Gretchen Rubin: Turn Failed Resolutions Into Goals That Stick | Productivity | YAPClassic

17:45Gretchen Rubin:So for instance, I've had words like, my words have tended to be pretty boring, like infrastructure, delegate, bigger. Whereas my sister, my co-host on Happier is my sister. Her words have been much more more evocative and interesting like butterfly number six uh hot wheels novel so this year my word i decided i wanted to have like a more concrete word that had like a lot more kind of metaphoric levels to it so i picked the word salt because salt is something that it's a universal flavor enhancer it's the thing that you add to like spice things up it's a preservative so it It keeps things going and keeps things good longer.

18:31Gretchen Rubin:And so, you know, by thinking about it, and then it's easy to put the word salt up on my cork board over my shoulder. It has this giant word salt on it. You know, that's easier than like a two paragraph mission statement for myself. Like salt kind of captures it. And what we've seen is like people, they'll put it on it on like a bracelet or they'll make it their screensaver or their, you know, an image on their lock screen or something. And just by keeping it in their minds and keeping it very active, it helps to keep it in your mind. And people have all sorts of interesting things. Like somebody just had it for, well, like my sister's word is step.

19:12Gretchen Rubin:So she wants to step into the future. She wants to do 10 ,000 steps a day. She wants to fix her treadmill desk. She wants to, she just got a new puppy. She wants to walk her dog five times a week. Like she's thought, she wants to move ahead in like a career, like a kind of a side hustle she's been thinking about doing. So she's stepping forward in a lot of different ways. So she can, with a one word theme, you can capture a lot of related ideas in one sort of powerful word. And it's fun and it's creative. You know, it's a little bit more fun than some of these, some other.

19:43Hala Taha:Yeah, I mean, it's less daunting just to think of one word and have that kind of set your intention for all the your priorities and everything that you choose to do. So my homework to everybody tuning in right now is to think of their theme for 2022, their one word theme. And then let us know, write us a review on the podcast or DM me on LinkedIn and let us know what you picked for your word.

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24:05Hala Taha:That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash profiting. ZocDoc.com slash profiting. Again, that's ZocDoc.com slash profiting. And thanks to ZocDoc for supporting this message. So let's go back to your 22 items for 2022 in terms of your 22 goals. What's the most fun or unexpected goal that you have on your list?

24:29Gretchen Rubin:oh, I want to have another taste party. So I'm writing a book about the five senses. And so I went to Flavor University and they have all these tastes, like comparisons that you do, or like you just sit and really taste something. And I had like some friends over and we did it. And it was so much fun. And I realized like, you think of like, oh, we'll have people over for dinner or we'll all go out to a restaurant. And I just thought this was so much more fun and it got us talking and laughing in a really, in a very different way. Like we like we were talking about odd things, like what kind of candy we ate when we were little or, you know, everybody's musing about Red Bull.

25:08Gretchen Rubin:I mean, it was just it was just it was an odd, interesting thing. And so I'm excited. I'm excited to to do that again. I want to, like, make a habit of that.

25:19Hala Taha:I've never heard of a tasting party before. Like, what does that entail?

25:23Gretchen Rubin:So what I did was like I got, say, three kinds. I looked up like what are the three most popular varieties of apples in the United States? And so I put slices unmarked and like I bought these little cups and I had everybody say like, well, what do you think? And like everybody had to say like how they liked it and then compare it and try to identify it. I had like a piece of very inexpensive chocolate and a piece of very expensive chocolate. Like, could we taste the difference? Yes, we could. We had the three, three kinds of potato chips, like plain potato chips. Like how do you compare and contrast these?

26:02Gretchen Rubin:Like, did we, did we all agree at what was best or did we disagree? Or like we, and as I said, we all tried Red Bull. We all, we tasted five different kinds of Skittles. It was just really fun. Oh, and you know, one of a kind of magical food is ketchup. ketchup hits all five of the tastes, sweet, sour, salty, umami, and bitter. And so it's like, that's very unusual for something to do that, which is why probably ketchup is so enormously powerful. And we tasted it and people were like, this is amazing. Like no one had noticed. Oh my gosh. Ketchup is so, so good. A friend of mine was like, if you didn't tell us this was ketchup, I bet everybody would have thought it was like some rare, super expensive thing because it is so complex and it's so delicious so next time we do it i'm going to turn the lights out so nobody so people can't see what it is and ask them what is it because it's like you take it for granted you don't realize ketchup is good yeah it's really good i would have never thought of that that's so

27:05Hala Taha:funny and i can't wait for your new book five cents that sounds super interesting we have to have you back on um so this 22 for 22 list in terms of the goals that you pick is there any boundaries like should they be smaller should they just be like more fun do you have any boundaries

27:19Gretchen Rubin:for this well what's so interesting is that people take it in a lot of different ways so some people will pick things where they'll like say for 22 they might have 11 stretch things and 11 easy things right so there's a balance or sometimes people put them in categories like there might be a category of work and relationships and home and adventure so there's some so you sort of see okay I'm trying to like have sort of hit every important part of my life. Or sometimes people have fun with the year number. So it's like I'm going to read 22 novels and I'm going to go to I'm going to walk for 22 minutes and I'm going to, you know, try 22 new recipes.

