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good afternoon uh my name is Cassie mcer and I'm an assistant professor in the
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marketing department here at Wharton and I have the pleasure of being here today
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to chat with Gretchen rubben the author of her new book better than before mastering the habits of our everyday
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lives so Gretchen thanks for being here uh my first question is what drove you to write this book well you know I wrote
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The Happiness Project and happier at home so for years I been researching and writing and talking to people about
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happiness and I began to notice a pattern that was when I was talking to people about some big happiness boost
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that they'd achieved or more often a big happiness challenge that they were facing very often they were pointing to
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something that at its core involved a habit like somebody would say I'm just
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exhausted all the time and that's that's what's dragging me down which is really
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about the habit of getting enough sleep and so I became increasingly interested in the role that habits play in a
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happier healthier and more productive life and also the question of like how can we change our habits because
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sometimes we can and sometimes we can't so what was going on there right and you
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emphasized that an important step in changing our habits is knowing yourself yes why is that well this you know
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there's so much of a desire for a one-sized fits-all solution you know do it first thing in the morning start
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small do it for 30 days have a cheat day you know but there is no magic one siiz
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fitzall solution and what I found when I looked at it is that really all of us have to think about what's true for us
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um even something as simple as are you a morning person or a night person if you're a night person getting up early
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to go for a run you're not setting yourself up for success that's probably
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not going to work for you but often people they just decide what they think their their habit should be or they look
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at what Benjamin Franklin did or what their brother-in-law did and try to copy it but in fact what you have to do is to
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really say well what's true about me what do I notice about myself what's my
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nature so that you shape the Habit to suit yourself and then you set yourself up for success awesome um now I suspect
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that I like many others want to improve my eating habits but boy that is a hard thing to do are there any habit changing
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techniques that you would suggest to me and others who want to eat a little better well one thing um is the strategy
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of abstaining and again this is a strategy where you have to know yourself because it works really well for some
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people like me and does doesn't work at all for other people so abstainers are
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people who do better when they give up something all together like I can eat no Thin Mints or I can eat 10 Thin Mints
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but I can't eat two Thin Mints I'm an abstainer so for me resisting temptation
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altogether so french fries are your Kryptonite whatever it is just give it up Al together and that's easier for you
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it sounds harder but it's actually easier then moderators do better when they have something sometimes or they
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have a little bit and often if they if they know they can have something they don't even want it and so they do better
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when they do have a little bit that they allow themselves and this is true for for food but also for things
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like technology you know if you can't if you can't play a little Candy Crush
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maybe you want to play No Candy Crush but abstaining is a strategy that when you know yourself it can be enormously
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powerful um but it may not work for you so you really have to know um what kind of person you are so is someone um an
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abstainer across all of their domains or you know might I should I maybe abstain
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in some things but try moderating in others no almost everybody's mix it really has to do with how you deal with
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a strong Temptation so like for for chocolate I'm an abstainer but for wine I can drink half a glass of wine and
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some people are like I can have no wine or I can have four glasses wine I can't
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have one glass wine so you it has to do with managing a strong Temptation um but
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like moderators this was a mystery to me uh moderators often keep a bar of fine chocolate squirreled away somewhere in
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their desk and every day they'll have one square of fine chocolate as an abstainer there's no way I would not eat
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that chocolate bar in one day it would just haunt me until I'd eaten it um but
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for a moderator that's what works yeah I agree with you there's no way that
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chocolate bar last more than an hour um so I'm sure that over the course of working on this book you've spoken to a
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bunch of different people about a bunch of different habits they would like to implement in their life what are some of
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the things that people are looking to change in their lives well almost everything falls into what I call the
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essential seven um and I don't know if I can come up with all seven of them I
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always forget one but it's eating and drinking more healthfully exercising more engaging more deeply with
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relationships with nature with god um saving spending and uh earning money wisely um simplifying clearing
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uncluttering organizing uh making more progress and also stop procrastinating those are two
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sides of the same coin um and I'm leaving one out but there's another oh
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oh and rest relax and enjoy which is things like which sure something you're
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very interested in which is how do people experience the moment how do they have Leisure how can they rest a lot of
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people feel like they're just never at rest so there are these seven areas and
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just about every habit that people come up with somehow fits into one of those areas
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interesting um so you mentioned in the context of eating more healthfully that there are these strategies of abstaining
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versus moderating um across those different um changes that people are looking to make in their life what are
