Gretchen Rubin worries that she’s becoming a bit of a happiness bully. “I don’t want to be a bore that everyone runs away from!” she says from her apartment on New York’s Upper East Side. “It’s very hard for me not to overwhelm everyone with research and suggestions and thoughts. That I find effortless. Not talking about it—that I find hard. I have such strong ideas.”

Indeed, over the course of my conversation with the author of Better Than Before, her intriguing new book about understanding and changing habits, I find myself going from interviewer to subject. After I mention my weakness for sweets, Rubin, who herself adheres to an extremely low-carb diet, helps me strategize ways to curb my sugar consumption.

"If you have just one chocolate-covered almond, you want to have 15."

“The thing about sweets is the desire for it feeds on itself,” Rubin says, warming to the subject. “If you don’t have the first one, it goes away. If you have just one chocolate-covered almond, you want to have 15. One thing to try would be to say, I just don’t eat that at work.”

Rubin, whose previous books The Happiness Project and Happier at Home both hit the New York Times bestseller list, clearly has a passion for happiness. But as she considered the subject further, she realized that our happiness is inextricably linked with our habits. As her husband, Jamie, laughingly told her when she described her idea for a new book, “With your books about happiness, you were trying to answer the question, ‘How do I become happier?’ And this habits book is ‘No, seriously, how do I become happier?’ ”

“When you have the habits that work for you, you’re so much likelier to be happy, healthy and productive,” Rubin says. “When people were talking to me about some happiness challenge, I realized they were almost always talking about a habit. I think everybody realizes the connection between happiness and habits. In my other books, I talked about resolutions, but almost all of them also could’ve been framed as habits. It’s just part of the whole thing, which is: How do you live a life that reflects your values?”

Better Than Before is based on the premise that are four basic personality types (tendencies) that shape how we respond to outer expectations and inner expectations: Upholders, who do what others expect of them; Questioners, who only do things that make sense to them; Obligers, who do things because they don’t want to let others down; and Rebels, who do things their own way and resist direction.

With that foundation, Rubin lays out a whole host of strategies to build and sustain good habits, such as making something inconvenient (for example, putting your cell phone in another room so that you’re not as tempted to play Candy Crush) and creating distractions (for example, giving yourself a manicure to avoid dipping into that bag of chips).

The beauty of Rubin’s advice is that she understands not everyone has the same motivations and weaknesses. Better Than Before is packed with ideas, not all of which will appeal to everyone. But that’s the point—there’s something here for everyone, whether you tend to follow rules or break them.

But even Rubin, happiness guru, fails at times. One of the funniest parts of Better Than Before is Rubin’s failed attempt to cultivate the habit of daily meditation (she kept getting distracted, like when a scene from a Woody Allen movie popped into her head mid-breath, and she toppled off her pillow more than once).

“It just did not work for me,” she says a bit ruefully. “I really tried for several months every single day. I really hoped that it would work for me, because it sounds like it would be great. I found it to be frustrating, which I don’t think it’s supposed to be.”

Rubin had a more successful habits experiment when she convinced her teenage daughter to get up early one time a weekend and get her homework finished.

“I told her, ‘I will bring you tea, I will bring you toast, I will minister to you while you’re working,’ ” she says. “And it worked!”

Roping her two daughters, Eliza and Eleanor, into her book research is unusual.

“I don’t specifically include them,” she says. “My efforts to keep my energy up, keep my sense of humor up, have time to be silly”—all endeavors from her books—“a lot of it affects them, but only because it’s an outgrowth of me changing myself.”

Rubin is no stranger to change. After graduating from Yale Law School and clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, she switched careers when she realized she wanted to be a writer. And what a prolific writer she is: a website, a blog, a strong social media presence and several books (plus a couple of unpublished novels, which she deems terrible).

“I really love it, so it’s not that it doesn’t feel like work, it’s that it’s what I’d do for fun,” Rubin says. “I think of a friend who put a Post-It note above her computer that said ‘Down with boredom.’ If something’s not interesting to me, I just don’t get into it. So everything’s like an intellectual toy shop.”

