Author Gretchen Rubin spent a year examining how to become happier in her everyday life by making resolutions to improve different areas in small ways each month—a practice she calls a “happiness project.” She explains how you can create your own happiness project, a year-long quest to add more joy and gratitude to your life by enhancing your everyday life in small ways. In doing so, you’ll live up to your potential, spend less time dwelling on negativity and setbacks, and boost the happiness of those around you.
Going into your project, focus on four concepts:
We’ll go through one year of a happiness project, focusing each month on a different aspect of your life and happiness-boosting resolutions you can make. Everyone’s happiness project is unique, so use this as a guide for getting started.
Focusing on your energy—both physical and mental—is a vital starting point because the more energy you have, the more motivated you’ll be to stick with your long-term project.
Boost your physical energy in two key ways:
Your surroundings have a strong bearing on your attitude, feelings of calm, and energy. Boost your mental energy in two ways:.
Your relationship, and its happiness, touches all aspects of your life. There are four significant ways you can increase happiness in your relationship.
Nagging doesn’t make your partner do what you want—it just creates resentment for both parties. On the other hand, not nagging maintains a pleasant mood between you. To achieve this:
When you expect someone’s praise or acknowledgment and don’t get it, you’re likely to end up feeling resentful. To avoid this, stop expecting praise.
Relationship conflicts are inevitable. Common-sense keys to handling them constructively include: not bringing up issues from the past, avoiding absolutes (“never” and “always”), taking breaks from arguments, and recognizing what might be affecting your partner’s mood.
Additionally, keep communication positive by not unloading minor problems, irritations, or insecurities on your partner. Moods are contagious in relationships—when you approach your partner with gripes and negativity, they’ll mirror your emotions. Instead, consider how a complaint could be said more positively—or if it needs to be said at all.
Though you might feel love, it won’t matter unless your partner sees it in actions that demonstrate love and appreciation. The most effective way to show someone that you care is to emulate the actions that they use to show love and care. For example, if your spouse always throws big parties for his friends’ milestones, help his friends organize a party for his birthday.
Happiness at work is crucial to life satisfaction because you spend so much of your life there, and it can be a regular source of fulfillment, growth, socializing, and recognition.
Enthusiasm for your work drives you to master your skills, which gives you a competitive advantage over others. To find the type of work you enjoy, ask yourself what you do in your free time. Consider the free-time activities you genuinely like and put aside those you pretend to enjoy because they seem prestigious or successful.
Once you’re in the right work, you can focus more on enhancing your fulfillment and creativity by leaving your comfort zone. There are three ways to meaningfully accomplish this.
This month, focus on the overall happy experience of parenting and let the smaller negative moments slide. Your children won’t stay children forever, so the time to maximize your home’s happiness is now. There are a few ways to accomplish this.
It’s tempting to stop your kids from messing around or raise your voice when dealing with unpleasant or stressful tasks. If you find ways to lighten up these moments, everyone—including you—will be happier.
Furthermore, try to acknowledge your children’s emotions instead of contradicting them. Repeat their emotions back to them, so they know they’ve been heard. For example, instead of saying, “You don’t hate your coat,” try, “You don’t want to take off your princess dress to put on your coat. But you have to if you want to play outside.”
You can create more happy memories for yourself and your children if you engage more fully in the now by not rushing projects, and consider the future by preserving happy memories.
In our busy, ambitious lives, it’s easy to either forget about play or only engage in play that feels productive in some way. This month, resolve to do more activities purely for fun—not for the sake of productivity. There are two methods to add more fun to your life.
It’s possible that like many people, you participate in activities that you think you should enjoy instead of activities you actually enjoy. There are three parts to having more genuine fun.
Many people shut down goofiness when they’re trying to be efficient—even when there’s no need for efficiency, such as bathtime or Saturday morning breakfast. When you catch yourself shutting down play in the interest of unnecessary efficiency, ask yourself: Does this need to be done now? Can we spare a moment to be goofy? Taking a minute to joke around stops you from nagging or arguing, boosting everyone’s mood.
Friendship and social bonds are well-known contributors to overall happiness and life satisfaction. Two meaningful exercises make friendships stronger and happier.
The work of maintaining friendship is easily pushed aside in the context of everyday life. Make an effort to stay in touch and show up for your friends.
Being generous toward your friends often gives you just as much happiness as it gives them, so practice generosity of spirit. Some ways to cultivate a generous spirit include: encouraging your friends to pursue their goals; helping your friends make connections with others; helping your friends in ways that are enjoyable to you, such as gardening or résumé editing; and remembering to consider external factors that might be affecting your friends’ actions or attitude.
The key to a happy relationship with money is spending your money in meaningful ways that make you feel good and contribute to your growth.
Indulge in small, meaningful splurges. Everyone’s idea of “meaningful” splurging is different.
One of the most important factors to indulging in splurges is rarity. If you indulge too frequently in something, you get used to it and it no longer feels like a treat.
Most people are either underbuyers—who only shop when they’ve run out of necessities like toilet paper—or overbuyers—who buy and waste huge supplies of possible needs like allergy medicine. No matter which type of buyer you are, simply buying what you need can make you happier and less stressed. Underbuyers can stock up on items they’re always running out of, and overbuyers can cut back on unnecessary or wasteful purchases.
Another simple way to increase your happiness is to stop hoarding material things for “someday.” First, because “someday” might never come—you might lose the item, or you could pass away before enjoying it. Second, not using something is just as wasteful as directly throwing it out. Seek out ways to use the “good” dishes or use up your fancy stationery.
Cut spending that feels bad out of your life. For example, feel-bad spending might include buying cigarettes or ordering takeout every night. Keep in mind that not all spending is monetary—cut out unfulfilling ways you’re spending your time, such as reading Facebook comments, sleeping in late, or putting effort into a one-sided friendship.
This month’s practices will help you cultivate gratitude for your everyday life. There are two significant ways to cultivate this deeper happiness.
Major life changes and catastrophes can happen to anyone, at any time. Reflect on how good your current reality is and recognize how you take it for granted.
You can become more disciplined in your happiness journey by finding a “spiritual guide” to look up to. This guide can be anyone who speaks to you—a writer such as Thoreau, an artist such as Monet, a religious figure like St. Francis, and so on. Your guide doesn’t have to be famous—they just need to have virtues that you seek to achieve yourself. Having someone to emulate helps you stick with the hard work of happiness.
As with leisure, this month is about focusing on activities you genuinely enjoy. However, this month isn’t focused on simply having fun—it’s focused on growth.
Set an ambitious goal to take an all-in approach to your passion. For example, you might write an entire novel by the end of the month, or complete your website in a week. Having a clear goal helps you grow in your passion in three ways.
Ambitious goals feel less overwhelming when you remember that you determine how you pursue them.
Cultivating mindfulness engages you more fully in your life and helps you break happiness-draining habits. There are two ways to cultivate mindfulness.
Everyone adopts “rules” throughout their lives that help them make decisions and find solutions to problems. These rules might look like, “My children are my first priority,” or, “Never go to bed angry.” Occasionally question your rules instead of acting on autopilot and applying them indiscriminately. Ask yourself: Are my rules true and helpful? Are they creating unhappiness?
Changing your behaviors can awaken dormant parts of your mind, interrupting your brain’s tendency to run on autopilot. There are several ways to accomplish this.
This month, we’ll focus on how to keep your mindset cheerful and positive. There are four methods to become more cheerful, content, and pleasant toward others.
Laughter, of course, makes you happy—and sharing in your laughter makes others happy. You can easily find more occasions to share laughter. For starters, focus on really listening to others and indulging in their attempts to make you laugh; forcing laughter if you need to, such as when your child is telling you the same joke for the 50th time; and laughing at yourself.
We often skip over politeness because we’re too caught up in our own stresses. To work against this, be on the lookout for small matters where you can be more considerate of others.
Expressing positivity lifts others’ moods and helps them feel positive as well. There are three ways to commit yourself to searching for positivity.
Of course, it’s not possible to avoid everything negative in your life, so it’s important to create a mental escape that helps you avoid ruminating on negative experiences.
This month is the “boot camp” of the happiness project—each day, try to stick with all of your resolutions, from boosting your energy to practicing politeness. You likely won’t be able to keep up with all of your resolutions at all times, and that’s okay. Resolutions are meant to be worked on every day—if you fall short on them one day, the next day is an opportunity to try again.
