In Who Will Cry When You Die?, self-help guru and author Robin Sharma argues that most people prioritize the wrong things in life—money, success, and status, for instance—and then end up filled with regret at its end, having not made a positive impact on the world or those around them. His goal is to convey the importance of seizing control of your life so you can lead it in a way you won’t regret.
To help you seize control, Sharma presents digestible and diverse life lessons based mainly on existing wisdom, philosophy, and personal experience. In this guide, we’ll first present Sharma’s proposal that most people waste their lives, but that they can seize control of it by defining their purpose. We’ll then present his advice for how to seize control, which we’ve grouped into eight tactics that apply to many realms of life.
The book is founded on Sharma’s belief that humans have lost sight of what really matters in life. We’re caught up in unimportant details, such as career success and social status, rather than the big-picture considerations that make life worth living, like family, love, and community.
(Shortform note: Sharma provides a few examples of the big-picture priorities that make life worth living, but mainly lets the reader decide what their own top priorities should be. Others specifically recommend the pursuit of purpose, proper use of time, maintenance of health, and strengthening of relationships as life’s most critical priorities.)
If you want to look back on your life with satisfaction, Sharma says, first understand that you and only you are in control of your life. To lead a life you won’t regret, take action to make that possible: Seize control of your life.
(Shortform note: Sharma tells you to take control of your life, but this can be difficult for someone with an external locus of control. The locus of control indicates how in-control of their own life a person feels. An external locus means a person doesn’t believe they have much control, while an internal locus indicates that person feels in control. You can shift your locus of control internally by taking responsibility for your actions, strengthening your belief in your agency, and viewing failure as a learning opportunity.)
Understanding that you’re in control of your life is only helpful if you know what you want your life to look like, writes Sharma. To understand how to craft a life you’re proud of, figure out what your life’s purpose is. Your purpose is the special ability you were born with that you can use to make the world a better place. If you’re not sure of your purpose, Sharma suggests you ask yourself what strengths you have and how you can put them to good use—that’s your purpose.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends finding your purpose or special ability, but this is easier said than done—especially if, due to low self-esteem or lack of confidence, you struggle to see what your strengths and abilities are. If you struggle to define your purpose, consider reading more. Adolescents who read poetry and fiction have a greater sense of purpose because they access new ideas that can unlock the door to their purposes. You might also find your purpose by helping those who’ve suffered in the same ways you have. If, for instance, you’ve always struggled with anxiety, you might help others with it.)
We just described Sharma’s belief that humans waste their lives by prioritizing the wrong things and discussed how you can stop wasting your life by determining its purpose. Now, we’ll discuss the first tactic to seize control of your life, according to Sharma: staying focused on your purpose at all times. We’ll cover two strategies to maintain focus on your purpose each day.
First, Sharma advises you to take 30 minutes of each morning to align yourself with your purpose. This ensures that everything you do that day is in service of achieving that purpose. A tool to aid with this alignment is a written set of personal principles, says Sharma. Write down the values you hold most dear and the precepts you want to govern your conduct and thoughts, and refer to this every morning.
(Shortform note: Sharma dives into greater detail on the importance of mornings in The 5 AM Club, describing a morning routine that differs from the written alignment exercise he recommends here. In The 5 AM Club, Sharma recommends breaking the first hour of your day into three equal parts: exercise, reflection, and growth. The reflection and growth portions are similar to what Sharma advocates for here: time to reflect on your purpose and ensure you’re pursuing it. However, he also feels that exercise produces worthy health and cognitive benefits and that you should therefore allocate 20 minutes to it.)
To constantly pursue your purpose, Sharma recommends setting plenty of goals. Goals are the bite-sized chunks of your overall purpose you can tackle every day. By setting goals, says Sharma, you give yourself the agency to accomplish them.
For instance, if your purpose is to be a caring parent, your goal might be to spend one screen-free hour with your child every evening. Now that you’ve set a goal, you won’t wait around for your child’s tablet to break, for example, to organize screen-free time. Instead, you’ll actively make room for that hour.
(Shortform note: Sharma advocates strongly for setting goals but doesn’t elaborate on what to do if you fall short of them, which is an inevitable and normal part of life. Tony Robbins’s Awaken the Giant Within makes room for the inevitable failure by saying that even when you fall short of a goal, you still learn something from the experience of striving for it. Plus, failure may re-orient you to pursue a more rewarding and even more purposeful goal.)