27:57Gretchen Rubin:I'm going to go on 22 new hikes, kind of doing it that way. So people really and then there's some people they're like, what I need, you know, people keep telling me I need to take more time for myself. I'm just going to have 22 fun things. And by putting them on the list, I'm going to make sure that I do make time for fun. And I do make time for the things that I would really enjoy, because if I don't put them on a list, like going to the dentist, they'll never get done. So I'm going to put on things like get a massage and take a tennis lesson and go on a trip to see even, you know, my friend's new baby or whatever it is.

28:31Gretchen Rubin:So every single thing on their list is fun. So people really part of what I like about it is that it's very, very flexible. Another thing we do on the Happier Podcast is we'll do a challenge based on the number of minutes. So it's 22. So we did walk 20 and 20. We did read 21 and 21. And then this year, because people are exhausted, it's rest 22 and 22. And again, it's super flexible because some people are resting by napping. That's what I'm doing. Some people are resting by committing to going to sleep 22 minutes earlier. somebody was saying oh I'm gonna go to I'm gonna go to bed at 2200 hours like use the 24 hour clock but I thought oh I didn't I didn't think of that um some people are um having 22 minutes in the morning like instead of hitting the snooze alarm I'm gonna get up and like have a cup of coffee and like spend time in my backyard in nature so people are really thinking through what is rest and and how to use the 22 so you can you have a 22 for 22 list or you could also like do something for 22 minutes every day in 2022 it's like another way to play with it's an arbitrary date but it's

29:39Hala Taha:a fun date yeah and i love that and i think anybody who's listening to young and profiting i know that we're all super high achievers we're all really hard working i bet we all need to just keep our list to a fun list because i think we all have our you know strategy and goals for our business and everything like that but we often forget about like you said going to the doctor or taking a tennis lesson or learning how to play an instrument that's what i'm going to do for my list is just keep it fun especially after the couple years that we've had I feel like it's more important than ever so let's talk about sticking to our goals because you alluded to this before you didn't go into detail so I'd love for you to go into detail now there's everybody has a different personality and you actually break the world down into four distinct personality types called your four tenets tendencies you're very famous for this model and framework so first let's break those four personality types down and then let's talk about how each one can approach their goals.

30:34Right.

30:35Gretchen Rubin:You're right. This is the four tendencies and it's a it's a framework that divides people into four categories, upholders, questioners, obligers and rebels. And so what this is looking at is a very narrow aspect of your nature, but a very significant, like something that really has a lot of consequences. And what it's looking at is how you respond to expectations. And we all face two kinds of expectations, outer expectations like a work deadline, and inner expectations like my own desire to get back into practicing guitar. So depending on whether you meet or resist outer or inner expectations, that's what makes you an upholder, questioner, obliger, or rebel.

31:16Gretchen Rubin:So upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They meet the work deadline. They keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss. They want to know what other people expect from them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important, maybe more important. So their motto is discipline is my freedom. Then there are questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. They need justifications, reasons. They want everything to be efficient. They like things to be customized. These are the people that don't like the arbitrariness of January 1st.

31:53Gretchen Rubin:They tend to really not like anything arbitrary or unjustified. So they make everything an inner expectation. If it meets their inner standard, they will do it no problem. If it fails their inner standard, they will push back. So their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why. Then there are obligers. Obligers, and this is the biggest group for both men and women, is obliger. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So I got my insight into this when a friend told me, you know, when I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never missed track practice.

32:28Gretchen Rubin:So why can't I go running now? Well, when she had a team and a coach expecting her, she had no trouble. But when she's trying to go on her own, it's a struggle. And so for people who are obligers to meet an inner expectation, they must have a form of outer accountability. So you want to read a book, join a book club. You want to work out, work out with a trainer, take a class where they take attendance, work out with a friend who's going to be annoyed if you don't show up, raise money for a charity. You need that outer accountability. And so the motto of the obliger is you can count on me and I'm counting on you to count on me.

33:03Gretchen Rubin:And then finally, rebel. And this is the smallest group. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. 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. And typically they don't tell themselves what to do. Like they don't say, I'm going to go to a woodworking class every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. because they think, well, I don't know what I'm going to want to do on Saturday morning. And just the idea that somebody is expecting me to show up is going to annoy me.

33:35Gretchen Rubin:So their motto is you can't make me and neither can I. so people if people like to take a like take a quiz they can go to gretchenrubin.com slash four tendencies f-o-u-r four tendencies and it'll it's a very short like three and a half million people have taken this it's free it's quick and it will tell you what you are and give you a little report but often people just from this brief description they know exactly who they are i mean we can talk about the game of thrones characters we could talk about parks and recreation we talk about the you You know, these are not these are not subtle. Once you know what to look for, you see them all around.

