Managing Habits During Major Life Challenges

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You can return it for free if you don't like it with their sleep trial . Visit WWW dot sleep SLE . m e slash greeten and see why cold sleep is your ultimate ally in performance and recovery. You're listening to this podcast so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with progressives save over nine hundred dollars on average. Pop over to progressive. com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, ninety nine percent of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive. com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates national average twelve month savings of nine hundred and forty six dollars by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between june twenty twenty four and may twenty twenty five , potential savings will vary. Hello, we're here for more Happyer, a podcast where we get happier. It is the weekend. We are kicking back its observations and reflections with a looser vibe. Hey Elizabeth. Hey Gritch. Today we're revisiting a special episode all about designing your summer and adapting your habits for the season. Gretch, this episode came out of your habits for happiness course and talking about habits feels especially timely right now because halfway day is coming up. That is right. Halfway day is on july second and it's the halfway point of the year. It's a great opportunity to revisit the aims, habits, and projects you identified when you designed your year and ask, How's it going? What's working? What's not? What adjustments would help me make the most of the second half of the year? Kind of like a midyear checkpoint . Exactly. In this episode, I'll talk about how summer's longer days and changing routines can affect our habits, share some ideas for designing your summer, and answer lister questions about making habits work in real life. Okay, let's dive in. So one of the ideas that I love to follow every year is to design your summer . And I got the idea for Design Your Summer from a writer whom I love. I love his novel s, but I also love his essays. It's Robertson Davies . And in a collection of essays called The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies, in an essay called Three Worlds Three Summers Dav, ies writes , every man makes his own summer . The season has no character of its own unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather. Circumstances have not allowed me to make a good summer for myself this year . My summer has been overcast by my own heaviness of spirit . I have not had any adventures , and adventures are what make a summer . So ever since I read that paragraph several years ago, I have been determined to take steps every summer to make this summer feel special. And of course you could do this with every season . But at least here in the United States, there is something special about summer . The days are longer. The weather is warmer . If you're a kid, you're out of school . There's just a sense that the summer is different, that it's more dedicated to travel , to fun, to play, to adventure . And so every year, I say, well, what should I do to make my summer feel special? And I often design my summer around a reading project and the very first design your summer reading project I had was I had my summer of Prussed Remembrance of Things Past is a multi volume series of novels. They are towering classics of world literature. But you know, it's a big commitment to start and read it and it's a very particular kind of reading. It's not like reading Stephen King and I really wanted to do it, but I wanted to read all the novels all at once and there just never seemed to be a right time to do it. When do you sit down and tackle something like that? So I decided to do it in a summer and it wasn't the only thing that I read that summer, but I certainly spent a really significant part of that summer reading Prussia. And it was so fun . First of all, I checked something off of my list that I had always wanted to do, which was to read this major masterpiece of world literature. I read all of them because many people read the first volume but they don't get any further. So I was very proud of myself that I read all of them and it really gave a very significant fl avor to that particular summer . It really did give that summer a special quality from the other parts of my year and also from all other summers that I have spent. There really was something about the summer of Pruce that makes it stand out in my memory and also made it feel very fun. After that, I did my summer of Virginia Wolfe. I love Regina Wolfe. She's one of my very favorite authors and I had read almost all of her novels , but I wanted to reread them. They have many, many layers , and I also thought that now that I was older, I would bring more to them so I would get more from them. And again, was something that I had always wanted to do, but they're just never seemed to be a really good time to tackle it. So again, summer Virginia Wolf. Flashboard this summer. So there is a Japanese term called Sundoku , T S U N D OKU, Chundoku and it refers to the feeling that you get when you have a big pile of books piled up to be read. And so I am having my summer of Sundoku, and you should picture that as TS U M E R to match Sundoku , where I am tackling my shelves. I don't keep piles by my bed as much anymore, but I have many, many shelves of books that are lined up that I couldn't resist buying, but I have not yet read . And so I am just trying to read the books that I already have and not buy any new books . And I am also trying not to use the library. I was describing this to somebody and they're like, oh, are you using the library so much more? And I said, No, actually, I'm trying not to use the library. I use the library all the time. I check out tons of books, kind of willy nilly to be honest. But one of the things I wanted to do is really tackle these shelves and clear off some of the space on my shelf. So I'm really trying to read the books that I already own. And of course, this is hugely pleasurable because I wanted to read all these books. And it's funny because a lot of the books I read because somebody I really respect or admire hadr recommended them to me , but then I couldn't remember why. So then I sort of didn't have an impulse to read the book. But now that I'm reading it, I'm like, oh, this book is so fantastic. Now I understand why this whoever it was can't remember told me to read it because I'm enjoying it so much. So this summer is summer of Tundoku and not only have I having the pleasure of reading, I'm having the pleasure