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- [00:00]
Sponsor Announcement
Support comes from our 2025 lead sponsor of Life Kit, Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [00:18]
Marielle Segarra
You're listening to Life Kit from npr. Hey everybody, it's Marielle. Question for you. How happy are you? Yeah, I know. I guess I should answer it too. I don't know. I mean, what is happiness anyway?
- [00:37]
Gretchen Rubin
I started my career in law, so I have many memories of spending an entire semester arguing about the definition of contract. And happiness is even more elusive.
- [00:47]
Marielle Segarra
This is Gretchen Rubin. She's a writer who studies happiness, good habits and human nature. She also has a podcast called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. She says trying to pin it down exactly, and yes, I did try to do that in our interview isn't all that helpful.
- [01:03]
Gretchen Rubin
There are like 15 academic definitions of happiness, and I think that for the regular person, it's not that useful to argue about joy versus contentment versus well being versus Life satisfaction. It's easier to think about moving in the right direction because what is happiness? Is a very hard question to answer. But will this make you happier? Is something that usually we have a lot of clarity about.
- [01:29]
Marielle Segarra
Another thing Gretchen has learned about happiness is that it's not one size fits all. And to get closer to it, to move in the right direction, we need to understand ourselves, our preferences, our habits, how we tick. So on this episode of Life Kit, we talk about how to do that and how to move towards happiness.
- [01:54]
Sponsor Announcement
This message comes from Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices like full service, wealth management and advice when you need it. You can also invest on your own and trade on thinkorswim. Visit schwab.com to learn more.
- [02:28]
This message comes from Amica Insurance. As Amica says, empathy is our best policy. Whether you're seeking auto, home or life coverage, they'll work with you to choose the policy that best serves you and your family. Discover how Amica can help protect what matters most to you today. Go to amica.com and get a quote today. This message comes from Capital One with the Venture X Card Earn unlimited double miles on everything you buy, plus get premium benefits at a collection of hotels when booking through Capital One Travel. What's in your wallet? Terms apply details@Capital1.com Gretchen, you write in.
- [03:08]
Marielle Segarra
Your book Secrets of Adulthood that happiness doesn't always make us feel happy. What do you mean by that?
- [03:15]
Gretchen Rubin
If you're thinking about how to make your life happier, there's four to four pieces that you can think of. Feeling good, feeling bad, feeling right in an atmosphere of growth. So feeling good is having more of the things that make you feel good. Then there is getting rid of the things that make you feel bad. Then there's feeling right, which is does your life reflect your values? And sometimes we do things that don't make us feel good. They might make us feel bad, but. But we do them because they make us feel right. So you might visit a sick friend in the hospital. Even though you hate going to hospitals, you dread going. You don't enjoy being there, and you look back on it with dread. And yet you think, well, to be a good friend, I should visit my friend in the hospital. You don't do it because it makes you feel good. It actually makes you feel bad. But it serves your happiness because it's a way of feeling right. It's a way of feeling that your life reflects your values. And then there's also the atmosphere of growth. And this is. We feel happier when we're growing. We feel when we're learning, when we're fixing things, when we're teaching, when we're sort of making the world a better place. And often the atmosphere of growth is accompanied by insecurity, frustration, feeling incompetent. You know, learning something can be very, very stressful. So sometimes to have our lives be happier, we have to put up with things that don't make us feel happy.
- [04:34]
Marielle Segarra
They don't make you feel like that yellow smiley face on the side of the plastic bag.
- [04:39]
Gretchen Rubin
Exactly.
- [04:40]
Marielle Segarra
And we know that relationships are very important to our well being.
- [04:44]
Gretchen Rubin
1000%. Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree if you had to pick a key to happiness, maybe even the key to happiness, you're exactly right. It's relationships.
- [04:53]
Marielle Segarra
Well, you talk about how in order to be happy, we need to know ourselves. Right. What does that look like in practice?
- [05:01]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, you think you'd know yourself, Right. You just hang out with yourself all day long. But knowing ourselves is hard because it's very easy to get distracted by the way we wish we were or the way other people expect us to be, or our fantasy self. So it's just very helpful to pay close attention to what is true about us. And it's funny, like how we might not notice very obvious things about ourselves, like are you a morning person or a night person? And if you're a night person and you say to yourself, well, I'm going to get up and exercise first thing before I go to work in the morning, you're not setting yourself up for success, not because it's not a good idea for someone, but it's not a good idea for you because you're a night person. You're probably much better off doing it later in the day. And there's so many ways to understand ourselves and how we thrive as we're trying to shape our lives. But it can be very hard to see ourselves clearly.
- [05:57]
Marielle Segarra
What are some other things that people do because they think it'll make them happy but it's not actually the right fit for them?