Sharma’s next tactic is living fully every day to be maximally in control of your life. According to Sharma, living fully means imbuing every moment with intention and significance. You don’t have to start grand, world-changing projects, like founding a charity, to live fully, assures Sharma. You actually live most fully in the small moments—like in a supermarket queue. Rather than scrolling through social media, strike up a conversation with someone in line or notice a baby smiling at you. Use the moment to form connections or find joy.
Other Ways to Live Fully
Sharma defines a full life as one in which you make every moment—especially the small moments—meaningful and intentional. Others, though, think you live most fully when you invest in strong relationships: In the 83-year old Harvard Study of Adult Development, findings showed that social connections, more than anything else, were predictive of personal happiness and health—two attributes you can view as synonymous with “living fully.” And it’s not the number of relationships a person has but rather the relationships’ quality that leads to greater happiness and longer-lasting health.
Rather than making every moment in your life matter, therefore, you might solely make your relationships more meaningful.
Mindfulness is another key tactic Sharma recommends to seize control of life. If you’re mindful of the task at hand, you execute it to the best of your ability, he says. You gain more control over what you do and your impact.
(Shortform note: Intense focus on the present can be helpful in your work life, too, according to Cal Newport in Deep Work. Newport’s concept of deep work is an activity that demands all your concentration. As we move toward an economy in which deep work is more necessary than shallow work, honing your ability to do deep work increases your workplace value.)
Sharma recognizes that it’s hard to concentrate because our world is full of distractions. But you possess the power to concentrate: Learn to control your thoughts and focus. If you can’t, your attention will constantly shift, and you’ll never progress toward your purpose.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s advice to control your thoughts and avoid distraction has much in common with Buddhist teachings. In Buddhism, "Right Concentration,” the ability to focus on a single activity or idea, is part of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path that leads to enlightenment. Buddhist teachings add that learning to concentrate intently on negative desires or feelings, such as revenge, does not lead to enlightenment. Your state of mind must be pure and open-hearted, with a desire to attain a higher level of awareness.)
Sharma’s fourth tactic for gaining control of your life is to handle difficulties with grace. Challenges and hardship are an unavoidable part of life, but you don’t have to let them wrest control from you. We’ll cover two changes to your thinking that will help you cope more effectively with challenges.
To handle difficulty more gracefully, Sharma demands you exert mental energy only on what you can improve in the present and future rather than on the past. Beating yourself up over unchangeable mistakes only prevents you from moving on.
Instead, says Sharma, figure out what lessons you can derive from your mistake. View mistakes as blessings because they provide you with insights that help you become a better person.
(Shortform note: Sharma tells you to avoid backward-looking and non-productive thinking. This specific type of thinking is called rumination: the act of dwelling on or obsessing over negative events or situations. One way to combat rumination is to orient your focus toward the positives of a situation—similarly to Sharma’s recommendation to view mistakes as lessons, rather than shortcomings. For example, if you feel you made a social gaffe, frame it as a learning experience. You wouldn’t have gained the knowledge to do better next time without this failure.)
Sharma’s second recommended mental adjustment to cope better with problems is to stop finding fault in things and people that aren’t completely to your liking. See divergence and difference as beautiful and critical to the functioning of the world, not as impediments.
(Shortform note: Since the publication of this book in 1999, celebrating diversity and difference and promoting inclusion have become foundational concerns to the way we live—and especially to the way we work. Businesses usually promote diversity through educational programs and diversity and inclusion groups. For organizations, this ensures employee understanding of difference and compliance with diversity projects, as employers can’t guarantee employees will make the necessary mental adjustments themselves.)
Sharma’s fifth tactic for taking the reins of your life is to benefit from the wisdom of others. Sharma believes that you can’t possibly accrue all the experiences you need to pursue your purpose first-hand. However, you can gain the learning you’d acquire from those experiences second-hand from others. We’ll talk about two specific ways to gather the wisdom and support of others.
Sharma’s first recommendation for gaining input from others is to create an imaginary panel of specialized mentors and turn to them for guidance. When you need advice on a tough problem, imagine what a mentor would tell you.
You don’t have to know these mentors, and they don’t have to even be alive, assures Sharma. They should just be figures you admire and who have something to offer to your life. For instance, your panel might consist of Steve Jobs for advice on innovation, Oprah for advice on self-care, and the Dalai Lama for advice on spirituality.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends heeding the (imaginary) advice of a panel of specialists in their fields. But David Epstein, author of Range, would argue that it’s wiser to heed the advice of generalists, rather than specialists. Generalists, he feels, are better equipped to handle unpredictability and adapt to novel circumstances than specialists. Therefore, when building your panel of mentors, consider including some generalists who can “advise” you on many areas of life.)