of clearing my shelves. This is how I have done it. This is the right way for me . I also because, we bought this lake house, which was sort of a dream come true , I have a year long vow that I will kayak every day that we are there that I can . And so one of the things I'm doing this summer is kayaking more, but I can't do that every day because a lot of the times I'm at home in New York City, but that is something else that gives the summer a different quality because the kayaking is something that I can do during the summer that I can't do other times. Now there are many, many ways that people can design their summer in the way that's right for them. And so you might think about doing a weekly hike because the summertime is a good time weatherwise in your part of the world or maybe it's too hot in your part of the world and so you need to figure out a different way to stick to your habit of exercise . Maybe you want to have a summer of adventures and think about all kinds of adventures that you could have within a car ride of your own home, but that would make the time feel special and full of novel and interesting adventures and visiting new places. Maybe you want to have a summer of friends where you make plans with friends, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, or it's the summer of entertaining, and you have people over for backyard brunch every week. Or you can think of anything that is missing in your life or that you want to amplify in your life and think of a way to bring it into the summer. And what is it that you want your summer to hold? I was talking to someone who said that she wanted to have a summer of fun and she planned to watch classic movies and re watch one of her favorite television shows , but that her husband wanted a summer of catch up . And he said that he wanted not catch up like Hind's Catch up, but catch up like catching up. He wanted to catch up. He had so many things on this sort of minor nagging tasks on his to do list, things that he'd been meaning to do for a long time that he just decided that this was the summer of catch up and he was going to catch up on all these things that he had been kicking down the road . And to him , this sounded like fun. He wanted to cross these things off the list. And as so often happens , if we give something a fun name . If we turn it into a special project or challenge or make it into a little bit of an elevated activity, it makes ordinary activities more fun. So let's say you're stick to your habit of exercise , you've been doing a really good job, you've been going to the gym, you've been running in your neighborhood . Is there a way for the summer where you can amplify what you're doing a little bit , elevate it a little bit, make it feel a little bit more special , do it in a slightly different way, and take advantage of the season if you can, because again, what makes time feel more rich and last longer is if time feels different. If every day feels exactly the same , time starts to race forward and every day feels like it runs into every other day. When we do things to make time stand apart , time feels slower and more rich. This is why when you go on a vacation, a week on vacation feels like it lasts many, many, many days, whereas a week at home often feels like you go from Sunday to Sunday almost within a few hours . And so taking the time to think about what you want for your summer and what that would look like can be something that will really make this time fun and because it's more fun , it might help you to stick to it better because things that are more fun or at least different that can often make them easier to stick to. So think about ways you can take advantage of the season. Maybe in your part of the world you have longer days so you can be outside longer with more light , maybe the weather suits different kinds of activities . Maybe there's changes in routine that you can take advantage of with your vacation, travel, family and friend s visiting you or you're visiting them. Maybe your kids are out of school, so they're around or maybe they're away at summer camp so they're completely gone. Some offices take Fridays off . There might be opportunities for you to rearrange your schedule in a way that would be fun and help you keep your good habits and also make time feel more rich. Up next, Gretchen shares three ways to adjust your habits for summer so you can keep the habits that matter most even when your routine changes. But first this break Sometimes I find myself wondering whether the things I'm doing for my health are actually making a difference. Are my workouts working? Is my diet working? That's why I'm excited about our partner , Rhythm. Rhythm is the world's easiest blood test to help you learn what's happening inside your body. You do it at home in about two minutes using a simple collection device, then mail it in and get results back in just a few days. And what I find is that over time I do more of what I know is healthy for me because I have a better sense of what's happening inside my body. Rhythm is only dollar seventy nine dollars per month, a fraction of traditional lab testing. It ships right to your door and you can cancel anytime. Right now, rhythm is offering our listeners fifteen percent off your first month and free shipping at rhythm dot health slash happier. That's rhythm with one H RY THM . Health slash happier for fifteen percent off your first month and free shipping . Stop guessing, start testing. Rhythm. Health slash happier . Hey, it's Julie Louis Drefus from Wiser than Me, etc . Just popping in with a little reality check . Food waste shouldn't exist. There is no reason that our leftovers should end up in a landfill, but that's the final destination for about a third of the food we grow. Our ancestors would be confused. They use their food scraps as compost, or as anim al feed, or in weird soups , all the stuff we did before garbage was invented . But composting is hard work. Living with a bucket of rotten food on your counter is gross. Most food goes in the trash because it's easy and these days we'll take any easy we can get . But now there's something easier . Drop your scraps in a mill food recycler . It looks like a kitchen bin and an iPhone had a baby. It takes nearly anything, even meat and bones. It works automatically. You can keep filling it for weeks, and never smells. When you finally empty it, you've got these nutrient rich grounds, use them in your garden, pour them in your green bin, or have mill get them to a small farm , so the food you don't eat can help grow the food you do just like it should be. It's why I own a mill, why I invest in mill, and why I'm still obsessed with my mill. If you want to get obsessed too, go to mill. com slash wiser to get seventy five dollars off. That's mill dot com slash wiser for seventy five dollars off . You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with progressive save over nine hundred dollars on average. Pop over to progressive. com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, ninety nine percent of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive. com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back . Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates national, average twelve month savings of nine hundred and forty six dollars by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between june twenty twenty four and may twenty twenty five . Potential savings will vary . So there are three ways to shift your habits into summer mode. You want to tweak your existing habits to accommodate the seasonal changes. So ask yourself, do you need to adjust your habit by changing duration , frequency , intensity strategy , or tracking method. For instance, maybe you're going on a two week vacation, how might you need to adjust your hab it to accommodate this change without abandoning it entirely? Remember , you don't want to just say like, Oh, well, I'm going to go off on a two week vacation. I don't have to do this anymore. No, figure out a way to stick to it in your new circumstance. So let's say maybe you need to change your daily movement routine due to warmer weather. If it's really, really hot, you may need to get your exercise earlier before the day heats up. And this can look a lot of different ways. Let's say you do an evening tidy up to keep clutter under control and you decide that for the summer, you really want to power down . And so you're going to add a weekly power hour of decluttering in the summer. So you're going to lean into that, do more clutter clearing because you feel like the summer you're going to have more time to devote to that. And so you're going to accelerate your progress in clutter clearing. On the other hand, maybe you want to add a summer specific habit to help you appreciate the season . Again, make it feel richer and longer and more memorable. And so you don't want to add another chore to your to do list. That might appeal to some people, but for you, maybe you want to think about making this season feel richer and more memorable. So you want to think about prioritizing rest or play or creativity or connection. How could you bring more of this into your life during the summer? One thing you might want to think about is what appeals to you? Do you want more comfort or more adventure? Do you think, oh, I would love to plan a weekend at a resort or are you thinking, ooh, I'd like to plan a weekend to go camping . One is very comfortable , one is more adventurous , depending on what the rest of your life looks like, comfort or adventure might be more appealing to you. One thing that is very nice about designing your summer is that it is finite. And I think sometimes it is fun to plan something where you feel like, okay, I'm going to be doing this for three months, and it's going to begin and end within a fairly short frame of time. It's long enough for real things to happen , but it's not as long as forever, and it's not even as long as a year. For me, I go from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That's what my summer is. Some people might think it's June, July, August, other people might feel like there's a different definition of what summer is. But you want to think about, well, what is that end date? I've heard so many great suggestions from people about what they've done to design their summer and to make their summer feel rich . Some people say, Oh, instead of having my breakfast at the breakfast table , I take my breakfast and my cup of coffee outside and eat it on our back porch and just take advantage of the weather. Other people make sure that they watch the sunset once a week. Other people explore hikes in their neighborhood . I know somebody who decided that she was going to visit every park in her little town . I talked to somebody who decided that she was going to visit every park in her little city over the summer because there were a lot of summertime activities that were going on and also just going to the park seemed like a summertime thing to do and she'd always wanted to see every park around her . So use your imagination as you do it, you want to plan ahead for the inevitable disruptions that will happen and safeguard the habits you've already been building. This is important. You do not want to use this time to backslide. You do not want the summertime to halt your progress . So how can you safeguard? Okay , the first thing to do is to use if then planning. If then planning is you say if something happens then I will do that . If then planning is extremely useful because in a cold, calm rational frame of mind we think, well, what would I do if I were traveling or what would I do if I got a migraine? If this happens, then I will do that . And that way when the occasion actually arises, we're much more likely to follow along with the plan that we've already made instead of acting impulsively in the moment. So if your summer specific, if then challenges might look something like if a friend invites me on a spontaneous adventure , then I will reduce my daily writing practice to fifteen minutes. You can also make planned exceptions A planned exception is exactly what it sounds like. It is when you plan an exception . A planned exception is when you decide in advance that whatever habit you have, you are going to not follow it under a very specific and limited circumstance . You think about it in advance and then you follow through. You do not decide impulsively in the moment. That is the difference with planned exceptions. And they are exceptions. So this isn't something that lasts for a week or a month or indefinitely. This is like a one day thing . For instance, you might say to yourself , I will go for a daily run except if the weather is over ninety five degrees in which case I will do yoga, in which case I will do a cardio workout in my basement. You've planned in advance for what the exception will be and it's limited to a specific circumstance. And as you're making a planned exception, it may help to ask yourself how you'll feel after making this except ion to your habit. If you don't go for a run in ninety five degree heat, I think you would look back on that and think, that was a good choice. I didn't want to be running when it was ninety five degrees outside. If you impulsively