- [06:03]
Gretchen Rubin
That's the mistake that is so easy to make is thinking that there's one right way or there's one best way to go about making our lives happier. And the fact is like no tool fits every hand. For example, many people swear by meditation. I have tried meditation. I mean tried for months, like three times. Doesn't work for me. I tried keeping a gratitude journal. That's something also that you're often recommended to do. I was deeply annoyed by my gratitude journal. But for some people they're a really important tool. And so I think the mistake is thinking that somebody can tell you what will work for you. But you're unique just like everybody else. And each of us needs to figure out what is right for us. And that's where the self knowledge comes in. Because there is no magic one size fits all solution.
- [06:52]
Marielle Segarra
This is something Gretchen has learned over many years of studying happiness that self knowledge is key because as she puts it in one essay, we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own values, our own interests, and our own temperament. So Takeaway one. Know yourself. There are lots of questions you can consider about your personality and your preferences. Some suggestions from Gretchen. Are you a morning person or a night person? Do you prefer simplicity or abundance? Do you need other people to hold you accountable? Or do you hate having someone tell you what to do when you make decisions? Are you a satisficer? That means you'll pick the hotel as soon as you find one that meets your criteria? Or are you a maximizer who needs to look at every single option first? Here's another one. When you're Facing temptation. Are you an abstainer or a moderator?
- [07:41]
Gretchen Rubin
Abstainers are people like me where it's easier to give up something altogether than to indulge in moderation. But moderators are people who get kind of panicky and rebellious if they're told they can never do something and so they should have it a little bit or sometimes. So like, I could have like no thin mint cookies, or I could have a sleeve of thin mint cookies. I can't have one thin mint cookie or half a brownie. So I just gave up sugar altogether because that's easier for me. For moderators, they think, oh, you know, don't be so rigid, don't be so hard on yourself. Don't deny yourself. Don't make something totally off limits. That's not good. And I'm like, it works for me, it's better for me, it's easier for me. I prefer that way. But it's not for everybody. Some people are moderators.
- [08:22]
Marielle Segarra
Once you know yourself, how do you use that information to be happier? Do you try to be more like yourself or do you try to push back against some of who you are?
- [08:32]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, often when we're trying to make our lives happier, we might be trying to follow a new habit, like reading more, going to sleep on time, exercising, or we might be trying to cut back on something like doom scrolling or night snacking. Or we might be wanting to push ourselves to do something that we kind of don't want to do, but we know we would make us happier in the long run, like start a book club or join a hiking group. And so when we know ourselves, we can think about what are the things that are making it harder for me to do that and how might I think about ways to make it easier? Like, let's say you're somebody who loves familiarity. So some people love familiarity familiarity, and some people love novelty. So let's say you're trying to exercise more. If you know that you love novelty, you might really think about, okay, let me think of lots of ideas. Different ways I could exercise, like different sports I could try. I'll join a gym that like, has many, many, many options. I'll set up my life so that I have a lot of different choices and I really mix it up. Where somebody who's a familiarity lover might say to themselves, I want to get really comfortable in one place. I know that's going to make it easier and more pleasant for me to go. So I'm really going to commit to this one place. I'm going to Go. And I'm really going to pay attention. I'm going to try to get to know the people there. So it feels very familiar. Because as a familiarity lover, that's going to make it easier for me to stick to a habit that I think is going to make me happier. So again, it's not that one person's right and one person's wrong. It's just that different circumstances appeal to different people and you want to take yourself into account as you're setting things up.
- [10:07]
Marielle Segarra
Okay, takeaway two. Gretchen has another framework that can help you understand yourself and what might make you happy. It's called the four tendencies. This is about whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectations. And she says, this is a narrow aspect of our nature, but it is significant.
- [10:24]
Gretchen Rubin
So we all face two kinds of expectations. Outer expectations, like a work deadline, and inner expectations, like my own desire to meditate more or keep a New Year's resolution. So depending on whether you meet or resist, and outer and inner expectations, that makes you an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel. Upholders are people who readily meet both outer and inner expectations. So 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 very important. They tend to love schedules, to do lists, execution. They don't need a lot of supervision. They can be a little bit rigid. I say that as an upholder myself. So their motto is discipline is my freedom.
- [11:07]
Marielle Segarra
Okay, so that's the first one, upholders. Then we have questioners. What's their deal?
- [11:12]
Gretchen Rubin
Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they're. They're deciding whether something meets their inner standard. If it meets their inner standard, they will meet that expectation. If it fails their inner standard, they will push back. So they're very focused on justifications, rationale. They tend to love research. They can sometimes fall into analysis. Paralysis. Because their desire for perfect information can make it hard for them to move forward or make a decision. They need their questions answered, so their motto is, I'll comply if you convince me why.
