10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris

Top 10 Practices for Resetting Your Time, Space, Body, Inner Critic, and Social Life | Laurie Santos and Gretchen Rubin

September 9, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

On a recent episode of 10% Happier, Dan Harris brought together two of his favorite recurring guests—psychologist Laurie Santos and author Gretchen Rubin—to tackle a universal problem: feeling stuck. Harris opened the conversation by confessing he was in the thick of it himself, dealing with a stalled creative project. The episode, built around a top-ten list, offered a set of practical, evidence-backed strategies for breaking out of ruts, whether they last an afternoon or a season of life.

Know What’s Actually Keeping You Stuck

The first step, Santos argued, is recognizing that your instincts about how to get unstuck are often wrong. “Our minds lie to us about the types of things that make us happy,” she said. When you feel stuck, the brain’s go-to moves—binge-watching TV, overeating, slamming the dishwasher—usually make things worse. Acknowledging that your intuition is misleading you opens the door to healthier strategies.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:47) **Two Happiness Experts on Getting Unstuck** - Dan Harris introduces guests Gretchen Rubin (author, *The Happiness Project*) and Dr. Laurie Santos (Yale psychology professor, host of *The Happiness Lab*) for a top-ten list of strategies to overcome feeling stuck, drifting, or doubting yourself.
  • 2 (01:44) **#1: Know What Is Actually Keeping You Stuck** - Laurie and Gretchen explain how to diagnose the real source of stuckness, whether it's misleading intuitions or the phenomenon of "drift."
  • 3 (07:57) **#2: Practice Self-Compassion First** - Laurie breaks down Kristin Neff's three-part model of self-compassion (mindfulness, common humanity, self-kindness) as the foundational tool for getting unstuck.
  • 4 (19:52) **#3: Know Your "Four Tendencies"** - Gretchen introduces her framework for understanding how people respond to inner and outer expectations, which can reveal why you get stuck and how to get unstuck.
  • 5 (26:06) **#4: Clear Your Physical Space** - Gretchen and Laurie explain why outer order contributes to inner calm, focus, and a sense of agency, with a crucial warning against using it as procrastination.
  • 6 (30:38) **#5: Reclaim Your Time** - Laurie explains the concept of "time affluence" vs. "time famine" and offers science-backed hacks to feel more in control of your schedule.
  • 7 (35:55) **#6: Engage Your Senses** - Gretchen and Laurie explain how deliberately using the five senses can snap you out of rumination and connect you to the present moment.

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Guests on this episode

Gretchen Rubin Dan Harris

Show Notes

How to understand your tendencies and identify what's keeping you stuck. Plus: advice on treating resistance as data, reclaiming time affluence, and avoiding "procrasticlearing."

Laurie Santos is the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University. In addition to her work on the evolutionary origins of human cognition, Laurie is an expert on the science of happiness and the ways in which our minds lie to us about what makes us happy. Her podcast, The Happiness Lab, is a top-3 Apple podcast which has attracted 150+ million downloads since its launch.

Gretchen Rubin is one of today's most influential and thought-provoking observers of happiness and human nature. She's the author of many bestselling books, such as The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, The Four Tendencies, and Life in Five Senses which have sold millions of copies in more than thirty languages. Her most recent book is Secrets of Adulthood. She's also host of the popular podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin.

In this episode we talk about:

  • Why your intuitions often make stuckness worse, not better
  • The difference between mindless drift and mindful, deliberate delay
  • How to treat resistance as useful data instead of laziness
  • Kristin Neff's three-part framework for practicing real self-compassion
  • Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies and how they shape what gets you unstuck
  • Why clearing physical space creates a felt sense of agency
  • The "liking gap" and why reaching out matters more than you think
  • How to satisfice instead of optimize when a decision feels stuck

Related Episodes:

  • Past appearances of Gretchen and Laurie

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This episode is sponsored by:
Rosetta Stone: Visit rosettastone.com/happier to redeem your 20% off Rosetta Stone Sapphire.

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