Hopefully, this month will reveal that overall you’re happier with your everyday life. Even your bad days have good points, you live more vividly within the present, and your bonds with others are stronger than ever. You’ve found that happiness is accessible to anyone—and you can continue yours by sticking to your resolutions or making new happiness resolutions for the new year. You simply need to be ready to embrace the discomfort (and opportunity) of growth, get to know yourself and what’s right for you, and commit to the hard work of happiness.
Author Gretchen Rubin spent a year examining how to become happier in her everyday life, by making resolutions to improve different areas of her life in small ways each month—a practice she calls a “happiness project.” She explains how you can create your own happiness project, a journey to become happier in your everyday life by focusing on happiness that already exists in your life. You don’t need to be unhappy to start a happiness project—it’s for anyone who wants to appreciate the joys of their life a little more. Choosing to boost your happiness comes with a number of benefits:
There are two main principles to keep in mind as you move through this book, explore Gretchen Rubin’s personal happiness project, and make plans to build your own happiness project.
There are a number of key ideas to keep in mind throughout your happiness project—commandments that will keep you on track, mantras that will help you commit to the work of happiness, and truths that should help determine your focus.
Rubin suggests coming up with your “Ten Commandments.” These are your personal values that will help you stay on track when your resolutions feel insurmountable or you feel tempted to give up on your commitment to your project. Your commandments might include ideas such as be yourself; enjoy the process; do the right thing; be polite; don’t keep score; and so on.
Mantras will help you commit to risks, act in line with who you really are, and remember what all your work is for.
Rubin has four “splendid truths” about happiness that help you understand what happiness is—which can inform how you come up with your own resolutions and shape your happiness project.
1) Happiness relies on an understanding of what makes you feel good, what makes you feel bad, what makes you feel “right,” and pursuit of growth. While it’s common sense that you want to do more of what feels good and less of what feels bad, you also need to make sure what you’re doing feels right for you. For example, you might enjoy your teaching career, but you might find that a writing career is what’s right for you.
Furthermore, humans need to grow in order to bring purpose to their lives. This is because we adapt very quickly to our surroundings—when we attain something we want, the happiness of the item wears off quickly as we adapt to its presence. We become bored and dissatisfied once again. Finding new ways to grow within your life—such as working on ongoing projects, mastering skills, and striving for recognition—breaks that cycle.
2) Making other people happy is one of the best ways to make yourself happy—and when you’re happy, you naturally make others happy. In this way, creating happiness is a cycle that naturally furthers itself. This means that striving for personal happiness isn’t as selfish as it seems because you’re also spreading happiness to others and improving their lives by doing so.
3) Your days might drag on, but your years will fly by. Focus your happiness project on finding more ways to enjoy the everyday events of your life—they become a forgotten memory of the past much quicker than you think.
4) Your happiness depends less on your circumstances than on how you perceive those circumstances. If you think you’re happy, it’s likely that you are. If you believe you’re unhappy, it’s likely that you’ll be unhappy. This is why questioning your happiness in different parts of your life and finding ways to find more happiness is important. It helps you discover the many ways that you are happy and urges you to invest time in the things that need a boost.
The happiness project is broken down into months—first, because it’s easier to stick with goals when they’re broken down into specific actions, and second, because having your resolutions “scheduled” serves as a constant reminder for your unconscious mind to latch onto. We’ll go through a one-year project, each month focusing on a new area in your life where you can adopt new behaviors and explore ways to make the happiness project your own.
Thinking about what you want to do more of and less of, as well as what feels like “growth” for you, can help you build a strong foundation for your happiness project.
What behaviors make you feel good in your life—that is, what do you want to do more of because it makes you happy?
What behaviors feel right to you—that is, what makes you feel fulfilled and helps you grow?
What behaviors make you feel bad—that is what, do you want to do less of?
Describe what “growth” feels like to you. (For example, mastering a new skill, making a new friend, or failing at something new.)
To kick off your happiness project, focus on bringing more energy into your life. This is a vital starting point because resolutions and long-term projects are often hard to maintain—the more energy you have, the more motivated you’ll be to stick with your plans and goals. Additionally, boosting your energy starts a positive cycle. Having energy allows you to take part in things that foster happiness—such as social events or your hobbies—and increases your self-esteem, and taking part in happiness-fostering, self-esteem boosting events give you more energy in return.
There are two types of energy to address this month—your physical energy and your mental energy. First, we’ll discuss ways to increase your physical energy, which will give you the push you need to work on getting your mental energy in order.
Improving your physical energy is a good starting point for your happiness project. Happiness is an overwhelming and intangible goal, but small steps toward simply being physically healthier are tangible and achievable—naturally increasing your willingness to pursue the goal of happiness. There are two important steps to increasing your physical energy: getting better sleep and exercising more.
Most people don’t get the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep per night. While you may be used to feeling sleepy, your body still suffers the physical and mental effects, such as impaired memory, a slow metabolism, and a weak immune system. Getting more sleep can combat these effects, in addition to cutting your afternoon crash and making you less irritable.
There are two main reasons that you might not be getting enough sleep or often stay up far later than you should.
There are three effective ways to train your brain to get to sleep earlier.
Good sleep is a difficult commitment—there will always be more “urgent” matters. But, as it’s the foundation for your mood and energy throughout your happiness project, it’s worth the effort. Try putting reminders of your good-sleep resolution around your home, and set an alarm for your bedtime.
Besides helping you get better sleep, exercise comes with myriad benefits such as improved mental clarity, lower risk of dementia, and boosted energy. However, 25% of Americans don’t get any exercise—even though it takes just a bit to see results. Studies show that just 20 minutes of exercise three days a week improved the energy levels of chronically tired people.
There are several simple ways to start—and stick to—exercise routines.
Once your physical energy is ramping up, focus on tasks that will enhance your mental energy: tidying up and clearing away your mental clutter.
Your surroundings affect your attitude, calmness, and energy. Clutter in your home drains your energy, while eliminating clutter in favor of useful, well-liked things is energizing because it:
Don’t look at your whole house at once—this will make the task feel insurmountable. Instead, pick one place to start—such as your bedroom closet, the dining room table, or the kids’ playroom—and take stock of your clutter. To clearly see what needs to be eliminated, understand that “clutter” takes many forms.
For each of your decluttering tasks, set up three piles: throw away, give away, and keep. Then, assign your items to one of these piles.
Be ruthless. Once you’ve made your obvious throw-away and give-away choices, things become a bit trickier—you’ll now have to consciously work against your rationale for keeping unnecessary things. Ask yourself: Do I have a specific plan for using this item within the next month? If not, give it away. If you say, “I would or could use this…” that indicates that it’s not something you use. If you say, “I have used this…” it means it’s not in regular use. Give it away.
One of the most difficult parts of getting rid of clutter is maintaining a clutter-free home, but you can stay on top of it by effectively identifying the problems and setting up daily decluttering rituals.
Identifying the problems: If you’re having a recurring clutter problem, think about the root problem of the clutter—this will naturally lead you toward solutions. For example, if you’re constantly picking up shoes all over the first floor of your house the problem is likely that there’s no convenient place to put them. Put a shoe rack by the front and back doors.
Set up daily decluttering rituals. Putting two daily rules in place will help make sure that your space doesn’t become overrun with clutter again. First is the one-minute rule—if a task can be accomplished in one minute, such as putting away clean dishes, do it right away. Second is the before bed ritual—spend ten minutes before bed tidying up your space. Not only does this create a happier and less stressful environment to wake up to, but it’s also a calming physical activity that primes you for good sleep.
Tried and True Decluttering Tips
Rubin’s blog readers offered their best solutions for keeping their homes free of clutter—they may help you stick to your clear space resolutions, too.
- When you’re deciding where to start decluttering, focus on the places you’re most likely to dump all your stuff—such as the entryway, That Chair in your bedroom, or the dining room table.
- When you buy a new electronic device, put all its parts into a labeled Ziploc bag—this way, you can always find the right accessories when you need them, you don’t end up with a box of mystery cords, and if you get rid of the item in question you ensure that you get rid of all of it.
- Pretend you’re packing for a move. Walk around your space and ask yourself, “Would I pack this up and move it with me?” If not, give it away.
You need to take your mental clutter out alongside the physical clutter. This means confronting your list of incomplete tasks that makes you feel overwhelmed and guilty whenever you think about it.
