Quotes from Gretchen Rubin

A promotion-focused person recycles in order to make the environment cleaner; a prevention-focused person recycles in order to avoid getting a fine. Different arguments resonate with different people, and it's helpful to frame a habit in the way that suits each individual.

Instead of contradicting pessimistic or negative statements, acknowledge them. Happiness leeches are often less emphatic when they feel that others recognize their views. • Act the way I want to feel; behave the way I want to behave. Too

In fact, novelty lovers may do better with a series of short-term activities—thirty-day challenges, for instances—instead of trying to create an enduring, automatic habit.

In particular, I'd realized that although I possessed all the elements of a happy life, too often I took my circumstances for granted and allowed myself to become overly vexed by petty annoyances or fleeting worries. I'd wanted to appreciate my life more, and to live up to it better.

What we assume will be temporary often becomes permanent; what we assume is permanent often proves temporary.

Waldenlust." This longing takes several forms: fantasies of the freedom that dispossession would bring; nostalgia for earlier, supposedly simpler times; and reverence for the primitive, which is assumed to be more authentic and closer to nature.

Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon.

Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me.… They remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like—and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres.

It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.

At the heart of this home is my family; where my family is, is home. If I lived by myself, home would be the place peopled with reminders of everyone I loved. My home is a place of unconditional belonging, which is part of its pleasure, part of its pain- as Robert Frost wrote, home is "something you somehow haven't to deserve." At home, I feel a greater sense of safety and acceptance, and also of responsibility and obligation.

To do the intellectually demanding work of writing, I leave my home office and my three beloved computer monitors to work at the wonderful old library that's just a block from my apartment. The atmosphere of a library helps me to think. When I want to take a break, instead of heading to the kitchen for a snack, I wander among the many floors of books.

William Butler Yeats. "Happiness," wrote Yeats, "is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.

The driving didn't make me happier, but successfully taking steps to conquer my fear made me very happy.

Instead of being sources of stress, my home and my office are places of comfort and energy.

course it's not enough to sit around wanting to be happy; you must make the effort to take steps toward happiness by acting with more love, finding work you enjoy

Happiness depends partly on external circumstances, and it also depends on how you view those circumstances

when we give more to ourselves, we can ask more of ourselves.

Home Every room should include something purple Keep pens, a notepad, and a pair of scissors in every room Write down anything I need to remember If something's important to me, I should reserve time for it in my schedule, make a place for it in my home, and build relationships around it

It is by studying little things," wrote Samuel Johnson, "that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.

Fake Self-Actualization Loophole: Often, a loophole is disguised as an embrace of life or an acceptance of self, so that the failure to pursue a habit seems life-affirming—almost spiritual.

For people who want to eat and drink more healthfully, keeping a food journal can be extremely effective. For instance, one study showed that dieters who kept a food journal six or seven days a week lost twice as much weight as people who did so once a week or not at all. Although keeping a food journal sounds straightforward, I braced myself for a challenge when I decided to try it. No one ever mentions how hard it is to keep a food journal, but I'd already tried and failed three times.

But perhaps the most acute sense of happiness from writing was the happiness of expressing a very complicated idea - the kind of idea that takes hundreds of pages to capture.

One-Coin" Loophole: Whether we choose to focus on the single coin or the growing heap will shape our behavior.

The fact is, while some habits are almost unbreakable, some habits remain fragile, even after years. We must guard against anything that might weaken a valuable habit. Every added link in the chain strengthens the habit—and any break in the chain marks a potential stopping point.