decided, Oh, I'm gonna skip my daily run because I don't feel like it today , you probably would not look back on that exception with pleasure. It wasn't planned, it was impulsive, and you really weren't keeping the habit that you were asking of from yourself. So your action step for this week is to think about how you want to adjust for the summertime, whether that means adjusting your habit, adding a seasonal habit, or setting up saf eguards and make a plan to do so. Coming up, Gretchen answers questions from listeners about everything from staying motivated to handling major life changes, but first this break . This message comes from Harvard Business School Executive Education . Now is the time to invest in yourself and change the world with your voice. Our programs connect you with faculty at the forefront of their fields, introduce you to a global network of leaders, and help you step into your full potential. The next chapter is yours. Let us help you write it. Apply today to accelerate your future. Learn more at h s. me slash accelerate that's h sb dot m e slash accelerate . I had one of those weeks where the to do list just kept growing, little repairs, things to mount, random projects I kept putting off, and eventually it all starts taking up mental space even when you're not doing it. And that's why I've been using Task Rabbit. You can book a skilled tasker for furniture assembly, home repairs, mounting, yard work, whatever you need help with. And you can search based on reviews, availability and cost so you feel good about who's showing up . I finally handed off a project I had been avoiding and let me tell you it was such a relief just to have it done . I use Tasrabit and you should too . When life happens, your to do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get fifteen dollars off your first task at tasksrabbit. com or on the task rabbit app using code happier. That's fifteen dollars off your first task using promo code happier with the Taskrabbit app or at taskrabbit. com I've been trying to say yes more to little adventures. Nothing huge, just getting out of the routine and going somewhere different for the day . And it really makes you appreciate having a car that feels solid and comfortable where you're not thinking about the drive, you're just focused on where you're going. That's what stood out to me about the Defender. It has that rugged design, but it also feels really thoughtful inside. And I like that there's a full lineup from the two door ninety to the one hundred and ten and the one hundred and thirty was seating for up to eight. So it really fits different kinds of plans. And it's built with those durable, purposeful materials so you can actually use it without worrying about every little thing . It also has features that make driving feel easier like ClearSight Technology and the Pivi Pro System so you can keep track of where you're going and everything you want to listen to along the way. Plus with up to eighty nine cubic feet of cargo space and available three rows, it gives you a lot of flexibility depending on what you're bringing with you. Explore the full defender lineup at land rover usa. com . Now for the call in portion of this episode, a participant asks how should I celebrate making it to the halfway point mostly successfully? That is fantastic. You have made it to the halfway point mostly successfully. That is something to celebrate. Ask yourself what would make it feel meaningful to you. And I would say, remember, you don't want to give yourself a reward because rewards often undermine habits, but you could think about whether at this point there might be a new tool that you realize that you need that would make whatever it is that you're doing easier or more pleasant. So maybe you have a yoga mat that has seen better days and you decide, okay, it's time to get a new yoga mat, or maybe you want to get a new pair of running shoes because you feel like your running shoes are kind of worn through or a new pair of socks, that might be a nice way to market, but remember you're giving yourself something that is taking you deeper into your habit, not undermining your habit. Also just telling yourself, look what I've done. I mean, really look back. Think about how far you've come , how much you've done , how good you feel. One of the ways to keep ourselves going is just literally to enjoy the good feeling of having done it, but you don't want to start falling into the moral licensing looph ole, which is when we start thinking, well, I've been so good, I deserve some time off. The fact that you've been so good should energize you to keep going even better , but definitely ask yourself for whatever kind of person you are , what is something that would really make you feel like you are celebrating hitting the halfway point? Our second question is from a listener who is wondering how to reset her approach to forming a habit . Between my full time job, my daughter's senior year activities , my college aged son who lives at home, his needs, my husband's desire for some attention, and all of my at home responsibilities , there is little or no time or energy left for me. I'm five months into this project and I haven't made any changes or progress , can you suggest how to reset and find the time for myself? This is really hard because this listener has immense responsibilities and time and energy are limited. That is just the fact . But here in this description I have to think I wonder if this person is an obliger and has not created utter accountability . because whenever someone says I can't find time for myself , whenever they say, everybody else needs so much, there's nothing left for me , that makes me think obliger and it makes me think there hasn't been out er accountability created . Because with the other three tendencies, upholders, questioners, and rebels, if they were feeling this pressure, which they very well might, because it is real pressure, we've all been there where there is so little time, energy left over , they express it differently . And the fact is and obligers often, it's hard for them to really understand there must be outer account ability , even for something you want to do, even for something you enjoy doing, even for something that is very, very important to you, you must create a system of outer account ability . That is essential. And so look around and say , maybe you need two or three or four kinds of outer accountability, even for just the one or two hero habits that you're working on . Give yourself that accountability. Maybe in some way you're paying for it. Maybe in some way other people are depending on you to follow through