While putting off tasks for “later” feels easy in the moment, tackling them is vital to your happiness because constantly thinking of your to-do list is a huge drain on your mental energy. Letting these tasks nag at you doesn’t make sense because many of them—such as sending an email or asking for a favor—aren’t particularly time-consuming. The mental space you allow them to occupy is disproportionate to their size or difficulty. There are two steps to clearing out this unnecessary mental clutter.
Throughout this process, practice acceptance of how tasks tend to multiply.
Lastly, though this month will help you boost your energy levels, you won’t always feel energetic. To give your physical and mental energy levels a pick-me-up, commit to acting with energy whether you feel energized or not. For you, this could look like taking a 15-minute walk in the middle of the workday, or putting more energy into your voice when talking to students. Or, when you’re playing with your children, come up with games that demand energy from you—such as tag or coming up with a play—instead of looking for ways to play with them in the least exhausting way possible.
Rubin finds that simply acting as if you have energy can be a real energy booster.
Describe an activity where you frequently feel sapped of energy. (For example, cold-calling prospective clients, or having a tea party with your children yet again.)
How did your lack of energy drive you to act in this situation? (For example, you barely listened to the client on the line, or you made up a role in the tea party that let you lie down the entire time.)
How can you act with energy the next time you’re in this situation? (For example, you’ll ask clients engaging follow-up questions, or play the “jester” during the tea party.)
A simple way to start boosting your mental energy is clearing energy-draining clutter out of your home.
What types of clutter are most common in your home? (For example, you have a closet full of worn-out clothing, or your front hallway is overrun with documents and cords.)
Think about the root of the problem. Why do you think you keep accumulating this type of clutter? (For example, you’re keeping “bad” clothes just in case of messy activities like painting, or you don’t have a good system for document organization.)
What solutions can you think of to combat your clutter? (For example, you keep two “bad” outfits and turn the rest into rags, or you put up a bulletin board and mail sorter by your front door.)
In the second month of your project, focus on the happiness of your relationship. Even if you have a strong relationship, you can always find ways to make it even stronger and happier. Strong, happy relationships contribute to overall happiness and life satisfaction by giving you the companionship and support that you need through day-to-day and major life events.
Like anyone, both you and your partner are a combination of wonderful qualities and irritating habits. This month, we’ll discuss ways to focus more on your partner’s good qualities and contributions and focus less on what irritates you. This will improve your relationship because you can’t change who your partner is and can’t argue their irritating habits out of them. Focusing instead on your partner’s good qualities makes their irritating habits more tolerable and naturally decreases bickering.
First, we’ll focus on how to avoid negativity when it comes to household tasks, and then we’ll discuss how to better communicate with and show appreciation for your partner.
Household tasks are a source of much bickering in long-term relationships. There are two significant ways to cut down on these negative feelings: Stop nagging and don’t expect acknowledgment.
Nagging is a tempting habit because it feels that if you do it just enough, your partner will start automatically doing what you want—but it doesn’t work this way. It just creates resentment for both parties.
Commit to holding back whenever you want to nag. If the task at hand is time-sensitive, do it yourself. If it’s not time-sensitive, allow it to happen on your partner’s timeline. This will very likely be uncomfortable for you, and you may feel a bit resentful at the beginning if you need to do tasks yourself or tasks aren’t getting done when you want. But Rubin’s experience reveals that the overall pleasant mood that’s maintained in the absence of nagging far outweighs the initial discomfort of holding your tongue.
If you find yourself nagging frequently, there are several ways to reframe your thinking and behaviors to avoid it.
Be sure that you’re consistently noticing how your partner does contribute. Many people significantly overestimate how much they personally contribute to group efforts. It’s likely that your partner is doing just as much housework as you, but you’re not noticing it. For example, you cook and clean the dishes every night, but don’t notice that your partner takes over cleaning the apartment top to bottom every week.
While you work on noticing what your partner does around the house, don’t expect that everything you do will be noticed and appreciated. Expecting praise and acknowledgment often creates resentment—either because you don’t get it, you don’t get as much as you think you deserve, or it’s not given in a way that’s meaningful to you. If you stop expecting praise and acknowledgment, you’ll feel less resentful.
It’s helpful to reframe your thinking—instead of doing things for others, do things for yourself. For example, while cleaning up after dinner you might tell yourself, “I’m cleaning up the kitchen tonight because I want to wake up to a clean house.” This thinking frees you from the need to be acknowledged and praised by others, and because you’re not expecting someone to react in a specific way you avoid the disappointment that comes on the heels of an underwhelming reaction.
Fair and conscientious communication keeps negative interactions and resentment in relationships to a minimum, clearing space for positive exchanges.
Conflict is natural in a long-term relationship. It’s important to approach conflict with an argumentative style that’s relatively positive. This is because humans have a negativity bias—that is, we focus much more on negative emotions and experiences than positive. It usually takes five positive interactions in a relationship to offset just one negative interaction. Having arguments in a productive, positive way keeps them from contributing to the negative interaction count. Furthermore, negative arguments can make you feel guilty or irritable which leads to more negative interactions and unhappiness.
Studies show that there are six key elements of positive and productive arguments.
Men and women tend to express intimacy differently. While women associate intimacy with face-to-face interactions, men associate intimacy with working or playing alongside their partner. Both are important shared moments, but they look and feel incredibly different. It’s possible your partner won’t engage in intimacy the same way you want to.
Having different intimacy needs than her husband, Rubin discovered the importance of building female support systems outside the relationship. These support systems give you an outlet for conversations about problems and insecurities and reduce the friction that arises when you want support that your partner isn’t able to provide.
This isn’t to say your partner is completely off the hook—at times, they should put effort into engaging in intimate chats and being the listener you want them to be. But, if your partner is regularly disengaged, take time to think about why.
Besides avoiding touchy subjects, avoid unloading trivial complaints and irritations on them. This is important because moods are contagious in relationships—when you approach your partner with a collection of gripes and negativity, they’ll naturally mirror your emotions. When you’re about to complain to your partner, think about if your complaint could be more positive—or if it needs to be said at all.
Taking this extra step to reduce the spread of unhappiness can help maintain overall positive feelings in your relationship.
The last element to strengthening your relationship is showing love, which is all too easy to forget in long-term relationships. There are two meaningful ways to consistently show your partner love: speaking their language and not taking them for granted.
How much love you feel doesn’t matter unless your partner sees it. Focus on actions that clearly show your love and appreciation. Rubin found that over time, small affirmations of affection shift interactions into a consistently loving tone. Some of these small actions might include saying “I love you” more, hugging your partner more, and sending messages just to let your partner know you’re thinking of them.
Of course, the most effective way to show people that you care is to pay attention to how they show their care—these actions are what truly mean “love” to them. For example, you may notice that your spouse loves to throw big parties for any of his friends’ big occasions, always sets a fun theme, and thinks of very personal and thoughtful gifts. For his 30th birthday, you organize a huge party with his friends. Everyone dresses as a character from his favorite film franchise, and you gift him a huge scrapbook of pictures and written memories from the past 30 years that everyone contributed to.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The 5 Love Languages for more tips on figuring out how to show your partner love in their terms.)
Many people tend to start taking their partners for granted in long-term relationships. Paying attention to the way your partner tries to engage with you or capture your attention is important to maintaining a happy relationship where everyone feels seen. There are a few ways you can actively work against your tendency to take your partner for granted:
Try a week of being as nice as possible to your partner. If you feel the need to nag or argue with your partner, try reframing your thoughts. Instead of focusing on what’s irritating you, reflect on what you love and appreciate about your partner.
When you think about your relationship and your happiness, you may think of how your partner can do more to make you happy. This month’s work shows that when you focus on your own happiness and release your partner from the full weight of being responsible for your happiness, you create a more appreciative, receptive, and loving partnership.
It’s tempting to unload all your annoyances and complaints onto your partner at the end of the day, but this can drag both of you down. Practice reframing and lightening the conversation.
What is an annoyance or complaint that you find yourself dumping on your partner frequently? (For example, your boss’s unreasonable timelines or your sister-in-law’s overuse of social media.)
How do you usually talk about this complaint to your partner? (For example, “I hate how much time Rachel spends on Facebook. Doesn’t she have anything better to do?”)