In addition to creating your imaginary panel of supporters, Sharma also recommends building an active group of three to four people who offer mutual support in achieving goals. Pick a few friends who have a good head on their shoulders and to whom you, in turn, have something to offer. Set up a weekly meeting with this group to talk through current challenges.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends creating a support group of at least three to four trustworthy people. Not everyone may know four such people, though, and studies even showed that in 2004, many Americans had no close friends. To meet more people to add to your trusted group of supporters, expand your network of casual friendships and acquaintances. Casual acquaintances can eventually become trusted confidants.)
Sharma’s sixth tactic for getting a handle on your life is to develop your self-discipline. He believes that in developing discipline, you choose to make active decisions in your life, rather than letting life happen to you—a form of seizing control. We’ll discuss how you can see discipline as a form of self-care, rather than self-punishment.
Sharma argues that being disciplined is a form of self-care. When you exert discipline over yourself, you make choices that are unpleasant in the short term but better for you in the long term. These hard choices also often guide you toward your purpose. Additionally, by putting in the work to improve yourself, you don’t wait around for the world to force you to improve—an experience that’s usually more painful, claims Sharma.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s a big believer in self-discipline, but others take a more critical stance toward it. Some feel that self-discipline stems from deep-seated anxiety over not finishing projects on time or a sense that your worth is completely based on your performance. Self-discipline, therefore, might not confer greater benefit to you in the long run, as Sharma believes, because you never give yourself the chance to enjoy the fruits of your labors. You’re too busy working to avoid guilt or anxiety over the next project.)
Sharma feels that practicing kindness towards others and oneself is a tactic integral to seizing control of your life. This is because when you show kindness, you more effectively pursue your altruistic purpose in life. Let’s say your purpose is to add value to your community. When you perform community service with a kind disposition, you add more value than if you had a sullen or even neutral disposition.
(Shortform note: Beyond enabling you to more effectively pursue your purpose, practicing self-kindness has other benefits. Being kind to yourself turns off your body’s threat response, thereby calming your heart rate and reducing damage to your immune system. In this relaxed, unthreatened state, your body can regenerate and heal. Being kind to others, in turn, can have a positive impact on your mood and self-esteem.)
Sharma’s final tactic for seizing control of life is to use downtime and mental breaks to be more in control and pursue your purpose more productively.
Sharma recommends incorporating several types of intentional breaks in your daily life, including a weekly personal break to reconnect you to your purpose. The point of these breaks is to refresh your mind and energize you to live the rest of your day or week in service of your purpose—not to disengage from reality, for instance, by scrolling through social media feeds.
(Shortform note: In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown elaborates on the idea that we need intentional breaks in our days by introducing the acronym DIG. People who DIG are good at taking intentional breaks: They’re Deliberate in their choices of what to dedicate their energy toward, Inspired to make things better for themselves, and get Going to act on that inspiration. Applying DIG can help you more proactively take the right kind of break when you need it.)
In Who Will Cry When You Die?, Robin Sharma demands you ask yourself if, on your deathbed, you’ll look back on life and feel you got the most out of it. If right now, your answer to this is “no,” Sharma provides 101 pieces of advice to help you build a life you’ll feel good about. These range from broad perspective shifts to specific actionables, all with the aim of giving you greater control over your life so you can make it one worth living.
Robin Sharma is a world-renowned leadership expert, author, and speaker. Sharma started a career as a litigation lawyer, but he quit that high-stress, high-pay lifestyle at age 25 because he felt unfulfilled. In 1995, he penned and self-published MegaLiving: 30 Days to a Perfect Life, a self-help book based on his takeaways from biographies of people he admired. However, it wasn’t until the release of his second book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, a spiritual guide in the form of a parable, that Sharma gained recognition as a self-improvement guru.
Since then, Sharma’s published several other books, including The Saint, The Surfer and the CEO (2002), The Greatness Guide 1 and 2 (2006 and 2008), The Leader Who Had No Title (2010), Little Black Book for Stunning Success (2016), The 5AM Club (2018), and The Everyday Hero Manifesto (2021). All of these books fall under the umbrella of self-improvement or leadership development.
Sharma’s books are now only a facet of a massive brand he’s created around his coaching and self-improvement work. Through Sharma Leadership International, which he founded in 1997, he advises organizations like NASA, Microsoft, Nike, Unilever on leadership and growth tactics. He also produces online courses and video training series, as well as a podcast called The Robin Sharma Mastery Sessions, in which he dispenses life and self-improvement lessons. Further, Sharma founded The Robin Sharma Foundation for Children, which raises and donates funds to children-focused charities.
