The Happiness Equation – Neil Pasricha
90% of our happiness isn’t based on what’s happening in the world! It’s based on how we see the world.
I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet
#4 Never Retire
Remember that retirement is not always the key to happiness. It’s more important that you remember your ikigai (the reason for waking up in the morning) and remain active for the rest of your life.
In a week, you have a total of 168 hours; divide it into 3 buckets of 56 hours each. 1st bucket is for sleep (8 hours/ day), the next 56 hours is for your work life, and the remaining time is your purpose work which will make you happy.
#8 Be YOU
Be yourself! The Authentic YOU! The most important thing in life is your relationship with yourself, not with another person.
You can’t be yourself until you have a high opinion of yourself and others.
What do you do on a Saturday morning when you have nothing to do?
Your authentic self should go toward that.
Motivation doesn’t cause action.
Action causes motivation.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
To be happy now
- Three Walks: half an hour walk three times a week.
- The 20-minute replay: Imagine a past happy moment, revisit the event.
- Random Acts of Kindness
- A complete Unplug (from the digital world)
- Hit Flow: Set your work in such a way that the difficulty of it just exceeds your current skill level.
- 2 minutes Meditations: Just observe your breath for 2 minutes
- Five Gratitudes
#2 Do It for You
Everything that you do, you should do it for you or for your happiness (sometimes helping others also give happiness to us)
Don’t set goals. Because if you set goals and then achieve them, you set another one and fall into a trap of endless goals.
So, try to do the small things that will improve your life and find happiness in each moment.
#1 Be Happy Now
It’s important that you start from a place of happiness and participate in the activities just because you are enjoying them.
The single biggest reason it’s so hard to be happy Shakespeare says, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” But if it’s just thinking, plain thinking, why can’t we think ourselves into a good mood whenever we want? Seems like we should be able to just flip a mental switch.
There is nothing more satisfying than being loved for who you are and nothing more painful than being loved for who you’re not but pretending to be.
It’s not necessarily the reality that shapes us but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any.
#5 Overvalue You
The way you spend your time is more important than how much money you earn in a week or month.
Money is not the key to happiness, but it is needed to go through life, just like you need fuel for your car to go from one destination to another. Money is just that fuel in life.
#3 Remember The Lottery
Our problem-scanning machine spends its day looking for worries. It’s helpful when you’re in serious trouble, but stressful when you’re not. On top of that, we’re living in a culture of more versus a culture of enough. Everywhere we look, we are reminded of what else we need. You can move to a shack in the woods to get away from it all! but we’d miss you too much there. Please don’t do that.
Always remember how lucky you are to be where you are. Remember, you have enough! Remember, more isn’t always better.
Remember the lottery.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same…
#6 Create Space
In order to reduce stress in your life and enjoy the things that really matter, you have to give yourself enough time and ensure that you have less to choose from.
- Automate the tasks that have low importance and take less time.
- The tasks that have high importance but take less time – just do those tasks then!
- Regulate or set time for those tasks that are less important but take more time.
- Those tasks which have high importance and take a long time – discuss it with someone.
#7 Just Do it
It’s important that you break the barriers to do the things you love most, but it seems scary to you.
Just try this cycle: Just do that task; then it will feel like something you can do; then you will feel like doing it again; then do the task…
#9 Don’t Take Advice
Be confident in your thoughts and emotions, ensuring that you don’t live a life based on others’ opinions.
You make up your own mind. My advice is to become creatively indifferent to all advice. Hear it, but decide what to do yourself.
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