How can you reframe the way you talk about this complaint to be more positive? (For example, “Rachel posted another photo of her trip. It’s nice to see what’s going on with her.”)
Almost everyone is guilty of taking their partner or their family members for granted at some point. Spend some time remembering what makes them great.
What are some habits or qualities of your partner or family member that you love, or find endearing?
Describe a few significant ways they contribute to your relationship or your household.
How does your partner or family member like to show love? (For example, your father loves helping fix your car, or your wife loves buying you small gifts.)
How can you express your gratitude to your partner in a way that’s meaningful to them?
If you, like Rubin, find yourself in the right job at the beginning of this month, this is an opportunity to find ways to be happier at work. On the other hand, if you, like many others, don’t feel that you’re in the right line of work, spend this month focusing on the changes you can make so that you end up in the right job.
Once you’re in the right work, you can focus more on cultivating happiness at work by increasing your fulfillment, creativity, and efficiency. This is important because people who are happy at work perform better than unhappy people, for several reasons.
Furthermore, happiness at work is crucial to life satisfaction because you spend so much of your life there. If you’re not happy at work, unhappiness will naturally take up space and touch other parts of your life. However, being in a happiness-boosting job naturally gives you a regular source of fulfillment, growth, socializing, and recognition.
In this chapter, we’ll first discuss how to find the right work for you, and then explore different ways you can seek out more happiness in your work life.
Finding work that you’re enthusiastic about can be a huge boost in your professional life. Often, those who get far ahead in their professions are genuinely interested in what they do. This is because mastery of skill comes from your willingness to practice it—when you have a job that you like and willingly work to master, you gain a competitive advantage over those who are simply going through the motions of learning the work.
Finding the right work is at once simple and complicated: Just ask yourself what you do in your free time. Remember that what works for others might not work for you, and vice versa. Reflect on what activities you genuinely enjoy, and put aside activities that you’re merely pretending to enjoy because they seem prestigious or successful.
Rubin used this process to shift to her “right work.” For some time, she worked as a law clerk and liked the work enough, but didn’t spend any more time on it than was necessary. In her free time, she enjoyed working on writing books so she decided to become a writer.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of What Color Is Your Parachute? for more guidance on finding the right work for you.)
Create more happiness at work using two key parts of the happiness formula: pursuing growth and finding more ways to feel good.
Trying new things and challenging yourself at work is important to happiness for a few reasons. First, you earn the happy satisfaction that comes from tackling a new problem. Second, when you have a new experience, you have to put in extra mental effort to process it—which sparks deeper, more complex emotions and warps your sense of time to feel slower. In short, continually trying new things is an effective way to prevent your life from speeding by.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The Power of Moments to learn more about creating experiences that will enrich and slow down your life.)
Third, with each challenge you tackle, you expand your definition of who you are. The more factors that make up “you,” the less reactive you are to threats to any one factor. For example, if you get a bad review on a book, you can still be proud of your progress as a French learner. Or, if you lose your job, you can still feel good about engagement on your popular blog.
There are three ways to meaningfully leave your comfort zone at work.
Start a project that aligns with what you already like to do. This project could look like writing a new book, taking classes to help you switch careers, or starting a club. In Rubin’s case, it was to start a blog about her happiness project. Once you know what your project will be, you’re better able to articulate it to others. This jumpstarts networking with people who have the same interests and ideas as you, which naturally generates helpful advice about how to advance toward your goals.
Not only does starting a project give you a sense of accomplishment, but it also creates a cycle of challenge. The further you get into the project, the more you’ll want to learn from it—and the more life-enriching novelty you’ll get out of it. For example, once Rubin started her blog, she constantly wanted to learn new skills such as adding pictures, refining the URL, and starting a podcast.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of Radical Candor to learn more about how work-related projects can help you work toward your overarching life goals.)
When you’re growing beyond the limits of what you’re used to or what you know how to do, you’ll inevitably experience failure. There are three methods to approaching failure productively.
When you’re challenging yourself and trying new things you’ll likely come to a point where you need help—don’t be afraid to ask for it. While “asking for help” might look different for everyone, one effective method is to form a group of people who are working towards similar goals. This gives you a safe place to put forth ideas, get feedback, and ask for advice.
Pulling together a group you can lean on for help has social benefits that touch other parts of your life as well.
Along with finding opportunities for challenge, focus on changing your mindset in ways that will make you consistently feel more productive and calm.
The best way to structure your day as productively as possible is to examine what you’re already doing. This can help you find places where you might be wasting time, identify distractions, or even find that your workflow looks nothing like you imagine it does. There are two ways to better structure your workday, without drastically changing it.
One of the most important—but most difficult—ways to be happier in your work is to appreciate and enjoy where you are now instead of constantly looking at the future. Many of us fall victim to the “arrival fallacy”—the idea that when you “arrive” at an imagined destination, you’ll be happy. But, once you arrive, you’re not nearly as happy as you thought you’d be, for three reasons:
It’s possible to work against the arrival fallacy if you remember that your growth and current challenges are just as important to your happiness as the destination. This line of thinking creates a sort of “protection,” in two ways:
Many people think that ambition and happiness can’t coexist—if you’re happy, you must be at the end of your ambition and if you’re ambitious, you can’t be happy where you are. There’s not a conclusive scientific response to this—some studies show that discontent leads to higher ambitions, while other studies suggest that happy people can think in complex, interesting ways that push them to the top.
In Rubin’s experience, being happy allowed her to be more receptive to criticism and failure, pushed her to take risks, and drove her to ask others for help—whereas being unhappy often made her defensive, afraid to ask for help, and self-limiting. It’s unclear how ambition and happiness directly feed one another, but it’s safe to say that happiness is important as it allows you to act in ways that open us up to advancement, ambitious actions, and important connections.
Because you spend so much of your life at work, being in a job that feels right for you is an important step in your happiness journey.
What about your current job feels unfulfilling for you? (For example, there’s not enough contact with other people, or you’d prefer working with your hands to working on a computer.)
What do you enjoy doing in your free time? (For example, trying new restaurants, journaling, gardening, and so on.)
How might you create work that feels right for you out of your free time activities? (For example, you might write articles for food magazines, or start a small gardening business.)
When you examine your workday, you’ll likely find small ways to streamline it and make it more enjoyable.
Describe what you think your workday should look like.
What patterns have you noticed about your productivity? That is, what does your workday actually look like? (For example, you work best in the late afternoon, or you always get distracted for at least 30 minutes if the phone rings.)
What tweaks can you make to your workflow to work with your productivity patterns? (For example, you do emails in the morning and save your deep-thought work for the afternoon. Or, you wear noise-canceling headphones so you don’t hear the phone ring.)
Raising children is a lot of work and certainly isn’t all wonderful moments, but it does produce happiness nonetheless. Much of parenting involves what Rubin calls “fog happiness”—a surrounding happiness that you can see and feel, but seems to disappear when examined closely.
This month’s resolutions minimize negative in-the-moment feelings and help you focus on the overall happy experience of parenting. This is important because your children won’t stay children forever—the time to maximize the happiness of your home is now.
There are a few ways to put more happiness into your parenting. First, we’ll discuss how to work on your communication with your children and then we’ll explore the different ways you can make more happy memories.
You won’t always be joyful when you’re talking to your children—but changing the way you speak in subtle ways will make for more silly moments, less whining, and better understanding between parent and child. There are two ways to work on changing your communication style.
When you want to get unpleasant or stressful activities over with, you might be strict with your orders, stop your kids from messing around, or raise your voice. However, if you find ways to lighten up these moments or even participate in your children’s goofing around, everyone—including you—will be happier.
Of course, the frustrations of parenting can only be pushed so far—it’s likely you’ll snap at your kids sooner or later. What’s important in these moments is that you stop snapping as soon as you can. You’ll find that the aftermath is much less stressful than it would have been, had you not stopped yourself.
Minimize the number of energy-draining meltdowns you experience by really listening to your children and showing them that they’ve been heard.
Children’s meltdowns are often fueled by being contradicted by adults—for example, “You’re not tired, you just had a nap,” or, “You don’t hate green beans, you just ate them last night.” A more effective way to deal with your children’s emotions, no matter what they are, is to acknowledge them instead of denying them. Repeat them back to the child so they understand that they’ve been heard. For example, instead of saying, “You don’t hate your coat,” try, “You don’t want to take off your princess dress to put on your coat. But you have to put it on if you want to play outside.”