Right now, that toy shop’s shelves are stocked solely with habits. Rubin has no idea what her next book project might be. “I’m still so deep in habits, I just can’t see past it right now,” she says. “It’s just so vast and so fascinating.”

And as for that no-sugar-at-work habit? I’ve stuck with it for three weeks—and have lost three pounds. Maybe happiness bullying isn’t such a bad thing.

This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Jen Hatmaker has earned a devoted following by writing with humor and heart about mothering five children in Austin, Texas, a city she calls the home of the hipsters. In her latest book, For the Love, the popular Christian writer and star of HGTV’s “My Big Family Renovation” encourages readers to embrace imperfection.

You write that as you look at young women today, you see a generation “on the hook.” What do you mean by this? 
We are tough on one another, starting with ourselves. Despite our culture of empowerment and freedom, most women feel really wobbly about how they are doing. Consequently, the self-critical person becomes others-critical. We “love” people the way we “love” ourselves, and if we are not good enough, then no one can be. We keep ourselves brutally on the hook, plus our husbands, our kids, our friends, our churches, our leaders, anyone “other.” I think we can do better than this.

What does radical grace look like for someone feeling the weight of impossible standards?
I think I spent too much time in my earlier days of leadership trying to “fix” us all. If we could simply focus on x, y and z, then we would discover that elusive peace. At this point in my life, and particularly in For the Love, I spend way less time pushing people toward change and far more time assuring them they are already OK. Life is not waiting for better-crafted people to step into some future place of significance. We already matter and we already count, and we have these beautiful lives in front of us waiting to be lived today.

People often talk about searching for their “calling” from God, but you write that this idea is limited and misleading. What do you think is a better approach?
“Calling” is such a loaded concept. It evokes images of world-changing purposes and complicated (but admirable) job descriptions. It diminishes what most of us will enjoy: simple, quiet lives where we work hard and love our people and do the very best with what we’ve been given. I believe every woman has access to full meaning and purpose exactly how and where she is today, because ultimately the building blocks of significance include everyday accessible treasures like love, connection, generosity and hospitality.

You care about loving others well. What are some ways to do that? 
In my faith, my primary marching orders are simple: Love God and love people. That’s basically it. So I take this super seriously because evidently it’s at least 50 percent of my whole life’s substance. I guess my basic definition of loving others involves practices that actually feel like love: affirmation, compassion, a cheese-based casserole when someone has a baby, a last-minute invite for chili and cornbread, a kind word, noticing someone. Super basic stuff, but it requires getting out of our own heads and sometimes out of our own houses for the glorious risk of connecting. Loneliness does not have to be a prison; we have too many keys.

Your love of food and the act of coming together with people and eating come through so clearly in For the Love. Why do you think food and friendship go together so well? 
A shared table is the most common expression of hospitality in every culture on earth. There is something timeless and universal about sharing a meal with friends and neighbors. In Spain, a perfect stranger we met in the market invited us to dinner at his house, as if it was the most natural, obvious response to a lovely conversation with visiting Americans. If we aren’t sure how to connect with folks, a burger on the grill and corn on the cob is a good starting place. I am obsessed with the goodness that begins around the table together. It is the starting place for almost every good memory I have.

You talk about the importance of listening to those whose stories are often ignored, like teenagers and those whose experiences are outside of the majority. Why is listening so powerful and necessary?
My basic approach is this: Whenever two people (or groups or cultures or tribes) combine, we should listen to whoever has the least power. The dominant majority usually has no concept of their privileges, preconceived ideas, inherent bias or emotional advantages. The powerless or minority voices are typically silenced because they can be, with little to no effect on the majority experience. The path through equality, justice and empowerment has always begun when someone with power began to humbly listen to the minority perspective.

How do we listen well?
There is an enormous difference between listening to understand and listening to craft a rebuttal. When we sit across from another human being, we let each other off the hook when our only objective is to connect and understand the other person. This is harder than it sounds because our instinct is to fix, advise, disprove or hijack the conversation, but most of us just want to be heard and loved. Full stop. It is quite powerful to look into someone’s eyes and bear witness to their story.