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um some other strategies that seem to produce the best results so what I found when I was looking at how people Master
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their habits is that there are 21 strategies that people use and that can sometimes that sounds terrifying to
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people because it's so many but it's good because you can just pick and choose what works for you and um and not
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all the strategies are available to us at all times and they don't all work for
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everyone um so there are many strategies one of the most um helpful strategies uh
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and most familiar strategies is like the strategy of monitoring which is that if
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we monitor or something we tend to do a better job so if you want to eat more healthfully you keep a food journal if
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you want to exercise more you use a step counter another one is accountability most people do better when someone's
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holding them accountable so the strategy of accountability and for some people it's essential it's like the critical
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piece of allowing them to meet their uh change their habits um the strategy of scheduling put something on your
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schedule and it's more likely to get done um one that I took for granted it seems so obvious to me but many people
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have really loved it is this strategy of pairing when you pair something that you
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like to do with a habit that you perhaps don't enjoy as much so very often people
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will pair going going on the treadmill or the stationary bike with watching television because then if they can only
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watch Game of Thrones when they're on the treadmill then they're suddenly much
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more excited about going on the treadmill or maybe you're cleaning in the morning and you're listening to
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podcast I start I just started a podcast with my sister um happier with gret and
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Ruben and a lot of people have said like oh I'm use I'm pairing that with
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something else that I don't like to do um but there's 20 one of my my the one
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that I think is the funniest strategy is loophole spotting cuz we're such advocates for ourselves we can come up
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with so many justifications for why we should be off the hook just this once just right now oh oh I forgot there's an
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excuse I don't have to do this right now I forgot it's my birthday I'm on
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vacation you only live once I have to take advantage of this or lose out forever we're so uh we're so ingenious
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in coming up with uh with strategies of uh of justification that's just a few yeah um well they seem
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very helpful um now you say that through implementing good habits it takes the thought out of behavior so we're not
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constantly saddled with these choices where we have to exert self-control now one of my and so I
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guess the question that I have is if the goal is to make so much of our life mindless does that potentially come at
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the cost of mindfulness and maybe we st stop noticing you know the joys in Life or savoring the joys so I was thinking
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for instance if I implement the habit of every morning as my husband and I are saying goodbye on our way to work we
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give each other a kiss and say I love you that's one of my habits does that lose its meaning if it becomes a habit
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and similarly if every Saturday morning um my family we sit down for pancake breakfast does it lose its specialness
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if it's now a habit well that's a super important question because habits are
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are freeing and energizing because they eliminate decision and self-control but they often also have downsides now with
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the examples that you give um I immediately thought of this wonderful quotation from by flaner o Conor when
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somebody said well because she was a very devout Catholic and somebody said well but if you're just going through
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these these Catholic rituals by habit don't they lose their meaning and she said the church is mighty realistic
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about human nature it's better to be held to the church by habit than not at
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all and sometimes if you don't have the habit of kissing every morning you just
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forget to do it so part of it is that habit does make does help us ensure that things that are really important to us
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actually get done so in that way I think there's still something to be said for
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putting it on automatic but you're absolutely right habits speed time if you you know the first month on a job
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feels like it takes forever but then the fifth year on the job goes in a Flash because as every as Things become more
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familiar the brain just beats through them and to do something novel and challenging slows time and most of us
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enjoy experiencing slow Rich time so that's a negative of habit and the other
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thing is as you say they deaden they deaden experience now sometimes that can be good like if you're doing something
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that makes you anxious and you do it over and over until it becomes a habit that'll deaden that those negative
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feelings but also if you're kissing every morning maybe you're not going to
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experience it's going to deaden your feeling or like you know the first couple times you had that morning cup of
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coffee was Bliss but now that you have it every day you don't even taste it you're frantic if you don't get it but
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you don't even taste it so you're absolutely right habits in some ways they're wonderful and of course I'm kind
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of a habits Pusher I'm a big advocate for the power of habits but on the other
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hand they really do have downsides so you're exactly right we want to be mindful about how we use mindlessness
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because you don't want your whole life just you don't want to just be a bureaucrat of your own paperwork in your
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life right interesting um so as an upholder I loved your advice around scheduling um and not to mention it sort
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of nicely captur some of my own research on happiness where shifting people's
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attention towards time leads them to behave in ways that are more fulfilling and makes them happier um and you made a
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really nice point that scheduling is a strategy that makes sure that you'll spend time on things that are most
