Twelve Sayings That Could Change Your Life

There are so many happiness lessons to remember - but it helps if we can boil them down into memorable little sayings. Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin has done exactly that in her latest book - Secrets of Adulthood https://gretchenrubin.com/books/secrets-of-adulthood/. Dr Laurie picked twelve of her favorite aphorisms from the book and invited Gretchen along to explore sayings such as “Happiness doesn't always make us feel happy” and “Accept yourself and expect more from yourself”. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:08Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 1:13Laurie Santos?

  When we think about the factors that affect our happiness, we often focus on the big stuff, things like finding the perfect relationship or doing work that gives us a sense of purpose. But we often forget that the little things can matter a lot, too. A well-timed joke, a touching song lyric, and especially a memorable quote. These are the sorts of things that can instantly lift our spirits and even help us tackle tough problems. And there are few people who understand that better than this episode's special guest.

• 1:40Speaker 06

  So I'm Gretchen Rubin. I am so happy to be talking to you today.

• 1:43Laurie Santos?

  Gretchen is a bestselling author, the acclaimed host of the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and one of my favorite experts on the nuances of human nature. Gretchen has just released a new book entitled Secrets of Adulthood. In it, Gretchen offers her readers practical insights for navigating the daily challenges that come with being a functional grownup in the modern world. But Gretchen manages to share these helpful insights in a truly creative way. She distills more than 200 complex life lessons into short, concise aphorisms. Short punchy sayings that manage to pack a whole lot of wisdom into just a few words. So tell me the origin story of this book because it seemed like it had a few threads of how you got to it.

• 2:24Speaker 06

  Exactly. There were a couple of things that came together. One is, I am a writer and I do feel that sometimes an idea, maybe just one sentence, will cross our path and suddenly we see the way forward. Or suddenly we have insight into a situation in a way that's really illuminating. And I had really been pushing myself over the years to write aphoristically, meaning trying to convey big ideas in a short sentence. And then also I was feeling like, okay, there are these insights that I'm gaining and I wanted to be able to share them with other people. So I really set myself the aim of trying to write these and gather these.

• 3:02Laurie Santos?

  But you did this in the form of these aphorisms. So what is an aphorism?

• 3:06Speaker 06

  We all know proverbs and a proverb is like a piece of folk wisdom. Like, "A stumble may prevent a fall." Like, nobody's associated with that. That's just like a thing we all say. And then an aphorism is when somebody says something. Like Mark Twain said it, "Marcasurilius," or "Montaigne." The biggest challenge is pronouncing everybody's name. "Lilia Cirrus." My own favorite aphorism is Marie von Ibbenaeschenbach, who nobody else remembers, but I'm going to try to bring her back into fashion because I love hers. So like one of her aphorisms that I love is, "You can fall so fast you think you're flying."

• 3:43Laurie Santos?

  Oh, that's a good one.

• 3:44Speaker 06

  Right? It's like, whoa. But so she said that. So that's an aphorism because we attribute that to her. She said it in that way. Now, one of the things about aphorisms, and you know this from studying happiness, all of the most important insights are too important to be true. If there's some fresh insight, you're like, that's probably wrong because we've been studying this for thousands of years. The years, the greatest minds in history have been looking at this. But people say it in a fresh way, or they have a new metaphor, or they say it in a way that particularly resonates with a particular person. So a lot of times it's finding that fresh way to convey an insight. It's creatively exciting, you know, it's like writing a haiku or doing a 30 minute sitcom. It sparks your creativity to have a constraint. And it also really forced my thinking to clarify. First I had to understand it, then I had to whittle it down.

• 4:29Speaker 06

  So it was very creatively interesting in that way. And I wanted ones that were truly secrets of adulthood, where I felt like there was some insight about like making a decision or ending procrastination or dealing with relationships. And then there were some that I just couldn't manage to articulate in an interesting, short way. And so some I wasn't able to crack the code. But in the end, I was really, there was sort of a clear set that I felt really rose to the level that I wanted the book to be. But I still look at all the other ones, too. I'm always like going in there and tinkering with them, so.

• 5:02Laurie Santos?

  I feel like there's room for a challenge of one you couldn't get the right words for. We had to post it online and see if somebody can come up with a good, short saying for it.