34:10Gretchen Rubin:Oh, my gosh.

34:10Hala Taha:As soon as I refreshed my learning of this, like I interviewed you a while ago. So I learned this before. I was like, I think I'm an upholder. But let me double check. I went and took the quiz, upholder. And I think you're an upholder as well.

34:24Gretchen Rubin:Yes. And it's great to talk to a fellow upholder. But, you know, we're the second smallest group. Rebel is the smallest and upholders only slightly, slightly larger. So we're kind of a we're kind of a small group.

34:36Hala Taha:I know. So it's like we almost have to walk around the world realizing that most people are obligers and questioners and kind of be in their perspective. Because a lot of the times I don't relate to that at all, you know, and it's really hard to kind of, you know, when you when you have such a unique, I guess, personality type. And like, for example, I never look up ways to stick to goals because I never have a problem with sticking to goals. So I don't even relate to that, you know.

35:02Gretchen Rubin:Well, you're exactly right. And so when I wrote my book, The Happiness Project, like after it came out, all these people were saying to me, but how did you get yourself to do all those things? And I said, oh, well, you know, I thought about the things that I thought would make me happier. And then I tried them. And if they made me happier, I just kept doing them. And they'd say to me, looking really puzzled, like, but how did you get yourself to do them? And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I really didn't understand. And that's, I think, when I first started to understand the four tendencies, because I began to think other people are are facing different challenges from me.

35:36Gretchen Rubin:Like we're not all dealing with the same thing. Or like I was right when I was writing my book better than before, which is about habits. Like and maybe you're probably the same way since you're in a folder. I love the idea of habits. I find it energizing, just fascinating. I love habits. I add more all the time. But I was at a cocktail party and somebody was asking me what I did. she literally stepped back for me when I said I was ready with habits like it was so loathsome she couldn't help she was so repelled and I was like that's funny because she's like why would you want to write a book about a subject like that like oh my gosh unbelievably like you know and I thought well that were really different and now I mean that was one of my like looking back on that conversation I was just asking her about all these different things to try to understand and how her mind worked.

36:22Gretchen Rubin:And that's when I began to realize, like, people are really fundamentally different. Like, we just are in a completely different universe.

36:30Hala Taha:Yeah. How do these different personality types better stick to their goals? What is your guidance for each one of them? And maybe let's start off with rebel, but then we can go into the obliger since most people really fall into that category.

36:42Gretchen Rubin:Well, the thing about rebel is rebels, I would say that is the most different kind of tendency. And I think they are often given bad advice. And told to do things that are not going to work for them. So if you know that you're a rebel or you know you're dealing with a rebel, you can really kind of tailor it to that tendency, which is going to make it a lot easier for them to stick. So one of the things that works really well for a rebel is to think about identity, which is like, I'm not doing this because you told me to or because somebody else told me I should or even because I said that I would.

37:12Gretchen Rubin:I'm doing it because this is the kind of person I am. And so you don't want to get in the way of that by like telling them to do things, because then you can ignite the spirit of resistance. But you want to like allow them to like step into their identity. I'm a considerate parent. I'm a responsible partner. I'm the kind of person people can count on. I live up to the highest values. So sometimes rebels have incredibly high values. And, you know, and so they're asking themselves to do all kinds of things. It's not like sometimes people think that they're sort of like these kind of irresponsible, immature.

37:47Gretchen Rubin:No, it just depends on their values because they're choosing. The other thing that can work, and maybe this works if it's like with a partner, is information consequences choice. You give them the information you need. You tell them the consequences of their action or inaction, and then you let them choose. So you can be like, oh, yeah, well, we were talking about going on that vacation and like we're going to need to commit to a hotel. So if we pick by Friday night, probably we'll get the one that we want. If we don't get it done until like next week, it looks like they're going pretty fast. So we might get some like lousy hotel or we're going to end up having to stay pretty far away from where we want to be.

38:24Gretchen Rubin:Information consequences. I love that. But then you don't you don't keep going. You don't say, so you have to do it or you said you would or I'm going to check up on you. It's just like and you have to be willing to allow things not to be done because rebel after rebel has said to me, like, you have to let negative consequences fall. Or, you know, if you rush in and like rescue or fix at the last minute, then it's like, OK, well, that was that was fine. I don't I don't need to worry about this because somebody it has to be it has to be something. And you could say, well, if it's but that's my vacation, too.

39:00Gretchen Rubin:It's like, okay, well, you've got to convince the rebel they want to do it for their own reasons or do it yourself or allow them not to do it. Because that's just, you can't tell them what to do. Yeah, this is like really speaking to me.

39:12Hala Taha:Like she's speaking the truth right now because I know how to win arguments and things with my boyfriend. And that's exactly how I get it done. So that makes sense. How about obligers? How should they go about sticking to their goals?