Acknowledging the feelings of your children has a twofold positive effect. First, ignoring bad feelings makes them stronger, but talking about bad feelings clears mental space for good feelings to come back quickly. Second, in tough moments you’ll find yourself acting more with love and tenderness, rather than with frustration, argument, or dismissal.
There are five effective ways to repeat your children’s feelings back to them so that they feel acknowledged.
(Shortform note: For more ways to acknowledge your children’s emotions, read our summary of The Whole-Brain Child.)
Remember that while your days might drag on, the years will fly by. Become more engaged in these “dragging” days by focusing on two actions: not rushing through your projects and preserving your happy memories.
Projects, while they’re often for fun events like traditions, birthdays, or school events, are usually very time- and energy-consuming—but have high potential for becoming happy memories for both you and your children.
For example, your child has decided she wants to build dollhouse furniture for her sister for Christmas, using craft bits lying around the house. You think it would be much easier to just buy the furniture, but you work with your child on it. Together, you spend every night for a month dreaming up new pieces of furniture to make. Having patience for the full life cycle of a project like this maximizes the happiness of the experience because you go through four stages of happiness:
Additionally, letting children meander their way through projects can remind you of joys that you overlook or don’t experience anymore as an adult. For example, at Christmas, you’re usually focused on the stress and rush of the holiday season. When you work slowly on the dollhouse with your daughter, you’re reminded of the joy of creating a gift for someone and the anticipation and excitement around the holidays.
You can build on the happiness of a moment by keeping the memory of it as vivid as possible for your future self to reflect on. To help preserve happy memories for yourself and your family members, pay attention to how they choose to reminisce—for example, they might enjoy going through old homemade videos or read through old journal entries.
Rubin found three ways to preserve happy memories in a meaningful way for her family.
Finding ways to be lighter about the everyday annoyances of parenthood goes a long way to boosting both your mood and your kids’ moods.
Describe an unpleasant task that you and your kids have to get through regularly. (For example, waking up in the morning before school, or doing chores before dinner.)
How can you “lighten up” this task? (For example, playing your kids’ favorite song in the morning, or making a fun competition out of chores.)
Describe a parenting obligation that you don’t often feel like doing. (For example, driving your daughter to soccer practice, or needing to bake cookies for your son’s band bake sale.)
How can you reframe your thinking around this obligation and find positivity in it? (For example, “I love seeing my daughter have fun with her friends at soccer,” or, “I’m glad I have a simple way to help my son with something that means so much to him.”)
In our busy, ambitious lives, it’s easy to either forget about play completely or only engage in play that feels productive in some way. This month is about focusing on leisure activities that are done purely for enjoyment and because you want to do them—not because of their “productive” factor, money-making potential, or prestige. We’ll focus first on seeking more fun, and then we’ll explore the ways you can draw out more fun from your everyday life.
In this chapter, we’ll focus on challenging fun that helps you learn and master skills. This type of fun is demanding but is rewarding because it creates a feeling of significant growth. It looks like teaching yourself a new instrument or training for a marathon.
It’s very possible that you’re not sure how you have fun—many people go through life participating in activities that they think they should enjoy instead of activities they actually enjoy. We do this with the goal of projecting a certain image of ourselves, and it’s an easy way to get sucked into activities that don’t feel good or right for us.
There are three parts to creating more opportunities for genuine fun.
An added benefit of talking openly about your interests is that you find “your people.” Research shows that each common interest you have with a person not only increases your chances of having a lasting relationship with them but also boosts your overall life satisfaction by 2%. Furthermore, the feeling of belonging to a group bolsters your confidence and your happiness.
Fun activities often aren’t spontaneous—book clubs don’t just happen. To have more fun, actively work on making time for it.
A commitment to fun is important to keep in mind because it’s easy to put off leisure activities in favor of productive activity, such as working, spending time with your family, or taking care of the house. However, dedicating time to leisure gives you the energy to bring your best self to the things you “should” do. On the other hand, working nonstop and only doing productive activities will make you feel burned out, resentful, or too tired to fully engage.
One of the toughest parts of identifying your fun is accepting that you can’t do everything, and you won’t naturally be interested in everything you wish you were interested in. Grappling with this idea can be hard and discouraging. But, the good news is, once you clear this “aspirational clutter” from your mind, you create space for the things you truly care about and want to engage in wholeheartedly.
A good way to expand the limits of your leisure is to actively look for new experiences, new ways of thinking, new places, and new connections—all of which may lead you to a new hobby you hadn’t considered, and force you to focus on experimentation and failing. Rubin tried two methods to force a change of perspective.
Finding a new, challenging hobby is a sizable undertaking, and will take most of your focus this month. Keep in mind, however, that it’s also important to bring fun into the small moments that make up your days. There are two ways to commit yourself to “small fun.”
Many people, consciously or unconsciously, shut down goofiness when they’re trying to get things done efficiently—even when there’s no time pressure or reason to be efficient. This happens at all points of the day, such as bathtime, when you’re cleaning up the house, or Saturday morning breakfast. When you find yourself shutting down play in the interest of unnecessary efficiency, adjust your attitude by asking yourself two questions.
This exercise prevents you from unnecessary nagging and arguing. And, it boosts everyone’s mood due to “emotional contagion”—the way we subconsciously pick up on one another’s moods. When you’re goofy instead of frustrated or hurried, others will mirror your good mood—compounding everyone’s happiness.
Adding a small sense of purpose to a leisure activity can help you commit more of your time and attention to it. Rubin did this by starting a collection of bluebird figurines—building a collection added a sense of excitement and purpose to the time she spent wandering around and prompted her to encounter new places.
Starting a collection might not be for you, but there are plenty of other ways to transform your leisure time into a fun, purposeful quest. For example, you might take up architecture drawing, dedicate yourself to finding your city’s best pizza, or try out breweries within biking distance.
Beyond adding a new way to have fun in your life, these missions take you to new places and help refresh your mind, which can recharge you for large, mentally draining tasks. In this sense, simply having fun can actually boost your productivity.
To get more happiness-boosting fun in your life, concentrate on what you really like to do and think about leisure activities you haven’t tried for a while.
Describe what you currently do for fun.
Which of those activities are genuinely fun for you—that is, you find them energizing instead of draining?
What types of activities did you enjoy doing as a child? (For example, reading historical fiction, taking pottery classes, or horseback riding.)
How can you find like-minded people to share your idea of fun with? (For example, you might start a book club, or look for horseback-riding or pottery classes in your area.)
This month’s resolutions will center on strengthening your social bonds. This focus is especially important because friendship is the one thing that everyone—scientists, philosophers, and happiness experts—can agree is a major contributor to overall happiness and life satisfaction.
There are a number of studies that back up the importance of strong, meaningful friendships—they make activities more enjoyable, lower your risk of depression, and can even boost your immune system. We’ll discuss three resolutions that can reinforce your existing friendships and help you make new connections: making the effort, cultivating a friendlier spirit, and pursuing new connections.
Maintaining friendship takes a lot of work, and this work can easily get lost in your busy everyday life. Take the initiative in your friendships to be the one who makes an effort to stay in touch and follow through with plans.
Reaching out to old friends to let them know you’re thinking of them is a small gesture that goes a long way toward strengthening bonds—for example, Rubin emailed her friends on their birthdays. For you, the resolution to keep in touch might look like making a list of friends you’ve been meaning to reach out to, and contacting one of them each Saturday afternoon. Or, you might set a date—like the first day of summer or Valentine’s Day—as your “check-in” day.
While a quick check-in won’t guarantee the level of closeness you had before you lost touch—as it’s likely you’re both busy or live far apart—the reminder of companionship will give both of you a moment of rejuvenation in your day.
If you don’t show up for plans with your friends, your friendships will have a much harder time surviving.
When you show up for events in others’ lives, no matter how small or large, you strengthen your bond with them—while this can deepen an already close relationship, it can also push a new friendship toward “close” friendship due to the mere exposure effect. The more people are exposed to something—such as sounds, colors, or people—the more they naturally start to like it. Therefore, the more people see you, the more they’ll like you, and vice versa.
Strong friendships don’t depend solely on the motions of companionship—you have to cultivate a positive, supportive mindset that lends itself to building and strengthening relationships.