• 5:09Speaker 06

  Oh, that's a good idea. Like, say this in a more elegant way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I should go through and look for some of my clunkers and see if somebody can crack it.

• 5:19Laurie Santos?

  As you're talking about this, it seems like aphorisms are really cool. Like, it seems like the kind of thing we might see, like as a little Pinterest meme.

• 5:26Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 5:26Laurie Santos?

  But it also feels kind of like old school.

• 5:28Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 5:29Laurie Santos?

  Aphorists you mentioned feel like they were around in ancient times. Like, you're one of the only people I know who's writing aphorisms today. And so, am I wrong? Are they kind of old school? You're bringing them back? Like, what's the goal?

• 5:41Speaker 06

  A little bit of both. There are modern aphorists like Sarah Manguso, who's writing today. And there are some other ones. Warren Buffett is a great aphorist. But you're right, it's a very ancient form that stretches back. And it's funny, because on the one hand, you're like, oh, this short form really lends itself to something like Instagram. But on the other hand, they really kind of take a lot of thought often. And so, kind of in their worst form, they're like the inspirational poster you see in a dentist's office. And in the best, they're ones where you're really, you know, pondering. I feel like the real advantage is because they're short and they're sort of memorable. They're easier to draw into the mind, because you know, a lot of times. We just don't think of the things that would be useful for us to remember.

• 6:22Speaker 06

  So when it's easier to think about or remember, or like you put it on an index card and stick it on your cork board or whatever, it just can have more power. And so I do think it's fun that they lend themselves to short form, but they are often kind of weightier than they seem, or you know, they need some reflection.

• 6:42Laurie Santos?

  One of the things I found kind of surprising was how many of the aphorisms in your book are actually paradoxes in their own way. They kind of like tell you both things at once, which I was like, huh, like they're kind of philosophically deeper than I was sort of expecting.

• 6:54Speaker 06

  No, I'm very, I have a whole section just on paradoxes. And a lot of times, the opposite of a profound truth is also true. And paradoxes are interesting because they really make us step back. They surprise us. Like, I think one of my favorite book titles of all time is All Joy and No Fun, which is Jennifer Senior's book about parenting. It just makes you step back and think like, wow, what does she mean by that? And then you're immediately full of ideas of your own and then kind of wanting to know what she's saying about it because that paradox is so compelling.

• 7:25Laurie Santos?

  I think also the confusion and the surprise of those paradoxes gets us to reflect a little bit more.

• 7:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 7:30Laurie Santos?

  They're these short statements, but I found myself even after reading your book, walking around with some of them and like thinking about them a little bit more and stuff.

• 7:37Speaker 06

  Because some of these, I think people will disagree with, and that's okay. Because again, it's to prompt your own reflection and your own insight.

• 7:44Laurie Santos?

  And so you've collected a whole set of these for problems as diverse as feeling happier, making tough decisions, handling temptations, even housekeeping. When we get back from the break, I'm going to chat with you about my top 12 from your book.

• 7:55Speaker 06

  I cannot wait.

• 8:00Laurie Santos?

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• 8:45Laurie Santos?

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• 9:29Laurie Santos?

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• 10:14Laurie Santos?

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• 11:02Laurie Santos?

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• 11:16Laurie Santos?

  Author, podcaster, and happiness expert Gretchen Rubin has a gift for crafting clever aphorisms, short, powerful sayings that capture life's truths in a memorable way. Her new book, Secrets of Adulthood, is packed with these insightful one-liners. And today, we're diving into my top 12. My first of my favorite 12 aphorisms in the book is one that's about happiness. It is the aphorism, "Happiness doesn't always make us feel happy."

• 11:42Speaker 06

  Okay, so you're the perfect person to talk about this because you approach this scientifically. Now, approaching this scientifically, you cannot say that because you have to say, "I have to define what happiness is and what happiness isn't." And so this kind of paradoxical statement is not true. But I think for the layperson and the way the ordinary person uses the term happiness, I think that it is true because sometimes we do things that make us feel happy, but that also make us feel unhappy or make us feel bad because they're part of living up to our values. And I always think of the person who goes to visit an estranged parent in the hospital, and they don't want to go, and they don't enjoy going there, and they dread it, but still they go because in the end, it's still your father. You're putting your values into the world, you're doing what's right, and so you're

• 12:25Speaker 06

  happy even though you don't feel happy. And so happiness doesn't always make us feel happier. I think sometimes people get confused, thinking, "Well, if I live a happy life, I'm going to score 10 on the 1 to 10 scale." And that's not realistic, and it's not even a good life. So that's what I was trying to capture with that.

