One of the most common suggestions for people to be happier is to keep a gratitude journal.

But I found keeping a gratitude journal to be a deeply irritating exercise.

And this is something that's really important that I learned.

No tool fits every hand.

I was grilling a friend of mine about her habits,

and she said something that hit me like a ton of bricks. She said,

What if the key to a happier, more meaningful life was hiding in your daily routine?

Bestselling author Gretchen Rubin shared surprising truths about habits, gratitude, and how tiny changes can unlock transformation.

We spend such a huge amount of time

at work. Tell me about the four tendencies. So I really do believe that you are one of these four

tendencies. But for both men and women, this is the biggest tendency. I want your take on if bad habits

are easier to form than good habits.

People want to say, like, oh, it takes 21 days to make a habit.

That's just not true.

What I found with habits is... So one of the most famous American phrases, Gretchen, certainly Thomas Jefferson, early in the Declaration

of Independence, the phrase, the pursuit of

happiness, which he didn't come up with for context. But that's when it's introduced to us Americans,

this concept as an inalienable right. And I bring that up because I love your story before you ever got into writing

about happiness, this was a personal thing for you. You decided to divide a year into 12 thematic

months centered on some areas of your life where you wanted to improve, dare I say,

maybe you weren't as happy with how

it was going. Take us back to that. And I'm really curious to know what the driver was. Was it more

...