#101 Being Happier with Gretchen Rubin

AARP Washington State Podcast

Do you want to be happier? Gretchen Rubin is a researcher and best-selling author, best known for the book "The Happiness Project". In this episode, we talk about concrete steps you can take now to be happier, at any age. One day on a bus, Gretchen realized that although she had everything she needed to be satisfied with her life, and she wasn't really unhappy, she certainly wasn't happy. She launched The Happiness Project to find out why and what to do about it. Since then, she's been interviewed by Oprah and walked with the Dalai Lama. Her subsequent books include "The Four Tendencies", about better understanding ourselves and what would make us happy, and "Better Than Before", on how changing small everyday habits make a big difference in happiness. In this interview, we talk extensively about how life's transitions, like retirement or an an empty nest, can be opportunities to make the changes you need to be happier and how older people often develop the self-knowledge necessary to be truly happy. Enjoy this discussion of how research and Gretchen's personal experiments can make you happier. You can learn more about Gretchen at https://gretchenrubin.com/