• 12:41Laurie Santos?

  No, I love this. It actually fits with what researcher Sonia Libermansky calls two parts of happiness. She says happiness is about being happy in your life and with your life. And I think the like, feeling happy part is the happiness in your life. It's like your sense of positive emotion and a lack of negative emotion.

• 12:56Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly.

• 12:57Laurie Santos?

  But being happy with your life is the happiness part in the aphorism. It's kind of the overall, living up to your values, having a life of flourishing. And Sonia is one of the first to point out that those things don't always go together.

• 13:08Speaker 06

  Right.

• 13:09Laurie Santos?

  That like, the things that make you feel hedonically happy and experience lots of positive emotions, might make you feel empty when it comes to how you're thinking about your life, and vice versa. Visiting a family member who's terminally ill, that might not feel great in the moment, it might feel terrible. But ultimately, it's kind of getting you towards a life of true happiness and flourishing.

• 13:25Speaker 06

  Well, and I think this explains a lot of what some people think is sort of a paradoxical thing about children, where people are like, if you look at people's happiness when they're children, a lot of times, they're not very happy. They're annoyed, they're stressed out. But then if you say, what makes you happy? People say, my children make me happy. And it's like, because happiness doesn't always make us feel happy.

• 13:43Laurie Santos?

  Okay, so can I do another way that happiness doesn't always make us feel happy?

• 13:46Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 13:47Laurie Santos?

  I think this is a deep way of conveying this idea of hedonic adaptation, the fact that we get used to stuff.

• 13:53Speaker 06

  Ooh, I hadn't thought of it that way.

• 13:56Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, you know, so you hit the lottery, you get married, you get the promotion at work.

• 14:00Speaker 06

  You get air conditioning, you get elevators.

• 14:03Laurie Santos?

  Right. And you have this moment of this awesome thing comes in, and you think, this is gonna make me feel happier. But then you don't actually feel as happy as you think.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  Interesting. Lori, I have to say, I never thought of that myself, even though I wrote it. So see, you're already taking me deeper. I love it. That's a whole different way of interpreting it.

• 14:20Laurie Santos?

  Okay. So now we go into aphorism number two, about the social world. This one rang deep for me. We care for many people we don't particularly care for. I care for so many people I don't particularly care for. And that's one thing where, just reading it, you're like, yeah. Because sometimes I think people are confused, like, why is this person in my life if I don't really enjoy their company? Or, we don't have anything in common? Or, you know, all we have is our childhood. And it's like, but we care for many people we don't particularly care for. I'm feeling this right now because we just had a midterm for my happiness class that I teach at Yale.

• 14:55Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 14:56Laurie Santos?

  And the students totally bombed the midterm. And I'm kind of both annoyed, I'm mad at them, like, why didn't you study? Why didn't you get it?

• 15:03Speaker 06

  Ooh.

• 15:03Laurie Santos?

  But also, like, I want them to learn. I'm going to put lots of effort into kind of helping them. And I feel like this happens so much in so many of our caregiving roles. I think of teachers being partly a caregiver. But, you know, when we're doing elder care, you might be caring for a parent who has such dementia, you don't even

• 15:18Speaker 06

  Right.

• 15:19Laurie Santos?

  connect with them or relate to them. They don't even know who you are, but you care for them.

• 15:22Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 15:22Laurie Santos?

  You know, your kids can be incredibly frustrating and drive you crazy. You're not caring for them in that moment, yet you are

• 15:28Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 15:29Laurie Santos?

  caring for them, so.

• 15:30Speaker 06

  And I think when you say something in a really concise way, it kind of allows more interpretation because less is spelled out, more can be put in.

• 15:38Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. And I think with this one, it reminds me that the frustration, the fact that I'm feeling so upset about kind of putting the time in is because I care for them. It almost let me, like, take a breath back of like, oh, it's because I love my students.

• 15:51Speaker 06

  Right.

• 15:51Laurie Santos?

  It's because I love these people that I'm putting time into, so.