39:25Gretchen Rubin:They need outer accountability. This is so key because people will tell obligers things like you need to learn to put yourself first or you need to keep your promises yourself or you need to get clear in your priorities. This doesn't work. I'm not saying it's not a good idea. I'm just saying it doesn't work. What works is outer accountability. You have to create a structure of outer accountability to meet an inner expectation. And I love hearing what obligers do because they have so much ingenuity in thinking about how to create outer accountability for things where you might think, well, that'd be tricky to create outer accountability.

40:00Gretchen Rubin:But like somebody I knew, two obligers who for some reason had the same kind of funny aim, which they both live by themselves and they wanted to get up. They didn't want they were both like addicted to the snooze alarm and they wanted to get up sort of on time. So how do you do that? How do you create outer accountability for getting up at a certain time? And so one of them put a very embarrassing Facebook post to automatically post unless she got up to disable it. So that got her out of bed. And the guy had a golden retriever named Ginger who slept in his room. And so he changed his alarm to be his voice saying, Ginger, do you want to go for a walk?

40:42Gretchen Rubin:Ginger, do you want to go for a walk? And so Ginger would like jump on his chest and like wag her tail and lick his face and be like, yes, let's go for a walk. So then he couldn't sleep because he's got this golden retriever bouncing around. And I thought these are these are great. Right. Because it is outer accountability. But, you know, you're not but you kind of don't even need to rely on another person to do it. A lot of times people do rely on people to do it. Like if you want to go for a walk, you like go with your neighbor and your neighbor is going to be annoyed if you don't show up. Oh, I heard of two guys.

41:13Gretchen Rubin:The way they did it, they did it at a gym. So it's like they go to the gym and like if I at the end, we swap a shoe. So I have to go tomorrow because if I don't go, you'll show up and you'll only have one shoe.

41:25Hala Taha:Oh, my God.

41:26Gretchen Rubin:That's so I have to go because otherwise, like you're going to be so annoyed.

41:31Hala Taha:Do you feel like there's so I'm sure the obligers out there, they probably wish that they had a little bit more discipline, self-discipline and control. is there a way to kind of mature into becoming an upholder or are you just kind of stuck being an obliger?

41:46Gretchen Rubin:Well, spoken like a true upholder.

41:51Gretchen Rubin:You know, I really I'm a big believer in the genetic roots of personality. And I think that these are pretty much hardwired. But I really don't think that there's a lot there that there's that anybody needs to evolve. I think they each have tremendous strengths and weaknesses. We can talk about sort of the weaknesses of the upholder tendency and like how that comes into play. The forming New Year's resolutions is something that is definitely part of our strengths as upholders. And so, you know, people, they each have strengths and weaknesses. They each include people who are wildly successful and also people who struggle.

42:26Gretchen Rubin:And what you see is that the people who do the best are not the ones that try to move from one tendency to the other, because I think that's very difficult, if even possible. But it's the people who work with their tendency. They harness the strengths and they offset the weaknesses. And so sometimes people will say to me like, oh, I used to be an obliger, but now I'm an upholder. And I'm like, well, let's look at that. And what I see is that they've just unconsciously figured out that for anything that's important to them, they need to have a structure of outer accountability. They've just built it in.

42:54Gretchen Rubin:So now they feel like they're effortlessly meeting their inner expectations. Whereas to me, I'm like, really, you've just built in tons of outer accountability, which is exactly what you need. And that's fine. So I think instead of trying to work on ourselves, we should work on our circumstances and our surroundings and our situation and just get ourselves whatever we need to succeed rather than trying to change our nature. Because a lot of people, questioners and upholders and sort of rebels, too, kind of say to obligers, well, you shouldn't have to need other people to do what you want. It's like, you know what?

43:32Gretchen Rubin:There's more obligers than there are of any of us. Like, who are we to say? If they need outer accountability, that's fine. Who cares? Because I do feel like that.

43:39Hala Taha:I feel like it's like a weakness that you need outer accountability.

43:43Gretchen Rubin:That's upholder, right? And I'm 100 % with you. I used to march around and say things to people like, I don't want to be your babysitter. Do your work in your own time. Like, if it's important to you, do it. If it's not important to you, don't do it. I don't want to keep hearing how you're frustrated because, like, just make up your mind. And it's like, you know what? People don't work like that. Yeah. That's just not helpful because you get a bunch of upholders together. And we're always like, everybody starts saying like, why don't other people just do it? Like, just get it together and do it.

44:14Gretchen Rubin:And I'm like, yeah, because we're upholders. Like, and what do they complain about us? We're rigid.

44:20Hala Taha:Yeah, probably a little bit arrogant, maybe. We're rigid.

44:23Gretchen Rubin:We're often cold because it's like, oh, you want me to do this? But I'm sorry because I got my own thing going. Like, I don't have time for your thing because I got to do my thing. This is why people love obligers, because obligers are the people who go the extra mile. I've had people tell me they only want to hire obligers. They want to screen on hiring.

44:41Hala Taha:Wow.

44:42Gretchen Rubin:Because they want an obliger.

44:44Hala Taha:Wow. I would think that they want upholders.