What do you hope readers take away from this book?
I hope readers close the last page and breathe an enormous sigh of relief. I hope they laugh out loud because they just got free. Then I hope they look with fresh, renewed eyes at all their people—the ones they married, those they birthed, the ones on their street and in church and at work and around the world—and they are released to love them as though it’s their job.
Maybe we can lay down our fear and criticism, self-directed and otherwise. We don’t have to be saviors and critics for each other; we’re probably better as loved people beside one another. We aren’t good gods, but we can be really, really good humans.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

On a recent flight, I was deep into social psychologist and Harvard professor Amy Cuddy’s fascinating new book, Presence, when the woman next to me leaned over and said, “Is that the TED talk lady?”

By now, Cuddy is used to that description. Her 2012 TED talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” touched a collective nerve, racking up more than 29 million online views. In her presentation, she urged the audience to make small changes like striking a superwoman-style “power pose” before tackling a difficult situation.

Cuddy also revealed in the talk that she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident when she was 19. Her IQ dropped by two standard deviations, forcing her to struggle through years of therapy before she regained her mental clarity and graduated from college.

Cuddy’s experience motivated her to study psychology, and in Presence she takes mountains of research about body language and translates it into simple, useful insights for taking control of your life by being more “present.”

I spoke to Cuddy from Rome, where she had just delivered a presentation to a group of human resources professionals. Despite her jet lag, she sounded buoyant and, well, present when talking about her new book.

You recently tweeted, “When we stop looking after our own posture, we are abandoning ourselves.” What do you mean by that?
Posture is one of the ways to be one’s authentic best self. If we start slouching or hunching over our phones, or wrapping ourselves in our shawls, we’re doing things that are leading away from our best selves. We’re putting ourselves in these powerless poses without thinking about it. 

After reading your chapter, “I don’t deserve to be here,” I have to wonder: Why do so many people feel like an imposter?
One [reason] is that we feel we need to present a confident version of ourselves, so we’re not allowed to communicate any self-doubt. Self-doubt is like blood in the water and the sharks will come get you. We assume everyone else is fine, and we’re the only ones who feel self-doubt. But of course we all do. We’re human!

We often have this sense that the community we’re in is more homogenous than it is, and we’re the ones who are different in a bad way. Oh, I’m from a farm town, so I don’t fit in at a place like Harvard. It’s not even status-based. You could be a [Harvard] legacy, you could be a first-generation immigrant. We all sometimes attribute success to luck.

I was surprised to read that this happens as much to men as women. Is it just a stereotype that women are more apologetic and less sure of themselves?
After the TED talk, I got thousands of emails, and half were from men saying they felt like a phony or fraud. I couldn’t believe it. I started to dig in, because I didn’t know the imposter literature very well. Then it started to line up for me that men have this burden where they’re not allowed to share this feeling, so they’re really in the dark. 

You have interesting and wide-ranging conversations in the book. I was particularly taken by the one with actress Julianne Moore. Why did you want to talk with her?
It was never the plan to include performers in the book. But I met her, and she was so fascinated with this whole idea. The way she articulated her understanding of presence was just as I would as a scientist. She is great at leaving everything behind and being in the moment. Everyone she works with says she’s totally reliable at being present. And she’s phenomenally good about explaining what it’s all about. It’s about power; it’s about openness and not fearing social judgment. It’s about the moment and not about this huge, transcendent permanent state that you get to.

You write quite a bit about the power of yoga, yet you confess to not being a yoga person. Have you given it another try?
I promise I’m going to when my life slows down! And I know that completely goes against all my own advice, but I just can’t seem to get it started. I am definitely going to become a yoga person. 

Yoga was always kind of marginalized, so scientists didn’t want to study it. Now there’s a heap of research. I use the example in the book of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s this proud group of mostly men, who you don’t associate with yoga, and still it works for them. It works because you’re focusing on the movement and the posture instead of what’s happening. Most of the postures are pretty expansive, even if you’re on the ground or in downward dog. And expansive poses are hardwired to make you feel powerful. 

You have a teenage son. How do you think the concept of presence can be applied to parenting?
I hear from so many parents who practice presence with their kids. One of the things is to start early when the kids are not so self-conscious about doing funny things like striking a power pose. 

