Gretchen Rubin
Growing up in Kansas City, I was always neat, the teacher's pet, know-it-all type.Collection: Teacher
One of the best ways to make yourself happy in the present is to recall happy times from the past. Photos are a great memory-prompt, and because we tend to take photos of happy occasions, they weight our memories to the good.Collection: Good
Whenever I start a new book, I think, 'This is the most interesting subject of all time. It's sad, I'll never enjoy writing another book as much as I enjoy this one.' Every time, I'm convinced. And then I change my mind when I start the next book.Collection: Sad
People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason in a way that animals can't do.Collection: Imagination
Enthusiasm is a form of social courage.Collection: Courage
In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find - and I hear from other people that they agree - that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness.Collection: Happiness
Like most people, I have several pet subjects - that may or may not be interesting to other people. Don't get me started on happiness, or habits, or children's literature, or Winston Churchill, unless you really want to talk about it.Collection: Pet
Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they're big, flashing signs that something needs to change.Collection: Change
It was my interest in happiness that led me to the subject of habits, and of course, the study of habits is really the study of happiness. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness.Collection: Architecture
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar. Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement.Collection: Good
Turn off your email; turn off your phone; disconnect from the Internet; figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master.Collection: Technology
If I pretend to myself that I'm different from the way I truly am, I'm going to make choices that won't make me happy.Collection: Choices
Often, if there's something that I want to do, but somehow can't get myself to do, it's because I don't have clarity. This lack of clarity often arises from a feeling of ambivalence - I want to do something, but I don't want to do it; or I want one thing, but I also want something else that conflicts with it.Collection: Want Something
I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can't DO EVERYTHING I want.Collection: Want
Focus not on doing less or doing more but on doing what you value.Collection: Focus
Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change.Collection: Loneliness
It's about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.Collection: Letting Go
Self-awareness is a key to self-masteryCollection: Keys
Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life.Collection: Everyday
Do good, feel good; feel good, do good.Collection: Feel Good
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.Collection: Happiness
Turns out that people who try new things, go new places, learn new skills, etc. are happier. This can be tough, because novelty and challenge also bring frustration and irritation - but if you can push through that, novelty and challenge can bring enormous happiness rewards.Collection: Frustration
When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.Collection: Order
Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.Collection: Opportunity
Enthusiasm is more important to mastery than innate ability.Collection: Important
[S]tudies show that one of the best ways to lift your mood is to engineer an easy success, such as tackling a long-delayed chore.Collection: Long
Knowing what you admire in others is a wonderful mirror into your deepest, as yet unborn, self.Collection: Mirrors
I am living my real life, this is it. Now is now, and if I waited to be happier, waited to have fun, waited to do the things that I know I ought to do, I might never get the chance.Collection: Fun
The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.Collection: Happiness
To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.Collection: Happiness
The things that go wrong often make the best memories.Collection: Memories
Feelings follow actions. If I'm feeling low, I deliberately act cheery, and I find myself actually feeling happier. If I'm feeling angry at someone, I do something thoughtful for her and my feelings toward her soften. This strategy is uncannily effective.Collection: Thoughtful
Focus Not on Having Less or Having More, But on Wanting What You Have.Collection: Focus
Money. It's a good servant but a bad master.Collection: Money
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa.Collection: Fun
We need to have intimate, enduring bonds; we need to be able to confide; we need to feel that we belong; we need to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, to give support. We need many kinds of relationships; for one thing, we need friends.Collection: Giving
Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep your mind engaged with your project. When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.Collection: Inspiration
I enjoy the fun of failure. It's fun to fail, I kept repeating. It's part of being ambitious; it's part of being creative. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badlyCollection: Fun
Be a storehouse of happy memories.Collection: Family
Step by step, you make your way forward. That’s why practices such as daily writing exercises or keeping a daily blog can be so helpful. You see yourself do the work, which shows you that you can do the work. Progress is reassuring and inspiring; panic and then despair set in when you find yourself getting nothing done day after day. One of the painful ironies of work life is that the anxiety of procrastination often makes people even less likely to buckle down in the future.Collection: Motivational
It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously -- and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.Collection: Letting Go
I've found that I snack less and concentrate better when I chew on a plastic stirrer - the kind that you get to stir your to-go coffee. I picked up this habit from my husband, who loves to chew on things. His favorite chew-toy is a plastic pen top, and gnawed pen tops and little bits of plastic litter our apartment.Collection: Husband
The 20-minute walk I take is better than the 3-mile run I never start. Having people over for take-out is better than never having people to an elegant dinner party.Collection: Running
I have a lucky perfume. I love beautiful smells, but I save one of my favorite perfumes to wear only when I feel like I need some extra luck.Collection: Beautiful
We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently. Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.Collection: Running
Did I have a heart to be contented? Well, no, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please...It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.Collection: Heart
You can choose what you do, you cant choose what you like to do.Collection: Cant
The most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference.Collection: Lonely
Self-knowledge makes me happy.Collection: Self
It's the task that's never started that's more tiresome.Collection: Motivational