• 15:53Speaker 06

  Right. The reason you're so annoyed is because you do care for them.

• 15:57Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. Okay, that's the social world. I had a bunch that I loved that were basically aphorisms about self-talk strategies. I don't know if you think of them that way, but that's how I thought of them.

• 16:06Speaker 06

  I don't, so I'm intrigued to hear what that is.

• 16:09Laurie Santos?

  So number three, repeatedly rehearsing disaster doesn't protect us from it.

• 16:14Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 16:14Laurie Santos?

  This one was one that I needed to hear because I am someone who repeatedly rehearses disaster a lot inside my head. I'm curious, some of your favorite strategies to nip that rehearsing of terrible things in the bud?

• 16:27Speaker 06

  One of the things I like to do is to make a list because I feel like part of why I ruminate is just my brain is like, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget. And if I write it down, then I'm like, okay, it's memorialized somewhere. And so my brain can let go of it. Then I do that whole thing about like, well, what's the worst that can happen? You're like, the worst that could happen is like, I miss my flight. Okay, then what would happen? Well, I'm in the Denver airport. There's a lot of flights to the East Coast. Like, it wouldn't be that bad. I'm not traveling with a toddler, so it could be worse. And also just reminding myself that I think sometimes we fall into this kind of superstitious belief that if we really rehearse something, we kind of will offset it. It's sort of protective magic. And that just isn't the case. I mean, it's one thing to be prepared for something like, I live in Los Angeles, I'm going to have my go-bag

• 17:11Speaker 06

  ready. But if I'm just constantly going over and over in my mind, then that's, that's not doing anything. There is no protective magic that I'm invoking.

• 17:19Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, one of my favorite studies to share with my students is by my former colleague, Susan Nolan-Huxma. And she is the study where she looks at the level of rumination that students go through, either by kind of telling them to ruminate, or just saying not to ruminate. It's like, think a lot about this, or give yourself a strategy that whenever you start to ruminate, you do something else, distract yourself, right?

• 17:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 17:37Laurie Santos?

  And what she finds is that the students in the rumination condition, they wound up actually performing worse on this problem. So the more they thought about it, the more anxious they got. But like, it didn't actually help them solve the problem at all. They were better off when they just kind of distracted themselves from this thing that felt so scary.

• 17:53Speaker 06

  Right.

• 17:54Laurie Santos?

  So it doesn't protect us from it.

• 17:55Speaker 06

  Then there's also scheduling time to worry, where you, you're like, I'm going to worry about this from three to 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. And other than that, I'm not going to worry about it. That can work too, sometimes.

• 18:04Laurie Santos?

  Okay, now getting to self-talk strategy and aphorism number four. One day now will be a long time ago.

• 18:11Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 18:12Laurie Santos?

  This hit me in two ways. One is, it really brought up all the strategies that I talk with my colleague Ethan Cross about, his idea of what's called distant self-talk, that you sort of, you know, project yourself into the future. What's this going to feel like 10 years from now? What's this going to feel like five years from now? It's just not going to feel that bad.

• 18:29Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:30Laurie Santos?

  But a second reason I love this strategy is sort of the reverse. Like, one day now will be a long time ago. So you better appreciate the now, now.

• 18:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 18:39Laurie Santos?

  While you've got it. You have to savor the moment and notice what's going on. Because like, it's fleeting. It's going away really soon.

• 18:46Speaker 06

  Exactly. Both are true. You want to relish what there is, but then also remember that you can put things in perspective.

• 18:51Laurie Santos?

  Okay, that was number four. Now I get to number five. This one was like, really hit me in the like cognitive science soul, because there's so many studies on this. Love this one. It is, by changing our words, we can change our perspective.

• 19:03Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 19:04Laurie Santos?

  So good.

• 19:05Speaker 06

  I'm a huge fan of reframing. It is bananas how much it matters because I used to think like the situation is a situation and like you kind of can't change the situation just by the way that you talk about it. But in fact, it's wild to me how much a change. I mean, the classic example is, do you have to do it or do you get to do it?

• 19:25Laurie Santos?

  Yes.

