The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun Hardcover – December 29, 2009

Gretchen came up with a framework of how she intended to improve her happiness by 20%, tried implementing, then dropped , adapted or replaced her resolution. This proved her genuine experience. I especially liked her examples of a concept and research into phenomena.

Yes, I'm four years behind on finding this book, but I'm so glad that I finally caught up!I don't think this book needs a synopsis at this point - at 780 reviews and counting, it's been done. I'll just cover what I enjoyed about it.I think what makes Rubin's writing so appealing is that she admits that she isn't perfect; she's not afraid to show her ugly side instead of painting a picture of sunshine and rainbows. I really identified with her when she spoke about wishing she would like something because others did. I have often wished I:•Was a morning person•Could be the person who picks out her outfits the night before•Could be the person who picks out her outfits for the week on Sundays and prepared them•Wrapped gifts beautifully•Could drive without ever getting upset with another driver•Save money•Enjoyed volunteering•Cared if my bag matched my shoes•Enjoyed going to see rock bands•Enjoyed making my own smoothies everyday•Enjoyed the raw food dietBut I'm not any of those things. I have accepted that I will likely always be a night person, that I made the right decision to sell my Vitamix (after only using it a handful of times over 2 years), and that I would rather donate money then have to show up at a place at an assigned time to volunteer. This is who I am, and that's okay - the world needs me and the world needs the person who is all of the things I'm not.Favorite moments from the book:•What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.•You don't have to be good at everything.•With extrinsic motivation, people act to win external rewards or avoid external punishments; with intrinsic motivation, people act for their own satisfaction. Studies show that if you reward people for doing an activity, they often stop doing it for fun; being paid turns it into "work."•The repetitive activity of walking, studies who, triggers the body's relaxation response and so helps reduce stress; at the same time, even a quick ten-minute walk provides an immediate energy boost and improves mood - in fact, exercises is an effective way to snap out of a funk.•Also, having few clothing choices made me feel happier. Although people believe they like to have lots of choice, in fact, having too many choices can be discouraging. Instead of making people feel more satisfied, a wide range of options can paralyze them.•I'd been self-righteously telling myself that I did certain chores or made certain efforts "for Jamie" or "for the team." Though this sounded generous, it led to a bad result, because I sulked when Jamie didn't appreciate my efforts. Instead, I started to tell myself, "I'm doing this for myself. This is what I want."•Perhaps because men have this low standard for what qualifies as intimacy, both men and women find relationships with women to be more enjoyable than those with men. In fact, for both men and women, the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference.•Learning that men and women both turn to women for understanding showed me that Jamie wasn't ignoring me out of lack of interest or affection; he just wasn't good at giving that kind of support.•I've never forgotten something I read in college, by Pierre Reverdy: "There is no love; there are only proofs of love." Whatever love I might feel in my heart, others will see only my actions.•"Feeling right" is about living the life that's right for you - in occupation, location, marital status, and so on.•When thinking about happiness in marriage, you may have an almost irresistible impulse to focus on your spouse, to emphasize how he or she should change in order to boost your happiness. But the fact is, you can't change anyone but yourself.•"Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity." (Auden)•Studies show that people tend to persevere longer with problems they've been told are difficult as opposed to easy.•In fact, researchers reported that out of fifteen daily activities, they found only one during which people were happier alone rather than with other people - and that was praying.•Studies show that because of this psychological phenomenon, people unintentionally transfer to me the traits I ascribe to other people. So if I tell Jean that Pat is arrogant, unconsciously Jean associates that quality with me...What I say about other people sticks to me - even when I talk to someone who already knows me.•I'd noticed idly that a lot of people use the term "goal" instead of "resolution," and one day in December, it struck me that the difference was in fact significant. You hit a goal, you keep a resolution.Needless to say, I identified with a lot of what she wrote. I loved the book. Rubin also has a website where you can download examples of her resolution charts.Highly recommend.