44:47Gretchen Rubin:But upholders are like, hey, I'm sorry. I have to leave every night at six because I have to go to my yoga class. You know, your lack of planning is not my emergency.

44:56Hala Taha:see yeah obligers are like i'm gonna push back people pleasers in that way well it's not even

45:03Gretchen Rubin:people please i think it's the people pleaser is something that people apply later to try to understand why they've acted the way they've acted and i think it's just better not even to think about that it's more about accountability because there are obligers who have that are not people pleasers at all. They just only do something if they have to. And so they really but they will do it. But they just have to have consequences. Like very obvious consequences. So it doesn't necessarily go with people pleasing. And you could have a rebel who's very interested in people pleasing because they have their very high value of serving other people's needs.

45:43Gretchen Rubin:And so you could say, well, that's people pleasing, but it's definitely coming from a different place.

45:47Hala Taha:I can't help but think that that like anti-vaxxers might be rebels.

45:53Gretchen Rubin:Could be, I think some of them. I think some of them probably fall into that.

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47:41Hala Taha:That's H-U-E-L.com slash Y-A-P-15, Huel.com slash Yap15. New customers only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show.

47:53Hala Taha:What's up, Yap gang? You know, starting a business sounds exciting until you realize that suddenly you're the marketer, designer, tech support, and operations team all at once. And that can get overwhelming fast. And that's why for a lot of people, the hardest part isn't the idea. It's getting started. That's where Shopify comes in. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses worldwide and about 10 % of all e-commerce in the US, from notable brands to people just starting out. It helps you do everything in one place. You can build a store with ready-to-use templates, use AI tools to write product descriptions and headlines, and run email and social campaigns without juggling a dozen platforms.

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49:02Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, have you ever had a message you meant to reply to and then just didn't? It happens to the best of us. And in business, that adds up fast. Because when somebody is ready to talk, speed can secure the deal. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the smarter way to run your business communications. I've seen this firsthand with my clients. Suddenly, a lot of our clients don't want Slack or cool automations. They just wanna text and get a fast response. They wanna go back to basics. And if we don't make that easy for them, we become the bottleneck. So we decided to switch to Quo.

49:38Hala Taha:Now we use one shared business number. Every call and text goes to the whole team. Everybody sees the thread and anyone can respond and nothing gets lost. No bottlenecks, no I'll get back to this later, just fast, clean communication, how clients actually want it. It's a simple shift that removes one of the easiest ways to quietly lose revenue. Money is on the line, Yap Fam. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. That's Q-U-O dot com slash profiting. Quo dot com slash profiting. Okay, so let's get into questioners.

50:13Hala Taha:Yes. How do they deal with goals?

50:16Gretchen Rubin:So questioners, for them, it's all about clarity. It's always about understanding, like, I'm asking myself, this is what I'm asking myself to do, and this is why, and this is why it's the most efficient, most justified choice for me. So if I want to exercise, I want to understand, like, why I'm exercising, how I'm exercising. I really want to have clarity. So the strategy of clarity is so important for questioners, because once they've made up their mind, then action follows. But here's the thing. Questioners can sometimes fall into analysis paralysis. This is when the desire for perfect information makes it hard for them to move forward.

50:52Gretchen Rubin:And so something like exercise, like there's so much information. Should I be doing cardio? Should I be doing high intensity weight training? Should I be doing interval training? Should I be walking slow? And that'll boost my creativity. Like, who should I listen to? So sometimes they can fall in, they can, they can get sort of stuck in that kind of that information spiral. So what they need to do is think, well, I'm going to experiment, right? I'm going to take my best guess and I'm going to try something out. And if it doesn't work, I'm going to succeed by failing. If it doesn't work, then I've learned something about myself and then I'll try something new.

51:24Gretchen Rubin:They can use deadlines. They can use limits. They can use trusted authority. So it's like, well, if it's good enough, this person, this person I know is in amazing shape. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. I'll try, you know, I'll try that regimen. So for questioners, it's all about that clarity. But the clarity, the aim for clarity, I was just reading, somebody just emailed me saying, I keep reading and reading and reading, thinking that I will finally be so convinced about what the healthy way to eat is, that I will just naturally do that. But I'm sort of pretending like reading about healthy eating is the same as healthy eating, which it is not.

52:03Gretchen Rubin:And I was like, yeah, as a questioner, you have to be like, I need to start by acting. And if I change my mind, I can always change what I'm doing. But I have to get that clarity, and then I have to follow it up with experimentation.

52:15Hala Taha:And I'm guessing the upholders don't really get much advice on this topic.

52:19Gretchen Rubin:They don't, but you know what? They love to give advice. Like if I look around all my pals in the world of habit formation there, the upholders are definitely over indexed. And I think it's because we love it and we're good at it. And we think we figured it out. It's like, oh, if you do what I do, it'll work for you. Because you know what? Just about anything works for upholders. We're really good at a lot of different kinds of tools and a lot of different kinds of approaches and strategies because we like that and we're good at that. Yeah. Yeah.