• 19:26Speaker 06

  That's huge. Do you play piano or practice piano? Do you have social time or do you network? There are so many ways where you can reframe something and really change your attitude toward it. I remember when my daughter was young and when you have a newborn, you have to go to the pediatrician all the time. And I was complaining to my husband, oh my God, you got all these doctor's appointments, such a hassle. By chance, my in-laws live right around the corner from us. I mean, right around the corner. You do not even cross the street. And he goes, oh, well, you know, call my mother. I bet she'd do it. And I was like, oh, no way. I want to be the one to do it. So I wanted to complain about it. But the minute somebody said, oh, you don't have to do it. I was like, no, no, no, no, I want to do it. And it just showed me how, how quickly you can reframe something.

• 20:07Laurie Santos?

  I also love it, just like how the power of words and the way the words are structured can change our perspective. Like, there's some evidence, for example, that if you say, you use the example of playing piano, if you say, oh, yeah, I play piano versus, I'm a piano player. Like, it completely changes your own identity about these things.

• 20:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:24Laurie Santos?

  So this is one I've been trying to use of like, I am a healthy eater, not I'm trying to eat healthy. Like, I am a healthy eater. I've become this thing. But yeah, studies show that when we kind of use a noun to describe ourselves, I am a healthy eater, as opposed to like, this active verb, I just eat healthy. It completely changes our relationship to those behaviors. It completely changes our habits.

• 20:43Speaker 06

  Right. Like, what does a writer do? A writer writes. So you can't be a writer who, like, actually never writes. And you become a writer by writing.

• 20:50Laurie Santos?

  But sometimes we, we have these identities in our head when we don't act on them a lot. I know this is something you talk a lot about in your habit book, right?

• 20:55Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 20:56Laurie Santos?

  Actually, putting it into practice is helpful. And if we can hack that with something as simple as changing the word we use, like, that's so easy, so powerful.

• 21:03Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 21:04Laurie Santos?

  So that was number five. Now we get to number six, self-talk strategy. Accept yourself and expect more from yourself.

• 21:11Speaker 06

  This took me a really long time to understand. Because on the one hand, you know, you know, all the research about self compassion and self acceptance, and that's clearly true. But on the other hand, it's also true that you don't want to be complacent. You want to be willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone. We're happier when we live in an atmosphere of growth, when we're growing, when we're learning, when we're changing, when we're making things better. And both are true. You can accept yourself and expect more from yourself. And each of us has to decide where that line is.

• 21:39Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. In some of your books, we talk about just like being Gretchen. And I feel like this is kind of part and parcel about accept yourself, but also expect more of yourself. You kind of want to get back to what's the authentically Gretchen thing to do. And sometimes that might be giving up whatever, you know, crazy plan you have to try to improve yourself. But sometimes being authentically you might be, no, I gotta like nudge myself a little bit further.

• 22:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I think it's frustrating sometimes because it's really hard to know sometimes where the line is and nobody else can really answer that for you. It's sort of like, okay, well, meditation hasn't been going that well for me. Should I say, hey, meditation isn't a tool that works for me? Or should I stick with it? And kind of only you can figure that out. It's just so hard to know ourselves, right?

• 22:20Laurie Santos?

  And I think this is where these self compassion strategies can actually be helpful. You know, Kristin F, who talks about self compassion, talks about talking to yourself like you would a friend. Sometimes for me, that strategy helps me kind of like toggle this line pretty well. Like if your friend is like, kind of being a little lazy or not pushing themselves, or if they're pushing themselves too hard. You can often see it with a friend of like, no, I think you're being a little self indulgent. Let me kind of nudge you versus like, you are taking on way too much. Like, give yourself some grace. And so that idea of seeing yourself and talking to yourself like you would a friend, that, at least for me, helps me get this right balance between accepting myself and expecting more of myself.

• 22:57Speaker 06

  Well, it's funny, my sister calls me a happiness bully because if I think that there's a way for you to like push into that zone, I will often like be very enthusiastically encouraging you to do it slash.

• 23:08Laurie Santos?

  Bullying, slash bullying.

• 23:09Speaker 06

  You know, and then there's another aphorism, which is love is unconditional, but love is also demanding. Love loves you just as you are and love expects the best from you. And so sometimes it's like, again, these lines can sometimes be difficult to see and yet they're very, very important.

• 23:26Laurie Santos?

  And so we've gone through a bunch already, but when we get back from the break, we're going to turn to some aphorisms about how to get stuff done and how to get through tough times in the Happiness Lab. We'll be right back.