- [11:47]
Marielle Segarra
Okay, so what about the third tendency? That's the obligers.
- [11:50]
Gretchen Rubin
This is the biggest tendency for both men and women. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So these are people who can keep their promises to other people, but they struggle to keep their promises to themselves. So these are people who say, why can't I follow through for myself? When I'm so good at following through other people, why can't I make myself a priority? Why don't I make time for self care? Why do I always give to others, but I can't give to myself? That's obliger. So their motto is, you can count on me, and I'm counting on you to count on me. All right.
- [12:23]
Marielle Segarra
And then the last group is the rebels.
- [12:25]
Gretchen Rubin
This is the smallest tendency. It's a. It's a conspicuous tendency, but it's a small tendency. 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 or choose to do. But if you ask or tell them to do something, they are very likely to resist. And typically they don't tell themselves what to do. Like they don't sign up for a 10am spin class on Saturday because they think, I don't know what I'm going to want to do on Saturday. And just the idea that somebody's expecting me to show up is going to annoy me. So their motto is, you can't make me and neither can I. And the four tendencies is helpful because if you're trying to do something because you think it's going to make you happier, like read more or call your mom every day or whatever it is, if you know, if you're in a polder question or obliged to rebel, that will give you a lot of clues about how to set yourself up so that you will follow through.
- [13:20]
Marielle Segarra
Hmm. Knowing you're an upholder, how do you use that to figure out what makes you happy?
- [13:26]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I know that something like spontaneity is not important to me. I really like to have a plan. And I use my plan and my calendar to achieve my aims for myself. And I find that immensely satisfying. And I think from the outside, sometimes people feel like upholders might feel oppressed by that. But now I know that I'm not. And also one of the things that I really learned about being an upholder is like, when I'm stressed out, a lot of times people, if you're under a lot of stress, people will say things like, well, you should ease up on yourself and like, let yourself off the hook. Like, usually you would do X, Y or Z, but you should just like take a break from it. Now that might be good advice for other people, but as an upholder and having talked to other upholders, that's actually makes us more stressed out. We find it relaxing and reassuring to like execute on a plan. And so often when I'm under a lot of stress, I will go deep, deeper into my usual healthy habits instead of trying to give myself a break, because that is what is reassuring to me. And so again, it's not that people are giving me advice that's ill intentioned. They mean well, but I had to learn from experience. Like, that doesn't work for me. That doesn't actually make me feel better. It makes me feel worse.
- [14:35]
Marielle Segarra
Yeah, it's good to know that about yourself.
- [14:37]
Gretchen Rubin
Exactly.
- [14:37]
Marielle Segarra
I immediately know which one I am, by the way.
- [14:39]
Gretchen Rubin
Ooh, which one are you?
- [14:41]
Marielle Segarra
I'm a questioner.
- [14:42]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. Well, I was gonna say obliger is the biggest tendency and the next biggest is questioner. So I would say you're probably an obliger or question. I'm married to a questioner, so I have to say I have special fondness for the questioner tendency.
- [14:53]
Marielle Segarra
Yeah, I think that people can definitely find it annoying. They find the questions annoying. They think you don't trust or believe them and maybe you don't.
- [15:05]
Gretchen Rubin
That's exactly right.
- [15:06]
Marielle Segarra
But it's not personal. It's just business, baby. It's just, I mean, I'm a journalist, right? So it's like trust but verify. And I think I've always been that way. But this happens all the time at the doctor. It's like, okay, but why that thing and exactly how does that drug work? Because you also know that they have a million patients and they miss things and they disagree with that other doctor, so why shouldn't I ask?
- [15:32]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, and questioners love to customize. And you're saying like, but what about me? I need to do it in the way that's right for me. And questioners can drain and overwhelm people with their constant questioning because people don't understand. They just want to know why. They just want to understand your reasons. But sometimes people misinterpret this, as you suggested, by thinking like, you're questioning my judgment or you're undermining my authority. One of the things I always say to people in the healthcare profession is you have to explain why for a questioner, or they might just come up with their own reasons for doing something. So if I was going to tell you to take medication, I wouldn't just say to you like, okay, I wait for you to go for a 20 minute walk in the morning and then take this medication right after and then have breakfast. You might say like, well, it's more convenient for me to take it at night and I don't want to go for a 20 minute walk. So I need to say to you, you need to take it with food or it can give you nausea. Or research has shown that if you take this after exercise, it's going to be twice as effective. Because once you have those reasons, then you will follow.
- [16:34]
Marielle Segarra
I've talked about this on the show. I had breast cancer last year. I went through treatment and. Yeah. And so the decisions that I had to make and the decisions I'm making still are high stakes.