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important to you and I was just sort of wondering how do you manage your schedule do you um have a paper planner
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that you write things down is it an Outlook is it in your head and also not only how do you maintain your schedule
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but what are those things that you ensure are in your dayto day that you are sure to schedule in well I use Ye
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Old file OFA I'm one of the old like you know the same one I've had for a very
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long time um and then and then I have certain sort of rules that I follow so for instance if I'm writing a book then
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I try to do three hours of original writing in a day which doesn't sound like that much maybe unless you've
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written a book and then it sounds like a lot um and so uh so in a day-to-day I use a paper calendar to help schedule
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what I need to and then put in exercise and you know fit that in in between the the appointments I wish my days could
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unfold very regularly but they don't I have a very regular schedule which kind
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of drives me crazy but one of the things that I found is that sometimes you feel
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like these very high high Transcendent values can't be monitored or can't be
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scheduled like quality time with your family or reading for fun and what I found is that if I put it on my calendar
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I'm much more likely to stick to it and I actually need to sometimes put that in
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and so for instance when my old older daughter be became a teenager and I wasn't spending as much time with her I
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wanted to have special time just the two of us where we weren't talking about
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homework or you know there was no nagging or chores or errands involved and so we set aside in afternoon a week
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so that we would have that time together so I just made sure that there was a place on my calendar for it and then it
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was such a relief because I didn't worry like oh I'm not spending any time with
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her because I was and so that was and and same thing like I love to read and uh and yet I feel like I don't have
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enough time to read and so I actually have on the weekends like I set aside time for different kinds of reading to
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make sure that I have the time that I want I love that idea I need to become more deliberate with my schedule um now
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another question I had was again as an upholder I feel like I should fairly easily be able to implement wonderfully
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positive habits around eating exercise and sleep however between my demanding career and also trying to cultivate my
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loving relationship with my husband my son let alone my family and friends I sort of feel like I have
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little control over how I spend my time and I feel like I'm more reactive rather
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than proactive with respect to what I eat and when I sleep I mean exercise is a thing of the past unfortunately so I'm
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just sort of wondering what advice do you have for me as well as others who feel like they are are you know trying
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to create positive habits for myself but I'm very much living in the context of
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others well that's I mean so many people face that problem um and there's one
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strategy that's called the strategy of foundation and it has to do with the Str
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like if you're going to start somewhere if you wanted to make your life work
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better you wanted to strengthen your habits these are the habits that you would want to work on first because
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they're going to make all self-mastery easier but like you say it's many of the
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ones you listed it's eating and drinking making sure that you're eating enough
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because paradoxically one reason that people overeat is that they don't eat enough and then they get too hungry and
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then they just eat all the wrong Foods because they don't have any self-mastery
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uh drinking lowers our inhibitions getting enough sleep if you're not getting enough sleep you're drained it's
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very hard to use your good habits um exercise maybe not going to the gym or training for the marathon but just like
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going for a 15 20 minute walk that makes people feel more energetic more in self-command and strangely uncluttering
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for a lot of people getting outer order makes them feel more in control of themselves even if
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it's an illusion it's sort of a helpful illusion and so those are the areas to
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start with but so those are the areas you're struggling with and you know I would say first start with getting
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enough sleep and for many people they don't want to give up that last couple
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of hours because that's sort of their play time their Goof Off time their fun
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time but it's really important to get enough sleep and so for a lot of people
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I think it's helpful even to set an alarm just like give an alarm in the morning have an alarm at night figure
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out most adults need 7 hours figure out what your bedtime is a lot of adults don't even really have a bedtime you
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know little kids have a bedtime but we just oh I'll go to bed when I'm tired
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and then at the last minute you know you check your work email or you start watching something on TV and second wind
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I'm not tired at all I'll stay up um and but you should have gone to bed you know
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hours before so starting with getting enough sleep and I have to say for myself this doesn't work for everybody
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but if you give up sugar if you're trying to eat more healthfully if you give up sugar you get out of a lot of
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cravings and there's a lot of stuff that just falls off the list of of Temptations but again I say that as an
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abstainer a pretty hardcore abstainer so it's not for everyone but it's something
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to think about so I guess a sort of um part of my question or I guess the Crux of it was um creating those habits Ander
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following those rules in the context of um you know coordinating with my husband
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and son so it's easy enough for me to set an alarm at you know :00 I would love to start going to bed at 9:00 every
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night um why don't you go to bed at 9:00 every night well I'm starting to try but
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then there's the question of like well my husband doesn't want to go to bed at
