Hello and welcome to Happier where we talk about you guessed it how to be happier.

This week we'll talk about why you should act the way you want to feel and why for some

people when facing strong temptation it's easier to have none than some.

I'm Gretchen Rubin a writer whose studies happiness, good habits and human nature and dog training.

I'm in New York City and with me is my sister Elizabeth Kraft who I will get to see very soon in Kansas City for Christmas.

Yay! That's me Elizabeth Kraft a TV writer and producer living in LA and yeah Gretchen I'm looking forward to our mad dash around the plaza for Christmas gifts when I get to Kansas City.

Yes, long list. That's tradition. But so first before we launch into everything Elizabeth I promise that I would hold you accountable.

You're not writing your novel you're wearing a novel but you talked about that you were going to regularly ponder your YA novel.

So how's the pondering coming? I am pondering I was supposed to take notes and ponder and I've done more pondering than note taking.

I've done no note taking but I have been read I've been trying to read more because I feel like the more I read novels the more I want to write.

So I'm doing that and I'm trying to sort of read things in the vein that you know that I think will be helpful to me in the spirit of yeah.

And I'm thinking about it for sure. So it's there it's just I haven't actually put any pen to paper in terms of the notes.

And do you do that do you do that in that kind of before work time which was when you were intending to write or or you're using that zone.

No because that zone just felt like I thought it was going to be this big zone and it's just not it's just I just rarely at work you know at my desk.

At a you know any sort of time where I could actually get work done before the day starts just because of one thing and another I thought it was going to be this big thing and it's just not.

But you're pondering.

But I am pondering and by the way because you do have me for Christmas stock you need a special notebook.

Oh my favorite kind of gift about okay I'm writing myself a note I will use special notebook maybe to match your podcast notebook which I love.

Yes excellent okay and Gretchen meanwhile I want to mention that the paperback of better than before is coming out December 15th.

So everyone pre order go to GretchenRubin.com slash BTB pre order bonus and get a 21 days 21 strategies for habit change.

So that's a good offer. Yeah this is this cool email series that I created.

Each day for 21 days it's like you know the days of Christmas you get a habit strategy explained to you so if you're like gearing up to do a New Year's resolution or something it gives you lots and lots of ideas.

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