- [16:45]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [16:46]
Marielle Segarra
And they're very like. And doctors do disagree. And they'll tell you completely different things and you'll realize that one of them, when you push with your questions, they get upset because they don't actually know and they're afraid to tell you they don't know, but someone else might know. And so that's where I'm like, you know what, what's gonna make me feel happiest and safest is to find a doctor who knows or who will tell me what they don't know.
- [17:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Mm. But you can imagine that for somebody else, they're like, I just want to do what the doctor tells me.
- [17:15]
Marielle Segarra
Yeah.
- [17:16]
Gretchen Rubin
Just. I want you to just tell me what to do and I will do it.
- [17:20]
Marielle Segarra
Okay. What about obligers? How can they use the knowledge of this tendency to be happier?
- [17:24]
Gretchen Rubin
The solution for obligers is very straightforward. Want to read more? Join a book group. Want to exercise more? Take a class, Work out with a trainer. Work out with a friend who's annoyed if you don't show up. Raise money for a charity. Take your dog for a run who's so disappointed if she doesn't get to go for her run. You just need outer accountability, even to meet an inner expectation.
- [17:44]
Marielle Segarra
And what about rebels? What makes them happy?
- [17:46]
Gretchen Rubin
The rebel, it's like they want to do something less if it's on the calendar. And so if you are a rebel yourself or you're dealing with a rebel, the idea of, like, well, just sign up for a woodworking class, well, they're not going to want to do it. Or even sometimes rebels, like, they don't like the feeling of, oh, we're going to go to a concert in two weeks. So if you're dealing with rebel, it might be more like, hey, I'm going tonight. Or if you feel like it, you could join. You know, we're going to go, and if you feel like joining us, join us. And if not, like, we'll catch you another time. And then they can decide to join you or not. It's not. People are like, oh, well, you must not want to be my friend, because you never want to commit to a plan. Instead of understanding, like, oh, no, they just don't like committing to plans. So let's set things up in a way that, like, doesn't. Doesn't irk them.
- [18:29]
Marielle Segarra
I think a lot of folks imagine that if they make a big change in their lives, they get a new job or achieve some big goal, get married, have a baby, then maybe then they'll finally be happy. They'll have checked off all the boxes, and then happiness will just come.
- [18:46]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I think it's moving in a direction rather than achieving something. Sometimes, you know, big changes can really have a big effect on our happiness. But often even very, very small things, like, here's a funny one. So a thing that I often talk about on the happ your podcast is the one minute rule. This is the idea that if you can do something in a minute without delay, you should just go ahead and do it. You should print out a document and file it or hang up your code or, you know, put your mug in the dishwasher, whatever. And it just kind of gets rid of the scum of clutter that's on the surface of life. And it takes less than a minute by definition. And so many people are like, oh, my gosh, this completely changed my life. And, you know, and sometimes getting that little stuff out of the way makes you feel more prepared to take on big stuff. Like a friend of mine said, I finally cleaned out my fridge, and now I know I can switch careers. You know, sometimes we get energy from these very small things. So sometimes it's a big change, but sometimes it's a small change.
- [19:43]
Marielle Segarra
And that is our third and final takeaway. Don't discount the ways you can feel happiness in small doses every day. Happiness doesn't always mean making a big life change. And as Gretchen said earlier, it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be in a state of rapture all the time.
- [19:58]
Gretchen Rubin
There are things that we do that make us happier over the long term that do not make us happier in the short term, whether because we have to, like, ask more of ourselves, or maybe we have to deprive ourselves of something.
- [20:08]
Marielle Segarra
All right, Gretchen, thank you so much. This has been great. I learned a lot.
- [20:11]
Gretchen Rubin
Thank you. Made me very happy to get the chance to talk to you.
- [20:17]
Marielle Segarra
Okay, time for a recap. Takeaway. One is to know yourself. Ask yourself questions about your personality and your preferences, like, are you a morning person or a night person? Do you need other people to hold you accountable or do you hate that? Are you a satisficer or a maximizer, an abstainer or a moderator? Takeaway 2 Consider the four tendencies framework. And again, this is about whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectations. Knowing whether you're an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel will also help you make decisions that can move you closer to happiness and takeaway 3 consider the small things, too. Happiness isn't just about making big life changes. It's about the things we do every day. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We have one on how to manage your emotions and another on how to start a spiritual practice. You can find those@npr.org LifeKit and if you love Life Kit and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter@npr.org LifeKit newsletter. I think it would make you very happy. Also, we love hearing from you. So if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email us@lifekitpr.org this episode of Life Kit was produced by Sam Yellow Horse Kessler. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan and our digital editor is Malika Grebe. Meghan Keane is our supervising editor and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Serino and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Zoe Vangenhoven and Patrick Murray. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.
- [22:01]
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- [22:28]
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