You know how you can wrap a piece of paper around a pen, [and the paper stays curled]? That’s what I imagine when I see my son’s female friends and how much their body language has collapsed since they’ve started middle school. We need to start practicing presence much earlier. Kids have in some ways the boldest body language because they are not constrained by cultural norms or stereotypes.

Writing, teaching, parenting: How do you achieve balance in life?
I think I’m doing way too much. That’s the totally honest truth. And I’m trying to do it all full time and perfectly. I’m still kind of struggling with my fears of being insignificant if I stop doing all these work things.

I’m divorced and remarried, and I have my son half of the week. For that half of the week, I get home as early as I can. My son is super savvy, though. He’ll say, ‘You’re not really being present with me, Mom.’ So that helps!

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Do you feel like your phone may be trying to take over your life? Can you even remember the last time you had a sit-down dinner without someone whipping out their phone? Manoush Zomorodi understands, and she wants to help. In Bored and Brilliant, she explains that taking a step back from technology is essential for creativity, and armed with research and challenges, Zomorodi will help you discover the beauty of taking a break from technology. We asked her a few questions about boredom, children’s use of technology and those addicting phone games. 

What first drew you to this idea of boredom as a catalyst for creativity?
I’m a sucker for self-improvement, and when I realized I was struggling more than usual to come up with original ideas for my podcast, I went on a quest to pinpoint what my problem was. Turns out, looking at my phone and taking in and disseminating information nonstop disrupts specific brain functions that facilitate original thinking. So, boom! It all made sense. But that didn’t mean there was an easy fix!

What was one of the best outcomes you heard about from someone who participated in the Bored to Brilliant Project?
My favorite quote is from a guy in Brooklyn who said, “I feel like I’m waking up from a mental hibernation.” I think I teared up at that one. How extraordinary to help someone observe their own behavior and then see such a change.

Did you hear from skeptics when you launched the project?
Absolutely yes! Some people (including my producer at the time) were like, “What are you even talking about? I just put down my phone.” But usually their minds changed when they saw how this project REALLY resonated with a friend, co-worker or family member. Look, telling people that thinking is important isn’t a philosophical breakthrough. But combine that with new things we know about the brain and our new digital habits and it’s clear we are living through a grand societal experiment. THAT is fascinating, even if you just have flip phone.

Look 10 years into the future: What do you see in terms of people’s relationships with their devices?
Well, other technology journalists and I differ vastly on this. My 13-year-old neighbor told me she likes to takes breaks on the weekends from social media. I think in a decade it will not be cool to be posting all the time and being on your phone at a party will not be OK.

What kinds of limits do you put on your own kids’ use of technology?
My kids are 7 and 10 and they are in love with the iPad. It’s a constant power struggle. Right now we limit them to half an hour if it’s not a school day. I’ll admit I’m not looking forward to them having phones.

Why do you think boredom gets such a bad rap?
Because there’s a moment when it stinks! Boredom truly is uncomfortable and frustrating. But if you can get through that window of discomfort, you will get to the good stuff. It’s funny how semantics work, right? If you really hate getting bored, just tell yourself you are activating your Default Mode. LOL.

You write about your own time wasting on the game Two Dots. Be honest: Do you ever relapse?
Uh, yes. When I relapse, I know that means I’m mentally exhausted.

You interviewed the creator of Two Dots for the book. What was it like talking to the man who helped you waste so many hours?
David is utterly charming and extremely intelligent. Obviously. I found it very helpful to have a conversation with someone who understands how to trigger specific behavior in his customer (me). We should be having more human interactions with the people actually making the stuff we use all day.

I loved the challenge in which participants are required to identify a problem, then literally watch a pot of water come to a boil, then put their mind to solving the problem. Did you do this exercise? What came of it for you?
I found it extremely relaxing. There’s something about being given permission to focus on one thing that just makes the tension in your neck release. I came up with the idea for another project, which was on information overload (we called it Infomagical).