52:48Hala Taha:So something that my team brought up to me that I thought was really interesting was a term you call the arrival fallacy. What is the arrival fallacy and how does that relate to helping us stick to our New Year's resolutions?

53:02Gretchen Rubin:Well, the arrival fallacy is when we think like, I'll be happy when. So I'll be happy when I get the promotion. I'll be happy when I'm done with grad school. I'll be happy when I get married. I'll be happy when I buy up my first house. I'll be happy when I lose 20 pounds. I'll be happy when I break up with my boyfriend. And so but what research shows is that we don't have kind of this ecstatic moment the way we sort of think that we're going to. Partly because as we as we begin to make change, you know, usually things don't happen overnight. It's not like somebody calls you and you win the Nobel Prize like there's a before and after.

53:36Gretchen Rubin:It's like you're edging up to things. And so by the time you get that promotion, it's not the big change that you anticipated. And also a lot of times, even very happy changes bring with them things that we have to fuss with. Like, OK, you've got a promotion, but now you've got a whole bunch of new responsibilities. And like and you go from being feeling like you're the master of everything to be like being a beginner again. And that's unnerving. And so it's like, yeah, you're so happy you got the promotion. But oh, wow. You know, it's it's hard. And so the arrival fallacy, it looks it's from far away.

54:15Gretchen Rubin:It looks like it's going to be such a happy time that when it actually happens often, it's not. So I think what's really helpful is to think about one of the things my father always said to me was to enjoy the process, because if what you're if you if you really are careful to do things where you can enjoy the process, then the outcome doesn't matter as much. It's like you would still be disappointed or you would still be happy if you had the outcome that you had or didn't or you'd be unhappy if you didn't get it. But if you enjoy the process, then you're not hanging everything on that moment or that specific.

54:49Gretchen Rubin:Because a lot of times things don't go the way we want, you know, and we don't arrive where we want to arrive. But if you enjoy the process, then that's that's, you know, less upsetting.

55:00Hala Taha:It's so interesting that you bring this up. I actually did a recap episode for 2021. And the last question I ask all my guests on my show is, what is your secret to profiting in life? And one of the most popular things that people said is to enjoy the process and to enjoy the journey and to not get too stuck in the highs and the lows. And so many successful people that I've interviewed said that or to have perspective and to realize that, like, even though something's really bad, like there's always you can always look at it from a different angle. So I love that that you mentioned that and that we were able to kind of tie that in.

55:34Hala Taha:So I want to talk about habits because you are also an expert with habits. And when it comes to a new year, everybody's always saying like new year, new me. But really, we're all the same, same old person. And a lot of us need to break some bad habits. I've talked to so many great experts on this topic from Charles Duhigg to BJ Fogg to Nira Al. And we love talking about habits on this podcast. So I would love to hear from you. What is your approach to breaking a bad habit?

56:02Gretchen Rubin:Well, one thing is usually a habit can be conceived of as like making it or breaking it. And some people are very sensitive to the difference. So you kind of want to think about how you want to frame it. So are you going to quit sugar or are you going to eat more healthfully or whatever? And but I think there are 21 strategies that we can use to make or break our habit. And sometimes people are like, well, 21 is too many. You know, just give me one. or give me three. But actually, it's really good that there are so many because some of them work really well for some people, but they don't work at all for other people.

56:38Gretchen Rubin:And some of them are available to us at some times in our lives, but not in other times in our lives. And so you want to have a big menu so that you can pick and choose the ones that are right for you. So for instance, we were just talking about the poor tendencies. Well, one of the 21 strategies that are right about and better than before is the strategy of accountability. and that's an incredibly powerful strategy. It's an essential strategy for obligers. It's sometimes useful for upholders. We don't really need it that much. Sometimes we like to have it. It's not so essential. For rebels, sometimes it's counterproductive.

57:10Gretchen Rubin:They don't want somebody looking over their shoulder. They don't want somebody micromanaging or checking up on them. So if you try to hold them accountable, you might actually ignite their spirit of resistance. It might be counterproductive. So it's still a very important one of the 21 strategies, but it's not a universal strategy. And that's true for almost all the strategies. So we really have to start with self-knowledge and knowing ourselves because who we are and the way that we go about things might mean that certain of the 21 would be really powerful for us. Whereas a different person would have a completely different set of the ones that are like their go-to strategies.

57:44Hala Taha:So as you were talking, like all that I kept thinking in my mind for some reason was obligers would make bad entrepreneurs. Is this correct or incorrect?

57:55Gretchen Rubin:Well, it's incorrect because what obligers do when they want to be entrepreneurs is they what they usually do is that they go ahead and create outer accountability. So let's say I want to be a wedding photographer. So I book a wedding. You know, I tell my friend, hey, I'll take pictures for your wedding. Now somebody is counting on me. I know somebody who wanted to write an e-book. So she called all her friends and like interviewed them for this book. And then it's like, oh, well, they're all waiting for the e-book. So she's got to write it because all her friends are like, wait, you interviewed me.