I love this book, but then I don’t.Like all other reviews: I agree, the book comes from a very privileged standpoint: The author’s idea of a “catastrophe” consisted of her credit card getting canceled and now she has to re-subscribe to amazon prime (she stated this herself). Yes... I know... ‘first world problems’.Whereas other people have to endure true hardships such as racism, poverty, inequality, this author is complaining about finding the perfect cake for her mother’s birthday.However I was able to look past some of those *cringe-worthy* privilege moments and take bits and pieces from this book to incorporate into my own life. I think it’s important to think of this book as a blueprint, and you will need to personalize it to fit your own needs. She addresses several important topics involving happiness that I was unaware of before: The “Arrival Fallacy” which is the belief that you will be happier as soon as you reach a certain goal. I have used this fallacy in my own life on several different occasions: “I know I’ll be happier as soon as I graduate/ get married/have kids”.She also summarizes several happiness research studies that were very insightful. She explained that researched showed, when it comes to determining ones’ happiness, roughly 50% is genetic makeup, life circumstances (such as sex,race, income, health) account for about 10%, and then other 40% is a product of how a person thinks and acts. This gave me hope.Again, i think you will enjoy this book if you look at it as an blueprint, but not the official foundation to what will work in your life.

This is one of the best book ever ❤

If you are married with kids then you can relate, if not, it's hard to follow along with this project. Particularly, if not having family and kids in your life is the cause of your unhappiness.

I have to admit that after reading one or two of the reviews of this book I started reading with a preconceived notion that the author was just another writer who was "jumping on the band wagon" of the self help, how-to-be-happy genre. I'm happy to report that I was wrong. This is a fabulous book with A LOT of content. I particularly enjoyed Gretchen's willingness to admit her failures as well as her successes, and to present her family warts and all.Will this book make you happy? It very well might help you along the road. Your life will be different to Gretchen's, as mine is, but the lessons are very easy to pick out and there's a lot of supporting material on-line from the author's blog and other sites. You'll be glad to know there is no on-line course or seminar to attend at the end of the book, so you can rest easy. There is an on-line community to engage with if you find yourself wanting to take things further.Gretchen is clearly a successful and professional individual and a talented writer. The book is well organized, well structured, and very well written. It's an easy read, but is packed with info, and is great on detail. I'm glad I read it, and happy I was wrong in my initial impressions. :-)

I bought this book on a recommendation. I’m an avid and fast reader of many types of books but I found this one to be a slog. There’s many, many quotes by famous thinkers in history peppered throughout - especially Samuel Johnson which is fine but seemed to be used to excess at times.The positives: it’s no surprise that there are some useful tips to take on board within these pages. They may well lead you to be more mindful and focussed on your personal growth. It’s obvious the author has done extensive research and has a passionate interest in this field too.The negatives: I realise this was an experiment by the author but I found it to be really self indulgent on her behalf. I imagine she’s not an easy person to be around! Also a lot of her tips seemed fairly obvious to me. I read fast but this book seemed to take me an age to get through - I just felt quite disengaged by it.As I mentioned there are some useful tips like the personal commandments and the resolutions chart but I was expecting better (based on the reviews) but thought it a little dull. I’m glad I’ve finished it!

Trite. I ended up skim-reading most of it because it was just not worth my time. This Upper East Side (read: wealthy New Yorker) mum of two's year-long project to increase her happiness is utterly disappointing. The concept is great, but her personal approach to and journey towards happiness are not only uninspiring, they are potentially harmful. I have a lot in common with Ms Rubin - perfectionism, countless project ideas, and a desire to catalog every moment of life resulting in enormous amounts of files, lists, scrapbooks, memory boxes etc. The perfectionism, attachment, and obsessiveness which feed into this, are things which many people - myself included - are trying to COUNTER as part of self-improvement. Ms Rubin, on the other hand, massively expands her to-do-lists, cataloging, and ongoing project commitments because in her head happiness is bred by success which is bred by productivity. There are far far wiser people out there - I thoroughly enjoyed Authentic Happiness, Flow, and Learned Optimism. (on a different note, Rubin's biography of Winston Churchill is 5*).

This book was our choice for June's bookclub and I wasn't too excited after our last self-help book was rubbish. But wow, I loved this so much. I identified with so much of what she was saying so it was really interesting to examine some of my character traits and give so much brainpower to exploring my own happiness. The book ends with a helpful list of resources if you're interested in creating your own happiness project, so don't just stop when the main story ends!Based on Gretchen's approach, I've been able to give some real thought into organising my own goals and resolutions and how I can take my random "oh I wish I loved going to the gym" and "I always wanted to try pottery" thoughts and rephrase and coordinate them a proper, actionable plan. The July/August chart is now stuck to the fridge. Let's see if I can make it the whole year!