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Feelings follow actions. If I'm feeling low, I deliberately act cheery, and I find myself actually feeling happier. If I'm feeling angry at someone, I do something thoughtful for her and my feelings toward her soften. This strategy is uncannily effective.

Gretchen Rubin

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Gretchen Rubin
Age: 58
Born: 1965
Born: December 14
Author
Blogger
Motivational Speaker
Kansas City
Missouri
Gretchen Craft Rubin
Thoughtful
Feeling
Effective
Actually
Strategy
Action
Lows
Feelings
Actions
Cheery
Someone
Soften
Find
Angry
Deliberately
Something
Toward
Happier
Follow

More quotes by Gretchen Rubin

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Your unhappiness doesn't help anyone else - and in fact, as I mentioned in another answer, happy people are more altruistically inclined. So happiness is not a selfish goal.
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Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.
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Happy people make people happy, but I can’t make someone be happy, and no one else can make me happy.
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Say “no” only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.
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Guard your children's free time - from you.
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Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn’t-fair results, it turns out that the happy out-perform the less happy.
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Enthusiasm is more important than innate ability, it turns out, because the single more important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.
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It's about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.
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... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
Gretchen Rubin
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Self-knowledge makes me happy.
Gretchen Rubin
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When I find myself focusing overmuch on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to 'Enjoy now'. If I can enjoy the present, I don't need to count on the happiness that is (or isn't) waiting for me in the future.
Gretchen Rubin
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Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep your mind engaged with your project. When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.
Gretchen Rubin
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Some kind of clutter is difficult - letting go of things with sentimental value, sifting through papers - but some clutter I find very refreshing to clear. I drive my daughters nuts because I'm always wandering into their rooms to clear clutter.
Gretchen Rubin
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Enthusiasm is more important to mastery than innate ability.
Gretchen Rubin
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Writing makes me happy.
Gretchen Rubin
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Turn off your email turn off your phone disconnect from the Internet figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master.
Gretchen Rubin
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We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, were free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.
Gretchen Rubin
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Money. It's a good servant but a bad master.
Gretchen Rubin
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One of the great joys of falling in love is the feeling that the most extraordinary person in the entire world has chosen you.
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I'm a person who's fine saying 'No.' I like saying to myself, no gossiping, no nagging.
Gretchen Rubin