Gossip is tempting because it does have social benefits. It makes you feel closer to other people and it helps you understand the values of the group you’re in. But, benefits aside, gossip is mean-spirited and detrimental to your happiness and the happiness of others.
Putting a stop to gossiping has two parts.
When you’re generous toward your friends and offer them support, it often gives you just as much happiness as it gives them—when you do good, you feel good. The most simple and accessible way to be more generous toward your friends is to practice your generosity of spirit. There are four significant ways to do this.
Offering words of encouragement to a friend is a simple, but highly effective way to be generous toward them. Your words might feel small to you, but they might give your friend the confidence they need to take on their ambitions.
If you can, try taking your encouragement a step further by following it up with resources or advice. For example, if you encourage a friend to pursue their idea for an app, you might follow up a few days later with, “I think your idea is great. I talked to Sara who recently went through the same process and she recommended these sources,” or, “I’ll put you in touch with my friend who launched an app last year.”
Helping people make connections with others is a natural source of happiness for them, and new connections often offer new sources of support.
You’ll have to be generous with your time to take on the work of arranging meetings, exchanging contact info, or searching for resources. Keep this a happy—not draining—activity by finding the connection methods that work best for you. If you’re an extrovert, you might invite the friends you want to connect out for a coffee. If you’re more introverted or busy, a simple introduction email might work best for you.
Finding your own, enjoyable way to help others is a great way to ensure maximum satisfaction for both parties—not only do you do your friend a meaningful favor, but you also enjoy the task and get to spend time with them. For example, Rubin found that she enjoyed decluttering, so she practiced generosity by helping her friends clean their own homes.
Many of us fall victim to the “fundamental attribution error”—we perceive others’ actions as a reflection of their character, instead of taking into account how their circumstances might dictate their actions. On the other hand, we perceive our own actions through the lens of circumstance. For example, if a coworker snapped at you, you’d likely think they were an impatient crank. However, if you were to snap at someone, you might say, “I can’t help being so irritable today. I have a horrible headache.”
Be generous in your perceptions of people and work on assuming that they have positive intent, just as you do. If they’re acting in a negative way, ask yourself: What might be causing them to act like this?
Making new friends throughout your life is important for several reasons—they provide you with greater feelings of connection, they offer new sources of support, and they can introduce you to new perspectives and interests.
It’s easy to get comfortable with the friends you have and become a bit resistant to widening your circle. To combat this tendency, Rubin established a friend-making goal—in each new social situation she encountered, she set a goal to make three new friends.
This method seems a bit too calculated for a social endeavor, but she found that it makes you more open to socializing in several key ways.
Knowing how you prefer to express generosity toward others is essential to helping your friends in ways that you both find fulfilling.
What is a task that you genuinely enjoy? (For example, decluttering the house, gardening, or planning trips.)
How could this task be helpful to a friend? (For example, you could help them clean out their guest room closet, or help them plan their upcoming family vacation.)
Connecting your friends with other friends and acquaintances who could help them is a great way to strengthen your friendships and demonstrate support.
Describe a project a friend is working on that you may be able to help with, connection-wise.
Who could you connect them with, and why?
How can you make this connection in a way that’s not draining for you? (Recall: An extrovert might be more suited to introductions over coffee, while an introvert might prefer a simple introductory email.)
Money and happiness have a heavily-debated relationship—it’s a common saying that money can’t buy happiness, but it’s fairly clear that money can certainly contribute to happiness, in a number of ways.
But, though money can arguably buy happiness, studies regularly show that people in the United States—a relatively wealthy country—don’t consider themselves much happier than impoverished people in India. This is because we get used to what we have. We don’t feel happy about the luxuries we have—such as hot water, consistently working electricity, just a roof over our heads—because they’re just a normal part of our lives. If you gave a homeless person these luxuries, they would be very happy—until they got used to them, that is.
The key to a happy relationship with money is using your money in wise, meaningful ways that contribute to the factors of happiness—feeling good, feeling right, and creating an atmosphere of growth. There are three ways to use your money in meaningful ways: indulging in small happiness splurges, buying what you need and using the “good” stuff, and refraining from “unhappy” spending.
Splurging can make you feel guilty if it’s done just for the sake of spending money and acquiring something. But, small splurges have the power to make you happier if you splurge in ways that contribute to your happiness goals. “Meaningful splurging” has two key parts: it makes you feel good and creates a feeling of growth, and it’s rare.
No matter your income level, you can spend money in small, meaningful ways. Choose your splurges carefully, and in line with what feels meaningful and good to you—take some time to figure out what you really want, and what type of spending would make you feel a sense of growth. For example, some people might splurge on nice clothing that makes them look and feel their best. On the other hand, you might be more satisfied by splurging on tools to expand your gardening hobby.
One of the most important factors to indulging in splurges is rarity. If you indulge too frequently in something, it no longer feels like a special treat—you get used to it, and the happiness it brings you subsequently diminishes.
Furthermore, the happiness of indulging in something doesn’t only come from purchasing it—it comes from the journey toward buying it. Saving, researching, planning, and imagining are all part of the happiness journey behind a purchase. If you love something, don’t make the mistake of thinking that more of that thing will make you happier.
Creating happier spending habits isn’t just about splurging—happiness also comes from two more mundane types of spending: spending money on what you need and using up (a type of “spending”) what you already have.
Most people fall under one of two types of buyers, each with its own particular flavor of unhappiness—”underbuyers” and “overbuyers.”
No matter which type of buyer you are, increase your happiness simply by buying what you need. For underbuyers, this means stocking up on items you always feel that you’re running out of. For overbuyers, this means cutting back on buying things that aren’t really necessary and are likely to go to waste.
One simple way to contribute to your happiness is to stop hoarding material things for “someday.” First, because “someday” might never come—you might lose or break the item, or you could pass away before enjoying it. Second, not using an item is just as wasteful as directly throwing it out. Either way, it’s not serving its purpose.
There are two types of “someday” that you usually hold onto things for.
(Shortform note: If you’re a proponent of the zero-waste movement, you’ll likely be much happier to commit to spending your money on a repair than a replacement.)
The idea of using the “good stuff” stretches far beyond material things—it should also apply to hoarding ideas, time, and generosity. To do this, you need to commit to doing what feels good or right, without focusing on your potential losses or profits.
How Donating to Charity Can Make You Happier
Donating to charity is a way to “use the good stuff” (in this case, money), let go of a fixation on profit, and boost your happiness. Studies show that those who contribute to charity are happier, and on average actually become wealthier than people who don’t. There are a couple of suggestions as to why this happens.
Donating stimulates your brain, leading to the good ideas that allow advancement in your career.
People who are seen as charitable are often considered to have attributes that underpin good leadership.
It’s important to think about what kind of spending makes you feel bad and cut it out of your life. For example, feel-bad spending might include ordering takeout every night, buying cigarettes, spending money on clothing you won’t wear, and so on. Keep in mind that not all spending is monetary—think about unfulfilling ways you might be spending your time, such as reading Facebook comments, sleeping in late, or putting effort into a one-sided friendship.
Knowing what kind of spending feels good for you can help you spend your money in happier ways.
What’s a small splurge that makes you feel good and creates a feeling of growth? (For example, spending money on your hobby, or splurging on high-quality ingredients for your meals.)
How can you commit to rarely indulging in this meaningful splurge? (For example, setting small growth benchmarks within your hobby that “warrant” a splurge, or only buying expensive ingredients when you’re trying a brand-new recipe.)
Most people are guilty of saving their “good stuff” for a vague someday—but this type of hoarding doesn’t bring much happiness.
Describe the “good stuff” in your home that you’re saving for a future occasion. (For example, the good dishes, a “good” shirt, or a nice set of stationery.)
What type of “someday” do you think you’re saving this item for? (For example, a very special occasion dinner, or an especially meaningful letter.)
How can you use up (and enjoy) the “good stuff” in your everyday life? (For example, host a dinner party where you use the good dishes, or start writing thank you notes on your good stationery.)
Whether you’re religious or not, it’s important to explore various “spiritual states” to augment your happiness—these states include awe, mindfulness, gratitude, and even reflection on death. Research shows that spiritual people—that is, people who spend time considering these spiritual states—are happier with their lives overall. In turn, this elevated happiness grants them better mental and physical health, greater longevity, and an increased ability to deal with stress and setbacks.