How do you manage social media to make sure it doesn’t suck up too much of your time?
No notifications. Giving myself a max of 10 minutes to look at Twitter or Instagram. And then it’s OFF.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Bored and Brilliant.

(Author photo by Amy Pearl.)

Psychologist Mary Pipher’s 1994 book, Reviving Ophelia, was a revolutionary exploration of the psychology of teenage girls, and in her inspiring new book, Women Rowing North, she considers the psychological effects of aging on women. Women face many challenges as they age: misogyny, ageism, loss and physical changes. Yet Pipher shows that most older women are more content than their younger selves. Pipher offers warm, empathetic guidelines for navigating aging and for recognizing its unexpected gifts. Here, Pipher answers a few questions about her new book.

Can you tell me about why you decided to write this book?
I always write about something that I need to understand. For example, I wrote about teenage girls when I had an unhappy, teenage daughter and many troubled and angry adolescent clients. I wrote about refugees after Lincoln became an official refugee resettlement community with 54 languages in our schools.

I am particularly attracted to topics in which the cultural messaging is very different from my own experience. I want to explore that disconnection. To me, writing is the deepest form of thinking.

What’s one message you would like to convey to women with this book?
That happiness is both a choice and a set of skills and that with the right attitudes, we can make everything workable. Yes, everything.

I feel like many women today look toward aging with dread and anxiety. What’s something you wish you could have told your younger self about aging?
We now have research that shows that older women are the happiest people of all demographic groups. I wish I had known that earlier. I thought I was peaking in happiness in my 20s, a time that, in retrospect, wasn’t all that happy for me. Many women have expressed how surprised they were by the richness and joy of this life stage.

What’s an example of something you find joy in now that you didn’t when you were younger?
I actually like almost the exact same things I did when I was 10 years old. I love reading, swimming, being outdoors, and my friends and family. During the years I was a working mother, I didn’t have much time for these pleasures, but now I can once again spend much of my time doing these things.

Your groundbreaking 1994 book, Reviving Ophelia, examines the reasons—from unrealistic beauty standards to media’s portrayal of sexuality—behind the growing number of teenage girls developing depression, eating disorders and low self-esteem. Do you think this trend among adolescent girls shares any similarities with the struggles aging women face?
Both age groups on the cusp of great changes. Because of the tidal wave of experiences coming our way, both adolescent girls and older women need to expand our coping capacities and grow our moral imaginations. We also face a culture that sees us in stereotypes that don’t match with our own experiences. We are searching for new ways to understand ourselves and the complicated situations we are experiencing. Both stages are catalytic for great growth.

What do you think are some of the biggest societal challenges women face as they age?
Many women face financial issues, especially around health care. We also are likely to experience the loss of our friends, parents, siblings and partners. By the time we are 70, most of us have experienced some health problems and some collisions with a culture that doesn’t value us because we are old.

When I told my women friends I was writing a book about older women, they would say, “I’m not old.” What they meant was their view of themselves did not fit the cultural stereotypes for older women. They weren’t grumpy, depressed or decrepit. Instead they felt vibrant and deeply engaged with life.

One of the takeaways from your book is that a sense of community is an important part of wellbeing. Where do you find community in your own life?
I have lived in the same small midwestern college town almost continually since 1972. I have friends who I knew in my 20s and friends from various communities—neighbors, activists, writers, therapists and musicians. Many of my friends know each other and we have watched our children grow up together. I am deeply grateful for this. My community has helped hold my family’s lives in place. However, knowing so many people for so long also means that I go to lots of funerals and make many hospital visits.

What did you learn while writing this book that surprised you, either about yourself or in research?
I realized that a great deal of my thought came from white men. I had read Rousseau, Tolstoy, Lincoln, Camus, Thoreau and Whitman. I challenged myself to find women’s quotations for this book. I was happily surprised by how many new authors I met as I researched the book. I also realized I had pretty much downloaded Eleanor Roosevelt into my head. Her quotes kept showing up in every chapter!

Where are you rowing to next?
I want to become more engaged in saving our democracy from money and greed. I want to work to stop climate change so that the grandchildren of humans and all other species have a clean, green planet to inhabit.

Author photo by Sarah Greder