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9:00 at night and then are we going to bed at different times and maybe that's
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okay but then there's like him waking me up when he goes to bed and then we waking up earlier in the morning and um
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and similarly coming up with what I want to eat for dinner or you know to be healthy do I impose that when we're sort
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of getting T you know dinner on the table for my son and myself so sort of creating habits that I don't want to
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impose you know the things that I want to do for myself onto others um right but I you know how do you sort of
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coordinate well it's it's I mean and this is the strategy of other people
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which is that sometimes it's easy to talk about our habits as if we were just
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this isolated unit going through but as you point out quite rightly we're we're
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in a context of other people and also our habits rub off on them and their habits are rubbing off on you might go
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to bed at 9:00 except your husband goes to bed at Mid night right so he's pulling you later and maybe you're
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pulling him earlier but so your habits are inter interacting with each other um and so it's very important to think that
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through and to say like well what do I want to be true for me um and uh often one loophole I'm not saying that you're
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invoking a loophole but I'm just saying it's a very popular a very popular
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loophole is the concern for others loopholes others will be uncomfortable if I don't have a drink at this business
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dinner um it's a birthday you're having a birthday part I have to have a piece
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of your birthday kick or it's going to hurt your feelings really is it going to
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do do like how much like part of it is to really look very closely at at what do people care about or what is going to
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negatively affect someone or how is it can you make a different decision for yourself from what other what other
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people choose um because I think sometimes there's just sort of this assumption like well I can't I can't
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force everybody to eat the way I do does everybody have to eat the way you do can
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you eat differently from them can they eat more like you I mean I think gets back to this idea of mindfully that you
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raised a while ago that sometimes I think we skate over these questions too quickly and we don't focus in on like
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what what what would I like to do and what can they do and what would they do and do we have to do the same thing um
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but I just had a funny example of this where uh every year my uh in-laws and my family go away on a beach vacation
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together but this year I was on my book tour so I couldn't go and three days
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after into it my husband texted me you're not here everything start starting an hour and a half later
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because I'm an early riser and I like to eat early and it's not that I'm shaking
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people awake but when I'm up and around it kind of everybody else sort of gets
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up and around and when I'm saying like I think I'm starting to get hungry
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everybody else is like well okay you know so we do have this this this uh engagement um but if you're very clear
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about what you want what's right for you and what you want your life to look like
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well a lot of times if you change others will change um even if you're not trying
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to change them but it's not easy I don't want to make it sound like it's just all
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you do is make up your mind because it is very hard when you're working with
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other people and the more people the more complicated it gets but I think it's something that's really worth
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thinking about instead of just sort of assuming like well I can't I can't go to
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bed earlier right it's like well maybe you could you could think about it there
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might be ways and it sounds like not only just think about but also discuss with those around you who you're trying
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to coordinate with no because often they might have a similar like one thing that
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I work on a lot just cuz I myself love to clean people's closets it's like a
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hobby of mine and what I've noticed is that often like I'll go over to a
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friend's house and we'll clean out a closet and then my friend's husband will
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get so exhilarated by seeing that clean closet that he'll clean out his closet
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so sometimes if you if you do something and it's really working for you if you
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got a lot more sleep and you were just feeling so much better your husband might be like man I need to start
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turning off the TV early or myself like what am I doing you know if like why are
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we what are we doing from 11: to midnight it's not a high quality time maybe we'd rather have that time in the
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morning maybe we'd rather have that sleep um so if uh what would you most like people to take away from reading
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your book that there is no one- siiz fits-all solution you know we're constantly told like if only you would
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do it this way or try this this is the magic solution and they're really every
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some things work for some people sometimes but nothing works for everybody all the time a lot of things
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that work very well for some people actually are counterproductive for some um so you really have to think about
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yourself um even things as simple as are you a morning person or a night person um and when you think about yourself
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then you can shape the Habit to suit you and that's what allows people to succeed
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I think they get we get discouraged because we try and fail but often we haven't set ourselves up for Success
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because we haven't shaped it in a way that's going to be in harmony with our
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nature our values our interests and when we do that then there's a lot more that
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we can can do that's going to allow us to succeed wonderful well thank you so
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much for writing such a wonderful book and for spending this time um with me today to tell me more well thank you for
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giving me the chance to talk about habits [Music]