This month’s practices will help you cultivate a deeper happiness that often is hard to recognize in our day-to-day lives. This deeper happiness includes a sense of gratitude for what you have, the recognition that your life as it is deserves appreciation, and the ability to focus on others’ happiness above your own. There are two significant ways to cultivate your spiritual happiness: seeking reminders of your good fortune and adopting a spiritual guide.
Like most people, you may take your everyday life for granted, thinking that nothing can disturb your reality. Unfortunately, major life changes and catastrophe can happen to anyone, at any time. It’s often only in reflecting from the new perspective that catastrophe grants you that you realize just how good your life is, just as it is now. There are three ways to train yourself to be more attuned to the good fortune of your everyday life.
Perhaps paradoxically, thinking about death and catastrophe can contribute to your happiness, as it adjusts your perspective and helps you realize how good your life is now, just as it is. This practice helps you deal with life’s difficulties in both small and large ways.
There are many ways to examine loss and catastrophe—Rubin found that reading memoirs of those who had experienced terminal illnesses, devastating injuries, addictions, and death worked for her. In reading these memoirs, she found a renewed gratitude for her everyday life, as well as an appreciation of its fragility.
Your contemplation of life’s fragility might not take the same form as Rubin’s. For example, if you’ve experienced a life-threatening illness, you probably won’t want to read accounts of others who have been through the same experience. For this reason, it’s important to do some exploring to figure out what helps you contemplate the process of life and death in your own way. For example, you might go hiking in different seasons to contemplate the cycle of life and death; watch documentaries that show the brutality of nature; study religious accounts of life and death; read obituaries; visit graveyards; and so on.
Adopting this practice comes with a few key lessons that will help you make the most of your life just as it is.
Another way to cultivate an appreciation for your life is to keep a gratitude log. Your log can take any form that feels right to you—a journal, a blog, or a short video each day. Consistently working on your gratitude is an important contributor to happiness for a number of reasons.
Start out with the basic process of listing three things each day that you’re grateful for. While making these lists, be sure you’re paying attention to the small, basic things you’re taking for granted or problems that you don’t think about because you don’t have them. For example, you might express gratitude for running water, healthy children, not living in a war zone, never having to do high school over again, and so on.
As you get further into this practice you’ll likely find that you need to adjust your methods to fit your preferences.
At times, you may need to force yourself into a moment of gratitude. When you’re feeling annoyed or overwhelmed by a task, stop yourself and search for a way to express gratitude for the experience. For example, if you’re thinking, “I’m tired and don’t want to cook dinner for the kids tonight,” you might try, “I’m grateful that I have enough food in the house to pull together a meal.”
On top of working on teaching yourself to be grateful and present, you can become more disciplined in your happiness journey by finding a “spiritual guide” to look up to. This guide can be anyone who speaks to you—a favorite writer such as Mary Oliver or Thoreau, an artist such as Van Gogh or Monet, a scientific figure like Darwin, or a religious figure like St. Francis.
For example, Rubin chose St. Thérèse de Lisieux, who achieved happiness for herself and others by dedicating herself to perfecting small tasks and appearing as happy as possible. Your guide doesn’t have to have heroic or publicized virtue—they just need to have virtues that you seek to achieve yourself.
Having a spiritual guide to emulate is important because happiness is hard work, and their guidance can help you stay on track. Reflection on their journeys and how they stuck to their values can help guide you through the common excuses that many people use to remain in the easy state of unhappiness.
Of course, the excuses people give to bask in unhappiness don’t apply to those who struggle with mental illness, such as depression—that’s a different type of unhappiness outside of conscious choice.
Consistently reminding yourself of how fortunate you are in your ordinary life goes a long way toward increasing your overall life satisfaction.
Describe a practice you can adopt to consistently examine the fragility of life. (For example, reading memoirs of people touched by catastrophe, or spending time in nature throughout the seasons to consider the cycle of life and death.)
How can you create a regular gratitude practice in your everyday life? (For example, starting a gratitude journal, or spending five minutes reflecting on your gratitude when you have your first cup of coffee in the morning.)
Describe a mundane task that you don’t particularly enjoy. (For example, going to parent-teacher conferences, or your daily commute on the subway.)
How can you reframe your thinking to force gratitude for this task? (For example, “I’m happy that my son’s teacher cares about him and loves sharing his progress with us.” Or, “I love the experience of people-watching during my commute.”)
This month, we’ll focus on what makes you feel energized and excited. This month should help you determine what really interests you and push yourself in it. First, we’ll discuss how to choose your passion, and then discuss different ways to grow in your passion.
As in the month of practicing leisure, this month you’ll focus on an activity you genuinely enjoy. However, this month is focused on growing within this activity, rather than just having fun with it.
To choose a passion to pursue, focus on the interests you currently enjoy. As with leisure, it might be helpful at this step to think about what you spent your time doing as a child. Or, you might think about how you spend your free time on the weekends or focus on what you’re thinking about when you daydream.
This exercise is helpful because it takes your focus away from who you wish you were and the image of yourself you’re trying to project to others. Instead, you consider who you actually are and what you actually want to do with your time.
Once you’ve chosen a passion, take an all-in approach—this stops you from hemming and hawing about how to get into it. When you’re forced to leap right into working on your passion project you find that you can commit yourself to it without a ton of planning or preparation.
One way to go all-in on your passion this month is setting an ambitious goal. For example, Rubin committed to writing a 50,000-word novel in one month. For you, this might look more like training for a race, committing to creating five album-ready photos each day, or completing your website by the end of the month. Having a clear goal in mind helps you engage more meaningfully with your everyday life in three ways.
As with leisure, making time for your passion takes some discipline—but the time commitment feels less oppressive when you consider that you determine how to pursue it. This sets a few key guidelines:
For example, Rubin thought that it would be useful to her passion of book creation if she dedicated more of her time to reading books. To accomplish this, she committed to letting herself read whatever she wanted—including children’s books or books she’d already read; engaging others with her passion by asking for recommendations and discussing books; and cutting back on aimless activities that were keeping her from spending time on her passion, such as watching television.
Part of practicing your passion in a way that’s meaningful to you is letting go of the idea of a prestigious result. Removing the pressure of “success” helps you more fully immerse yourself in your passion in two ways.
Engage more fully with your passion is to find a new way to express it. This expands the horizons of your activity and naturally creates learning opportunities—keeping your passion fresh and interesting. There are a few ways to express your passion differently:
When you pursue a passion, you’re in full control of how you decide to pursue it.
Describe a passion you’d like to work on and grow within. (For example, writing a book, starting a permaculture farm, or launching a shop on Etsy.)
What do you count as meaningful work toward this passion? (For example, reading more YA literature, joining a permaculture class at your local community college, or putting together a weekly get-together with women small business owners.)
What are some activities that don’t support your passion and can be cut out of your routine? (For example, watching TV all night, spending too much of the weekend on social media, or browsing Amazon.)
This month, we’ll focus on cultivating mindfulness and being fully aware of and engaged with the present—this practice can boost your happiness in three significant ways.
One of the most well-known ways to work on mindfulness is meditation—and while this may work for you, Rubin found that there were two resolutions that better helped her cultivate her mindfulness: to question her world and to change her behaviors in order to change her mindset.
Asking questions about the world around you and the world you’ve constructed in your mind interrupts the automatic thought processes that cause you to pass through life disengaged.
The first way to get your mind working in new ways is to contemplate questions and ideas that logic can’t answer. Buddhist monks call these questions koans, and they contemplate them as a way to stop relying on reason and logic in the journey toward enlightenment. While adding this practice to your happiness project may not help you achieve enlightenment, it will help you think in new, imaginative ways that help you look at your world with a bit more curiosity and flexibility of logic. In quiet moments, dedicate yourself to finding questions and phrases that you can’t use reasoning and logic to answer: What is the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
The second way to get your mind working in a new way is to rethink the “rules” you’ve adopted in your life. These rules are called heuristics—we use them as back-of-the-mind guidelines to help us quickly make decisions and find solutions to problems. Often, we don’t question our rules because we believe they’re inherently true. A good way to cultivate mindfulness and “wake up” in your life is to occasionally examine the rules you’ve set for yourself.
This is an important exercise because it grants you a deeper understanding of how you might unconsciously be pushing yourself away from happiness. Instead of acting on autopilot and applying your rules indiscriminately, this reflection lets you take a moment to remember your values and goals and ensure your thoughts and intentions are aligned.