• 23:37Laurie Santos?

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• 24:19Laurie Santos?

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• 25:04Laurie Santos?

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• 25:49Laurie Santos?

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• 26:31Laurie Santos?

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• 27:16Laurie Santos?

  I would expect nothing less from a Gretchen Rubin book than to tell me how to get stuff done in concise and clear ways. But I had three of them from the book that I really loved. The first was, "Good intentions mean nothing unless they inspire practical actions." This is my Achilles' heel when it comes to being a happiness expert, is like, actually getting stuff done. I know all these things that I'm supposed to do, but it's really hard to put those things into action.

• 27:41Speaker 06

  That is it, because it really doesn't matter what your good intentions are. And I think sometimes good intentions can even be draining and discouraging. Because if you keep making them and then they don't turn into practical actions, then they can kind of weigh you down. Whereas if you never thought about it at all, you would be skipping through your life not feeling like there was something you were leaving undone. So I just feel like it's really helpful to think like, well, I have to figure out a way to turn this into a practical action.

• 28:07Laurie Santos?

  And I love this idea of practical action, because I think it reminds us, not just good intentions mean nothing unless they inspire action, throwing that practical... Word in there, I think is helpful because it's like, it's got to be practical. It can't be like, you know, I haven't exercised in the last three years and then tomorrow I'm going to run a marathon. It has to actually fit your real life. It has to fit your boundary conditions and your habits and your lifestyle.

• 28:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:32Laurie Santos?

  So for me, that extra word really made me much happier with this aphorism. Now we get to aphorism number eight.

• 28:37Speaker 06

  Oh, good.

• 28:38Laurie Santos?

  Don't expect to be motivated by motivation.

• 28:41Speaker 06

  And I think the word motivation is very confusing because motivation conflates the idea that you very much want to achieve an aim and that you're doing work toward that aim. And in my experience, people are often extraordinarily desirous of an aim. They desperately want to achieve that aim and yet they're not doing anything to get themselves towards that aim. So are they motivated or not motivated? I don't know. Don't expect to be motivated by motivation.

• 29:05Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, I think one of the frustrating things about motivation is that whatever we mean by this word motivation, and I agree with you, there's like too many different parts to it.

• 29:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:12Laurie Santos?

  Sometimes it just comes naturally, like I'm like such a sugar craving and I don't have to do any work to like seek out sweet fatty food. Right? The way that works, the way that kind of craving works, it's just completely different than the way I have to motivate myself to like have a hard workout or get a writing project done at work or like send off a few emails and like, I wish they were one in the same. Why doesn't the brain work to make it one in the same?

• 29:37Speaker 06

  That's why I just don't think motivation is a helpful word. It's too loose. It gets into this whole thing where like sometimes we want to do something, but we don't really want to do it, or we don't really want to do it, but we want to do it. It just gets very, very confusing. So I just say, stay clear of that word.

• 29:51Laurie Santos?

  And maybe we get a hint about how we can do better from aphorism number nine, which is one of the best uses of willpower is to avoid situations that require willpower.

• 30:01Speaker 06

  Oh, yes.

• 30:02Laurie Santos?

  Oh my gosh, I don't know where this one came from, but this is basically just straight out of Aristotle. Like this one's really ancient. Aristotle thought that the way you have willpower is you set up situations that you don't really need it at all. You set up situations so that basically your only reasonable course of action is to do the thing that at your very highest value level, you wanted to do the most.

• 30:24Speaker 06

  Well, when I wrote my book. About habits better than before. That was just the deepest thing, which is like, everything should be a habit. Everything should be operating on automatic so that you're not deploying your willpower. Like I have a strong sweet tooth too. It sounds like you have a big sweet tooth. So I just gave up sugar. It's easier for me to just say like, I don't eat sugar. And then it's like, do I eat this cupcake? No, because I don't eat sugar. Do I eat this piece of free candy? No, because I don't eat sugar. Then I don't need any willpower because once you've done it for like, not even that long, your brain is just like, oh, that's not for me. And it just kind of fades into the background.

• 30:54Laurie Santos?

  So it sounds like your situation there is really like using words again, as we talked about before, to sort of set up like, I am not a sugar eater. I just kind of get rid of it. My move is situation support. Like, I just don't have any sugar in my house when I'm trying to avoid this sort of thing.