58:22Gretchen Rubin:I want to see what I look like in print. Or somebody who wanted to create a series of webinars. So on social media, they were like, the first 30 people who contact me will get a free webinar. So then he's got a list of 30 people who are like, okay, man, when's the webinar? So now I've got to create it. Or you can think of your duty to be a role model for someone else. I'm going to show my family what it looks like to follow through on their promises to themselves. Or I'm going to think about all the people that I'm going to benefit. Oh, my gosh. with the kind of executive coaching that I can do.

58:52Gretchen Rubin:I can reach a whole population of people who no one else is talking to. I can just like unleash all this potential in the world. But if I don't do it, maybe nobody will. And all these people are gonna go like unserved. And so there's a lot, so, but again, it's like, you gotta get into your tendency. You gotta like tap into that power. Whereas to a questioner, it might be more like, they wouldn't think about it that way. They would think about it a different way. So from the outside, they could all achieve it. But that kind of the mental process would be different.

59:22Hala Taha:So to your point, it's like everybody can be like successful. No matter what personality type you are, you just need to kind of structure your environment the way that you thrive. So that totally makes sense. OK, so speaking of habits, you have this 22 minutes of rest habit challenge that you guys have embarked on. What inspired this challenge?

59:44Gretchen Rubin:change well as i said like we like to do this every year um because it's like it just feels manageable and and what's funny to me and maybe this is funny to you as an upholder too is i'm like people are like walk 20 minutes in 2020 changed my life or like oh we 21 and 21 i've been wanting to read more forever and i read like a thousand books this year it's so amazing and i'm like you could have done this at any time like i'm like i don't know what the magic is but there is kind of a magic it's like somebody putting it in your head somebody making it feel manageable feeling like, oh, we're all doing this.

1:00:15Gretchen Rubin:And there's kind of an accountability of like, are you like, are you part of this? And just this like this checking in that we do periodically on the podcast is enough. And so that is really exciting to think that like you can lob something like this and it just catches people's imagination and actually changes their action and their actions in a way that like really makes them happier and healthier. So for us, 22 and 22, we thought about a couple of different ideas for 22. And then, you know, we were just like, you know people are tired they're just they're just tired and that's what you kept hearing from people is they're just like just tired and the thing is if you do not have energy everything feels hard like even the things you know would be fun don't like oh i should make a physical photo albums of all like all those pictures that i took over the years and i know it'd be so fun for me to like look back on it but i'm just too tired like to even like scroll through my feet i've got to just like watch reruns of The Office, which is what I always do when I'm when I'm overwhelmed.

1:01:14Gretchen Rubin:But if you have more energy, then you're more able to do all the things that would make you happier. And so it's really important that people think about rest. And so and so we just thought, you know, it just seemed like the right thing for the moment. And people seem really, really excited about kind of being guided to think about what is rest. Because unlike, well, even with like Read 21 and 21, some people read nonfiction, some people read fiction. People had different ways that they, some people challenged themselves to listen to audio books and like get in the practice of audio books. So people really make these challenges their own.

1:01:51Gretchen Rubin:And with rest, people are really taking it in a lot of different directions. But it does seem like something that people are really embracing as something that they think is going to make the year better for them.

1:02:05Hala Taha:And so speaking of rest, I know you're a strong advocate for getting enough sleep because getting more sleep will actually make you happier. Why is this?

1:02:16Gretchen Rubin:Well, research shows that most adults need at least seven hours of sleep a night. And what's funny is that a lot of people will say like, well, I've trained myself to get by with like five or six hours. But when scientists study these people, they're actually quite impaired. So we adjust to feeling kind of underslept and we don't realize like really how far off of our best we feel. And it goes to mood. It goes to immunity, which everybody's focused on right now. It goes to like memory and focus in creativity. It makes people more patient. It gives us a better sense of perspective, a better sense of humor.

1:02:53Gretchen Rubin:So this is really something it's really the 21 strategies of habit change. One of the strategies is the strategy of foundation, because and the strategy foundation is to sleep more, get some exercise, eat and drink right and clear clutter. If you care about clutter, which most people do, but not everybody does, because these these habits, these four areas tend to kind of lay the foundation for other habits. kind of, you know, more advanced habits that we want to form. And sleeping more is just crucial for that. It's just a magical elixir of life. But I should say, because people are very, don't understand this, it's like there truly is a difference between morning people and night people.

1:03:45Gretchen Rubin:About 30 % of the world is night people. And night people are at their most energetic and productive and creative later in the day. And so if somebody is saying to you, if you want to run, you should get up and do it first thing in the morning. Or like, oh, you shouldn't be exercising after five. It'll make it hard for you to go to sleep. And so you're like, if you're a night person, you know, you got to go with your own, like your own internal cycle of energy. That's a real thing. It's largely genetic and a function of age.