Examine the rules that you unthinkingly apply to your life. For example, “My children are my first priority,” “Never go to bed angry,” “Better safe than sorry,” and so on. Ask yourself: Are they true? Are they helpful? Are they creating unhappiness? Discarding the rules that don’t work in line with your values and goals is helpful for several reasons.
Once you’ve weeded out your unhelpful rules, you have adequate space to create rules that do help you in pursuit of your happiness goals. For example, Rubin came up with two new rules:
The second part of cultivating mindfulness is changing your behaviors in ways that will help you become more engaged with and aware of the world around you.
Taking part in activities that make your brain work in new, unusual ways stops you from living on autopilot and forces you to become more aware of your surroundings. There are a couple of ways you could add these “wake-up calls” to your day.
Each time you encounter one of your reminders, you’ll be prompted to reflect on your ambitions and how you’re working toward them. For example, Rubin put her resolutions on sticky notes around her apartment, and one of her blog readers changed all her login passwords to goals she was working toward, so she’d be reminded of them throughout the workday.
Rubin tried hypnosis as a way to change her patterns and habits. While she didn’t find that it was all it was advertised to be, she found that the exercise heightened her awareness of her mindless habits. Your method of reflecting on your habits can take any form—perhaps you perform a daily recitation of your habits to break, start a journal of your habits and desires to break them, or mediate with a recording like Rubin’s.
Get involved in things outside the scope of your everyday activities—for example, a writer might try painting instead of journaling, or a photographer might try writing. This step is especially effective if you get involved in something you know you enjoy, but haven’t participated in for a long time—this wakes up a dormant part of your mind. There are two awareness-boosting benefits of this exercise.
Lastly, stay mindful of habits you want to break and habits you want to form by journaling. In this journal, you should jot down each experience of the habit, as well as the details of your mood surrounding it. For example, if you want to exercise more, your journal would include your exercise habits, as well as a note about your mood before and after exercising, the excuses you come up with not to exercise, types of exercise you enjoy, and so on. You don’t need to be fastidious with your journaling—simply thinking about your habits sometimes is a big step up from not thinking about them at all.
Being aware of your patterns around your habit makes it much easier to quit or to stick with. You see clearly how your habit affects your mood, recognize the excuses or justifications you’re likely to use and are reminded of the progress you’re making.
Everyone makes autopilot decisions based on “rules” they’ve adopted throughout their lives—awaken your mind by questioning these rules.
Describe two or three of the rules you live by. (For example, “Never go to bed angry,” “Do whatever makes for the better story,” “Growth in my career is the most important thing.”)
How do these rules contradict or support your happiness journey? (For example, “Never go to bed angry” contradicts your knowledge that you and your spouse can more productively resolve an argument after you’ve both had a night to sleep on it.)
What new rules can you create for yourself that better support your current values and goals? (For example, “Don’t let arguments drag on” might be a better rule for your relationship with your spouse.)
Thus far, we’ve discussed many ways to change your behaviors in ways that will make you happier. This month, we’ll focus on your attitude and how to keep your mindset cheerful and positive. Cultivating a happy attitude puts you in the right mindset to compound your happiness with happiness-boosting behaviors.
To improve her attitude, Rubin focused on ways to become more cheerful, content, and pleasant toward others—she committed herself to four methods: finding reasons to laugh, practicing politeness, searching for the positive, and finding a mental escape.
Laughter has the obvious side effect of making you happy, along with lowering your blood pressure and stress levels, helping ease conflicts, and strengthening social bonds with others. What’s less obvious is that your laughter goes a long way toward making others happy. There are several ways to come up with more occasions for laughter.
To become more pleasant and kind toward others, focus on practicing good manners and conscientiousness. In our busy lives, we often skip over politeness because we’re too caught up in our own stresses. To work against this, be on the lookout for small ways to be more considerate of others—such as giving up your seat on the bus, letting someone with just one item skip ahead of you in line at the store, or offering to help someone with their luggage.
One place that many people are guilty of bad manners is in conversation. Listen to yourself carefully and make sure that you’re not adopting any rude conversation personalities.
Beyond cutting out your bad conversation manners, find ways to give the floor to others. You might respond to someone’s expertise with, “That’s interesting, tell me more.” You can let someone share an interesting story by saying, “Tell everyone about…” Or, follow up your addition to the conversation with, “What do you think about it?”
Keeping an eye out for external factors that might be making you act rudely. For example, Rubin found that alcohol made her argumentative and obnoxious, and she often came away from parties feeling guilty and anxious instead of happy. She decided to cut back on alcohol and found that she behaved much better, which made her much happier. For you, the external factor might be too-loud music, hunger, or being too hot or cold. Once you find what prompts your rude tendencies, find a way to mitigate it—such as always carrying a snack or a sweater in your bag.
Many people instinctively prefer to be critical, rather than enthusiastic, about things—for several self-serving and defensive reasons.
While expressing enthusiasm might be the harder and more unpopular choice, it comes with the benefit of lifting others’ moods and making them feel more enthusiastic as well. Imagine that your friend invites a group out to see a roller derby competition. She loves the sport, and cheers loudly and encourages your group to join in—though most of the group don’t particularly like roller derby, all of you end up getting excited about the match.
There are three ways to commit yourself to searching for the positive and expressing enthusiasm as much as possible.
One thing that goes a long way toward adjusting your attitude is finding ways to avoid negative thoughts. Humans naturally have a “negativity bias”—that is, we remember and ruminate on negative things much more than on positive things. Of course, it’s not possible to avoid everything negative in your life, but you can keep yourself in an overall happier mindset if you create a mental escape that helps you avoid the rumination spiral that comes on the heels of a negative experience.
For example, your mental escape might be thinking about funny things your spouse or children have done, writing down the little things in life that bring you joy, or going for a long walk and focusing only on the sounds around you.
Being more positive about experiences not only lifts your mood, but also the moods of those around you.
Describe an experience that you reacted to unenthusiastically. (For example, the first time you heard heavy metal or getting yet another scribbled drawing from your child.)
How could you have reacted to this experience more positively? (For example, instead of saying, “This sounds awful!” in response to heavy metal, you might have said, “It’s always interesting to experience a new genre of music.”)
Criticism can always be delivered in a more positive, less hurtful way—which keeps everyone in a good mood.
Describe a recent time that you criticized someone. (For example, you scolded your student for going off-topic on his paper, or shushed your child who was singing all day.)
How could you have delivered this criticism in a more positive way? (For example, “I love your creativity and the story you added to this paper, but be careful to stay on topic.” Or, “It’s great you love singing so much. You should take a break so you don’t wear out your voice!”)
This month is the “boot camp” of the happiness project, when you try to stick with all of your resolutions, all of the time. Keep in mind that you likely won’t be able to keep up with all of your resolutions at all times—and that’s okay. There’s an important distinction between goals and resolutions.
Goals are finished once they’re achieved. And, it’s implied that anything besides achievement is a type of failure. On the other hand, resolutions—which we use in the happiness project—don’t have an end point. They’re a commitment to making an effort, each day. Rubin notes that having a visual resolution chart was the singular most important factor in sticking with her resolutions all year. They reminded her that her happiness is an ongoing effort, and kept her progress and objectives at the forefront of her mind. Even with a chart to spur you on, some days will see you giving less effort than others—but that doesn’t signify failure. Every day is a new opportunity to put effort into sticking with your resolutions.
Some days, your efforts will be better than other days. But, overall, this month will show you how much growth you’ve made over the year. By this point, you’ll find that even the days when you’re not fully committed to your resolutions are happy days because your baseline happiness is higher, you bounce back from bad moods quicker, and you’re living a more enhanced and connected version of your everyday life.
Happiness is accessible to anyone—it’s not necessary to make huge changes or have incredible resources at your fingertips. You simply need to be ready to embrace the discomfort (and opportunity) of growth, get to know yourself and what’s right for you, and commit to the hard work of happiness.
While Rubin’s happiness project has many ideas that can be incorporated into your life, these projects are a highly individual activity. Come up with resolutions that are unique to your search for happiness and growth.
What are the areas that you’d like to concentrate on for your happiness project? (For example, your social anxiety, your relationship, your budget, and so on.)
Which of Rubin’s resolutions can you revise to better fit your needs?
What new resolutions can you come up with for yourself?