• 31:10Speaker 06

  You don't have to resist the ice cream in the freezer because there's no ice cream in the freezer?

• 31:14Laurie Santos?

  Yes, yes. Physical situation support. But I also love to use social situation support, right? Which is like, hang out with other people who aren't gonna like, demand that we go to ice cream shop, or you know, hang out with other people who by their own behavior model this and make this easy for me. And that's actually what Aristotle thought of. He said, you actually get virtue from other people because your friends are your virtuous selves.

• 31:35Speaker 06

  You know, it's just, it's something like with sugar, it was so noisy. It was so boring to have that in my head all the time. And I just remember like, it would just be there buzzing in my mind. It's there, it's there, it's there. And then I could just decide to turn it off.

• 31:48Laurie Santos?

  That is like your superpower because like, I've tried to decide many times to shut it off, but my brain just doesn't work. Like, that's it, never again. I have to like, restructure my environment and be around people who help and yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 06

  Everybody has to kind of experiment to see what works for them because we are all very different. And there's a lot of different ways to approach it.

• 32:07Laurie Santos?

  Although, can I tell you a puzzle about this willpower aphorism? Which is that I have this former student, Ariella Kristol, who's been looking at the consequences of how people judge people who use these different strategies. And a curious thing that she finds is that even though we know that setting up these situation supports help you, she finds that people like people who exert the willpower rather than set up the situation. So if you tell them, you know, person A, Bob, like, really didn't want to eat sugar and he Just decided, you know, hey, I'm not going to eat sugar anymore. Right. Versus, you know, there's Phil who decided he didn't want to eat sugar anymore. And he moved the sugar out of his house and he made sure he only hung out with friends that weren't eating sugar. What you find is that participants like Bob better than Phil.

• 32:49Laurie Santos?

  They think Bob is more moral, a stronger person. And so.

• 32:53Speaker 06

  Or maybe they think that Phil's way is more realistic and therefore is more of a challenge to themselves.

• 32:58Laurie Santos?

  Oh, interesting. Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 06

  Because if they're like, well, I'm not some Bob that can just go off and do it. So clearly that doesn't reflect on me. I mean, many people, when they start making their habits better, the people around them are often not very supportive. Right. Because they start saying to themselves like, maybe I should be doing this and I don't want to. So it might be that it makes them feel worse about themselves.

• 33:21Laurie Santos?

  Okay. Now jumping to number 10 aphorism about getting stuff done. Focus on actions, not outcomes. You update this to mean, don't try to learn to play the guitar, just play the guitar for 20 minutes every day.

• 33:33Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 33:34Laurie Santos?

  This is very Yoda, who I think has a different aphorism, which is do or do not, there is no try.

• 33:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, because a lot of times people will say things like, well, I want to write a bestselling novel. Well, you can't control whether something is a bestseller, right? That's something other people have to do. And you can't even control whether you can publish a novel, but you can write. People tend to have vague outcomes. People say then they're like, I want to learn Italian. It's like, that's a major, major aim, right? Or get more fun out of life. Whereas if you're really focusing on your action, like I'm going to watch a classic movie every Sunday night. That's something where you're like, did you do it? Did you not do it? And that's a way to get more fun out of life. Or I'm going to practice my Italian half an hour a day. You can measure it. You know whether you did it or didn't do it. So you get a feeling of satisfaction. It's taking you toward your aim, but otherwise these aims are just so big and vague.

• 34:23Speaker 06

  It's like on any one day, you're not going to have done it. It's very hard to even know if you're making progress.

• 34:29Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, it reminds me of what researchers often call these SMART goals.

• 34:33Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 34:33Laurie Santos?

  SMART is this acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. The actions can be very specific. You can measure whether you did them or not. You know that you can do them.

• 34:43Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 34:44Laurie Santos?

  You can set. A time limit on them so you know exactly when you're supposed to do that specific action. And the interesting thing is like, even if you don't get to the outcome, you're getting closer to it than if you didn't do the actions in the first place.

• 34:55Speaker 06

  Exactly, because you may never be fluent in Italian, but you're good enough to like, you know, go to Italy and talk to the waiter.

• 35:01Laurie Santos?

  Like an order of cannoli.

• 35:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I think that that's why it's better to focus on your actions than on your outcomes.

