'm in a little bit of a situation of stuckness myself, vis a vis Creative Project. And I, on the one hand, will ultimately make a decision. On the other, it feels wise to me to sit in the not knowing for some period of time rather than rushing.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  But that's a mindful, that's a mindful delay, not mindlessly pushing something aside because you don't want to face it.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  And Dan, your Creative Project, I mean, I don't know what it is, but it's probably a much bigger deal than whether I should get a burrito or a crepe on some random Wednesday night, right? I think we also have to take into account the scale of the decision. The ones that I think stress me out the most are the ones that ultimately don't matter. You know, I can dither on like, should I take the 3 o'clock flight or the 7 o'clock flight? Well, if it's a 3 o'clock flight, I'll have to get dinner. And it's like, it doesn't matter, but those flights are fine. So I think we also have to be mindful of, you know, is this one that I need to intentionally and mindfully sit with to see what else reveals itself? Or is this one that like, you know, rip the Band-Aid off and just pick something? Because it's not really going to matter that much.

• 54:57Dan Harris?

  The final recommendation, and this one will go to you, Laurie. Also counterintuitive in this age of individualism and tech-induced isolation, invest in social connection when you feel stuck.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Yes, single most robust finding in all of happiness research. Happy people are just more social and social people are just more happy. It's just one of the most reliable predictors of how good you're feeling. And social connection, I think, can be incredibly important for getting unstuck for a couple of different reasons, right? One is that we use other people as good social indicators, social comparisons, right? If you're feeling stuck and there's a particular thing you want to move towards, find other people who are doing that. Gretchen mentioned this earlier. If you want to read more, join a book club. If you want to work out more, get a trainer, right? We can use other people, not just as obligers, but anyone can use other people to motivate ourselves and move a lot.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  But the other thing is that we underestimate how much social connection is going to make us feel good. So if part of being stuck is just a real negative mood, you're just in a bad place, just get social. There's so much great work by Nick Epley and his colleagues showing that we just don't realize the power of other people to make us feel better. Whether that's giving somebody a compliment, kind of, you know, saying that you're grateful for someone in your life, writing someone a letter, talking to a stranger on the train. All these little moments of social connection wind up boosting our mood. And there's just so much also evidence showing that it's easier to make a decision if you're in a good mood, right? If you just kind of give yourself a little emotional bandwidth, then that can also help you feel a little unstuck, too.

• 56:34Dan Harris?

  I'm going to say a phrase that gets uttered a lot on this show that I first heard from Dr. Robert Waldinger. Sorry to mention Harvard again, but he's at Harvard. And that is never worry alone.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  That's a great, great phrase.

• 56:49Dan Harris?

  I have a lot of bad habits, but when I'm feeling stuck, I have a really good habit of, I will just reach out and talk to the people in my life. I won't, I won't suffer in silence.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is another thing that boosts our happiness and other people's happiness is asking for help, right? Those people in your life who care about you, if you were to call them and say, hey, you know, I'm feeling really stuck, can you help me? You're giving them a boost to kind of make them feel happier because not only do they get to have some social connection, they get to help you, right? They get that other-oriented boost to their own happiness. And so I think sometimes when we need to worry with somebody else, we worry about worrying with somebody else because we don't want to kind of, you know, make them feel uncomfortable or maybe they're busy or whatever. But by and large, what the studies show is that it's always just better to reach out. People are always appreciative to give help more than we realize.

• 57:38Dan Harris?

  Gretchen, this, I don't know if this maps onto tendencies per se, but like, what if you're an introvert and you, other people are, you know, like not so appetizing to you?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Well, one thing that the research shows is that even for introverts, connecting with other people does give them a mood boost. So one of the things, back to this idea of self-knowledge, what kind of connection feels right to you? Like, a super extroverted person might really love the idea of walking into a crowded bar and seeing a lot of friends and, and, and being kind of in an overwhelming social situation. And an introvert, it might be more like having coffee with a friend and really getting, having a deep conversation or having a little exchange with the barista at their favorite coffee shop. But it's just the fact, I mean, Laurie's true. I mean, ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that at, at its core, relationships are the most important thing for happiness.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  And I think we can build this into our lives in little ways. I think sometimes people think of like grand gestures, but you know, just texting somebody like, oh, I saw such and such and I thought of you. Or having just like, making, you know, an appointment with a friend to go for a quick walk. You know what, I was in, I want to bring this back. This is, this is my pledge right here, right now. When I was in high school, we would do errand dates where a friend would just come over and you would run errands together. And I'm like, why don't I do that now? That sounds amazing. Like, you have your errands, I have my errands. And well, let's just spend the afternoon doing errands. Like, you know, so we can, or like, I think a lot of people do walk-in talks where if, like, I have a friend who lives in London and we'll get on the phone and I'll walk and she'll walk

• 59:18Speaker 01

  and then we'll use that time to catch up. But so I think looking for small ways and then big ways to connect with other people really is at the core of our happiness. I think, you know, yeah, Laurie is exactly right.