1:04:17Hala Taha:Yeah. And we talk about sleep a lot on the podcast so hopefully my listeners know all about that i'm actually a night owl for sure and oh you are yeah and i'll be working out 10 p.m you'll catch me on the trimble like doing bounce

1:04:30Gretchen Rubin:workouts at 10 p.m and that is so interesting to me well this embraces something about the about the four tendencies because a lot of times people like assume that there's all these associated qualities and it's the the four tendencies is only how you respond to expectations so like i think a lot of people would assume that upholders would all be morning people It has nothing to do with morning. I'm a morning person. You're a night person. It's like they're not there. It's not correlated. I mean, maybe it is. I don't have the big data. Maybe in some way it's correlated, but it's not it's not necessarily correlated.

1:05:01Hala Taha:Yeah. So what are some other ways that we can be happier in 2022 that are top of mind for you?

1:05:08Gretchen Rubin:Well, whenever you're thinking about happiness, the one thing to think of first is relationships to, you know, Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that to be happier, we need to have enduring intimate bonds. We need to feel like we belong. We need to be able to confide. We need to be able to get support. And just as important for happiness, we need to be able to give support. And of course, this period has tremendously disrupted people's relationships and put all kinds of challenges in the way. So I think it's, you know, it's it's been going on a while, but like really keep it up, like make plans as you can.

1:05:47Gretchen Rubin:Think about connecting with people, trying to meet new people, trying to strengthen weak ties of people that you want to get closer to. And as and as the year continues, really making that a priority of of maintaining relationships.

1:06:04Hala Taha:I love that. I think that's so important to your point. I feel like our relationships have gotten so strained over the last few years. Doesn't look like it's going to get much better, you know, this year, but hopefully things will resume back to normal soon. So I have a new ending question that you are the first. You're the first of many. First in the studio. First interview of the year. And I have a new question I'm going to ask all my guests this year. And that is what is one actionable thing that my listeners can do today to be more profiting tomorrow?

1:06:39Gretchen Rubin:Well, this isn't the most significant thing you could do, but it is a thing that the most people tell me that they feel like has made them happier, healthier, more productive, which is to make your bed. So many people just say that, like, starting your day with, like, keeping that promise to yourself, like, the room looks neater, especially now that we're all working. So many more of us are working at home. It looks neater. You can find your keys better, you know. So I wouldn't say it's the most significant thing, but it is something that many, many people say gets them started off like with feeling like they're best foot forward.

1:07:16Hala Taha:Have you met Chase Hughes before? No. So he's an ex-FBI agent. He's been on my podcast a few times. He talks about this and he literally says that he can talk to someone. He's a human behavior expert. he can tell if they've made their bed or not just by the way that they act he says that people who make their bed are like more confident they're uh and that like if you leave your bed messy that in the back of your head you're just thinking i'm a mess i'm a mess i'm a failure you know because some people are like i'm the boss of me and i don't you know and i do what i want and i don't

1:07:51Gretchen Rubin:make my bed or some people are like it's not efficient to make my bed why i'm just gonna unmake it i i reach i have to say i reject that because i really don't think that they're i think for all these things there is no magic one size fits all solution um i think it's easy to fall into the assumption that if something works really well for me it'll work really well for other people and i just i just think people are complicated and uh and it might be that many people benefit from making their bed but i i i think there are many and i should your listeners should contact you let you know let weigh in on this do you feel like um how do you feel about making your bed is it like important to you I mean I make my bed in a hotel room on the morning I check out I have to make my bed I just like it I just I don't like to be in a room where a bed is unmade and fortunately for me my husband feels the same way but do I feel like everybody has to make their bed?

1:08:48Gretchen Rubin:No.

1:08:49Hala Taha:Yeah. No, I totally agree. Especially when you, when you think about the personality types that you were talking about, some people just might not even care at all and might not impact them externally whatsoever. But then if you are that personality type that will, then, then it might impact you. So that's a good point.

1:09:05Gretchen Rubin:Well, there are people who are clutter blind where they literally, my sister is like this. She just doesn't see it. She just, she would never close a cabinet door ever if she lived by herself. Cause she just, she just doesn't even noticed so for her to go around and like do it it just it just doesn't matter to her so for her it's not a good use of her time and energy i mean not that it takes much time and energy whereas for me it's like all i do i i can't i don't like to have a cabinet door open why would you have a cabinet door open it just looks so much nicer with the chat but that's those are just two preferences there's nothing there's nothing magic about closing your cabinet door yeah but nonetheless

1:09:41Hala Taha:less make your bed is probably, it's probably better. Many, many, many people report that they

1:09:47Gretchen Rubin:do feel better. So it's not, it's, it's more of a guideline than a rule.

1:09:51Hala Taha:And what is your secret to profiting in life?

1:09:55Gretchen Rubin:Well, for me, it's discipline. We've been talking about it as upholders. Like I, I really do. I feel energized by discipline and I feel like that's what helps me do all the things that I want to do. So that's what it is for me.

1:10:08Hala Taha:I love that. Well, Gretchen, What an amazing second interview. Thank you so much for coming back on Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today.