• 35:07Laurie Santos?

  So those were some pieces of advice for getting stuff done. My final two favorite aphorisms are pieces of advice we can use in tough times. Starting with number 11, sometimes to keep going, we need to allow ourselves to stop.

• 35:20Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 35:21Laurie Santos?

  Ah, this one, you know, especially in times when I was experiencing lots of burnout myself, reminding myself about the need to rest, that rest is an investment. So, so essential, but so, so hard to remember.

• 35:33Speaker 06

  I know, right?

• 35:34Laurie Santos?

  And I like the word stop, not just sometimes to keep going, we need to allow ourselves to rest. Sometimes to keep going, you need to allow yourself to stop, not just rest, but pause.

• 35:43Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 35:44Laurie Santos?

  Take a step away, right?

• 35:45Speaker 06

  Sometimes you just think, if I just go, go, go, go, go, I will just power through it. And then you just become more and more drained and overwhelmed and unfocused. I'm a big believer in a good night's sleep. I mean, if there is a cliche that I live by, it's everything looks better after a good night's sleep. I'll go to bed at 7:45 if I'm having a really, really bad day. Cause I'm like, I just need this day to be over. I'll feel better in the morning, even that kind of letting yourself stop.

• 36:09Laurie Santos?

  And so final piece of advice for tough times and my final aphorism, which I really loved, things often get messier before they get tidier.

• 36:18Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 36:18Laurie Santos?

  I've literally, since I read this aphorism, told this to four different people in my life who are going through various tough times and various moments of untidiness. So true, but we forget that things getting a little bit worse isn't necessarily a sign that they're not going to get better. We just can't think about paths towards progress without assuming it's going to be in some straight line.

• 36:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, this is one of those that's literally true and also metaphorically true. Because it's literally true if you've ever tried to like clean out your closet, but it's also very metaphorically true. If you're trying to do something like switch careers or change a relationship or something, a lot of times it can get very messy before it. That's cleared up.

• 36:55Laurie Santos?

  I think it's also like even locally, like trying to get through a tough emotion. Right. I've been trying to engage in all these practices. I tell my students about, you know, sitting with and accepting your emotions. And when you decide to do that, wow, does it feel messy when you're sitting with sadness? Or wow, does it feel messy when you're really noticing that overwhelm?

• 37:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:12Laurie Santos?

  But if you give yourself time to do that, then all of a sudden, oh, you wind up in a much better place.

• 37:17Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 37:18Laurie Santos?

  But the tidiness is on the other side.

• 37:20Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 37:20Laurie Santos?

  Well, those are my favorite 12, and I hope my Happiness Lab listeners will check out the rest of the book.

• 37:25Speaker 06

  Well, this is so fun for me to hear which ones resonated with you, especially since you yourself are such a happiness expert. It's fun to see what caught your eye.

• 37:33Laurie Santos?

  So if people want to learn more, or they want to hear more from you, where should they go?

• 37:36Speaker 06

  Well, they can go to happiercast.com/secrets. And then there's all kinds of information about the books and excerpts, and you can see the cover and order it if you want, or you can just wherever books are sold.

• 37:48Laurie Santos?

  And just to recap, my favorite of Gretchen's aphorisms. Number one, happiness doesn't always make us feel happy. Number two, we care for many people we don't particularly care for. Number three, repeatedly rehearsing disaster doesn't protect us from it. Number four, one day now will be a long time ago. Number five, by changing our words, we can change our perspective. Number six, accept yourself and expect more from yourself. Number seven, good intentions mean nothing unless they inspire practical actions. Number eight, don't expect to be motivated by motivation. Number nine, one of the best uses of willpower is to avoid situations that require willpower. Number 10, focus on actions, not outcomes.

• 38:33Laurie Santos?

  Number 11, sometimes to keep going, we need to allow ourselves to stop. And finally, number 12, things often get messier before they get tidier. I hope at least one of these nuggets of wisdom connected with you as much as they've resonated with me. But that's not the end of the wisdom that Gretchen will be giving the Happiness Lab community, because next time Gretchen will return to share an episode from her podcast's new series on happiness, one in which the two of us chat about friendships, how they evolve, how they go wrong, and what we can do to make them healthier. So be sure to return for a special friendship roundtable next time on Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 39:20Laurie Santos?

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