Ep. 566: Do You Ever Think “This Is Not Good; I Could Do This Better?” Plus Accountability Hacks
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin / The Onward Project
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We talk about why the realization “I could this this task better myself” can help us identify possible opportunities. We also talk about how to give a bad review in a nice way, and share imaginative accountability strategies.
Resources & links related to this episode:
- Obituary for John Charles Craft
- Take the "Four Tendencies" personality quiz
- Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill
- In Our Time podcast by the BBC
- Elizabeth is reading: Full House by Janet Evanovich (Amazon, Bookshop)
- Gretchen is reading: Possession by A. S. Byatt (Amazon, Bookshop)
Get in touch: podcast@gretchenrubin.com
Visit Gretchen's website to learn more about Gretchen's best-selling books, products from The Happiness Project Collection, and the Happier app.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Did you know that infants are ready to learn sign language? |
| 0:03.5 | Two-year-olds are ready to learn the basics of science, and three-year-olds are ready to learn coding? |
| 0:08.9 | Your child is ready to learn, and at Primrose schools, teachers make the most of this time by creating a joyful, purposeful learning experience unlike any other. |
| 0:19.4 | For instance, have you heard of the Primrose Friends? In every |
| 0:23.8 | Primrose school classroom, teachers use these 12 lovable puppets to make character development |
| 0:30.2 | joyful, meaningful, and memorable. From exploring generosity with Benjamin the Bear to practicing honesty with Peanut the Pony, |
| 0:40.6 | every friend plays a special part in helping children learn important values while having |
| 0:46.9 | plenty of fun along the way. We can all use some friends like that. You can learn more at primrose schools.com. Now enrolling infants through |
| 0:57.7 | children age five. That's primrose schools.com for more information. Elizabeth, when we're together |
| 1:06.3 | for the holidays, we end up going to Whole Foods Market every day. There's so many things that we need. |
| 1:12.8 | Like, we're going to a party, and one of us needs to bring a gift for the host. They have these |
| 1:17.5 | expert curated cheeses and crackers that everybody loves. They have excellent limited time |
| 1:23.7 | seasonal desserts like holiday rum cake, creamy Bouch de Noel, which is one of our |
| 1:29.2 | family's favorites, and more. Plus, they have these show-stopping things for the table like |
| 1:36.0 | bone-in spiral-cut ham. Well, Grouch, I love that they have heat and eat sides from the prepared |
| 1:42.6 | foods department because you know that I am not much |
| 1:45.6 | of a cook. So heat and serve is something I can do. And they have floral Gretchen. So you can bring a nice |
| 1:54.1 | bouquet of flowers if you're going to someone's house. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, |
| 1:59.9 | your holiday headquarters. |
| 2:01.6 | Lemonada |
| 2:04.6 | Lemonada |
| 2:05.6 | Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about ideas for building greater happiness into everyday life. |
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