• 59:30Dan Harris?

  I often think about like the fact that psychologically speaking, there are two spirals available to us. So there's what my friend Evelyn calls the toilet vortex, where you're stuck or because you're in a stressed or whatever, you are beating yourself up and that impacts your relationships. And because relationships are, as we've just established, probably the most important variable in human flourishing, we feel even worse and then we're, then our relationships suffer even more and down you go. Conversely, there is an upward spiral where you, and I think the upward spiral is, is accessible from either side. So you can either start with, you know, doing some of the inner work that we've described in this conversation, or you can start with the outer work that we've described in this conversation, helping somebody or just having some social interaction.

• 1:00:15Dan Harris?

  And, and once your inner weather is balmy or your relationships improve and then your inner weather gets even better and your relationships improve even further. And so, yeah, I just want to see whether you think this makes sense, specifically the part about how, you know, we can get unstuck by starting on either side of the upward spiral.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Well, just to add to that, one of the things that's very startling is that people who are lonely are actually pricklier. And you would think that being lonely would open you up and make you more receptive to, to like warm gestures and to people wanting to connect. But actually, it makes you like harder to connect with. And so it's, it is, I mean, that's going to the toilet vortex that you're talking about. But it's something to be really aware of because it is a spiral that can go in the wrong direction for sure.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  I think one way to pop out of the spiral for me, maybe this is just because I'm a nerdy scientist, is like, I like when I can get some evidence-based courage. Like, I like when I can learn something about the mind that teaches me like, oh, if I do this, it will be better. And one of my favorite pieces of evidence-based courage that comes when I might need to switch from the toilet spiral into a more social spiral, talking to friends, getting some advice, asking for help, is remembering this phenomenon of the liking gap.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Oh, I love this. Yes.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Yes. The liking gap is that your brain assumes that everybody likes you less than they actually do. It's the saddest studies, honestly. Researchers go to college roommates and they ask, like, how much does your college roommate like you, you know? And what you find is that, like, all college roommates think their other roommate doesn't like them very much. And they're, you know, usually the roommate's like, no, they're great, or at least they're better than they expect. And so that one seems silly, but for me has been helpful, which is like, if I'm about to ask somebody for help, if I'm about to, you know, contact somebody I haven't talked to in a while, if I'm about to even like, chat with a stranger, you know, on the street, or, you know, in a coffee shop or something, like, whatever I'm predicting about how that reaction is gonna go, I am underestimating how much liking I'm gonna get back in return.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, we think it's way cringy, that we're being really cringy, when really, actually, people welcome these gestures.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so that, for me, can help me do step one on the spiral, right? Often, we just need to step out of one spiral and go to the other. So anything you can do to overcome that friction can be, at least for me, super helpful.

• 1:02:33Dan Harris?

  Well, like I said, this was perfect timing for me. It's so helpful to talk to you on this day. It's always great to talk to both of you, but specifically today. I just want to remind people on the way out here, Laurie Santos hosts an excellent podcast called The Happiness Lab, and she teaches at Yale. And Gretchen, we discussed so many projects, so many tips today that overlap with the books she's written. Those books include The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, which is about habit formation, The Four Tendencies, which is related, Life in Five Senses, we talked about that, Secrets of Adulthood is her latest book, and she has her own podcast called Happier. Thank you both. Love seeing you both. Thank you.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Thank you. This is such a wonderful conversation.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks so much for having me on.

• 1:03:17Dan Harris?

  One last thing before I let you go. If you want to listen to this show without ads, check out 10% Happier Plus, which is a subscription that is available right inside Apple Podcasts. If you become a subscriber, you'll get every episode ad-free. That's new episodes and all the episodes from our vast 10-year-plus archive. Look for 10% Happier Plus in Apple Podcasts and just hit subscribe. And a quick heads up, if you're already a subscriber to my app, 10% with Dan Harris, you've already got access to ad-free podcasts. Ad-free listening is baked right into your app subscription along with everything else, so please don't pay twice. You can check out the app at danharris.com and you can

• 1:03:57Dan Harris?

  check out 10% Happier Plus inside Apple Podcasts. Thank you very much for listening to the show. I deeply appreciate it. See you soon. Deuces. Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson, Marissa Schneiderman, DJ Kashmir, David Hart, and Hayden Broome. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. And Nick Thorburn of the indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. Thanks for listening. Peace.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

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