Connect with Robin Sharma:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Robin Sharma published Who Will Cry When You Die? in 1999, the same year that HarperCollins republished The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari for wider distribution. The former book is subtitled “Life Lessons from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” and is thus arguably a follow-up to The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.
Who Will Cry When You Die? achieved the greatest recognition in India, where it’s published by Jaico Publishing. Compared to Sharma’s other books, this is one of his lesser-read works.
Sharma himself, though, has become a world-renowned author, speaker, and social media personality. He has a passionate following who attend his leadership conferences, and his social media followers number in the millions across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He’s sold over 20 million books translated into 75 languages in over 75 countries. Sharma’s delivered speeches and coaching sessions all over the world and has been on stages alongside celebrities like Jack Welch, Shaquille O’Neal, and Richard Branson. His book The 5AM Club counts Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kris Jenner among its adherents.
This book is a collection of existing ideas and philosophies around what constitutes a good life, not a set of concepts Sharma came up with. Sharma draws heavily on Buddhist and Hindu thought, as well as on the philosophies of thinkers, artists, and writers he admires. Henry David Thoreau, Aristotle, Johann Goethe, Helen Keller, and Albert Camus are just some of the personalities whose work and ideas he mentions.
Sharma also draws on contemporary self-improvement books to support his arguments, like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow and Julie Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. He even sometimes mentions contemporary films, like Jerry Maguire. In short, Sharma references any work he feels will help get his arguments across.
Who Will Cry When You Die? differs in approach and presentation from other books in the self-improvement genre. First, unlike many self-help works, Sharma relies less on science than on philosophy and personal experience to explain his points. This is similar to a book like Rachel Hollis’s Girl, Wash Your Face, which is based primarily on Hollis’s takeaways as a professional woman and mother. By contrast, Shawn Acor’s The Happiness Advantage, for instance, is based on neuroscientific research.
Second, as discussed above, Who Will Cry When You Die? is a collection of many different ideas on how to lead a better life, not a linear approach based on a single principle or hypothesis. By contrast, Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, for example, is based solely on traditional Toltec teachings.
This book is well-received by readers who appreciate the short and varied advice they can revisit at any time. Proponents of the book also like the accessible language and Sharma’s anecdotes, which lend a personal touch to the sometimes broad suggestions.
Other readers disliked the recycled nature of the advice and felt there was nothing novel or surprising in this book. Some also took issue with Sharma’s writing style, which they feel is unsophisticated.
Sharma breaks Who Will Cry When You Die? into 101 bite-sized chapters, each containing a different piece of life advice. These range from suggestions to “Be a Better Parent” to “Collect Quotes That Inspire You.”
Sharma presents advice in no particular order and switches from specific to broad topics from one chapter to the next. For instance, Chapter 36 is a specific recommendation to read the book Tuesdays with Morrie, while Chapter 37 contains the broader advice to “Master Your Time.” For this reason, it’s easy to read the book in a non-linear fashion, rather than in order, as each chapter is self-contained and not necessarily linked to those around it.
Sharma writes in a casual, accessible style. His approach is to inspire rather than convince through the application of logic: He usually presents ideas without scientific backing and doesn’t expand greatly on them or try to justify them to the reader. For instance, Chapter 77, “Be Humble,” begins with a quotation from his father and then swiftly ends with a story about Sharma’s meeting with Muhammad Ali. Sharma thus doesn’t try to convince you to be humble but rather seeks to inspire you to be humble by relaying his beliefs and experiences.
Though chapters differ in structure, they’re almost all guided by quotations and personal anecdotes. Sharma leads at various times with quotations by thinkers like Camus and Rousseau and anecdotes about his children and father.
This book is arguably best for those who want easy jolts of inspiration and wisdom, rather than readers seeking a cohesive and well-researched work.
So you can take a systematic approach to implementing Sharma’s life advice, we’ve broken this book into two parts:
Part 1: The Goal: We discuss Sharma’s overarching goal for readers: to seize control of your life so you can improve it.
Part 2: The Tactics: We then grouped Sharma’s advice into eight tactics to seize control of your life:
Our commentary in this guide serves four main goals:
In this guide, we’ll discuss Robin Sharma’s recommendations for how to seize control of your life so you’ll have nothing to regret on your deathbed. We’ve grouped those recommendations into eight categories:
In this chapter, we’ll first discuss Sharma’s proposal that you might be wasting your life and that the first step toward seizing control of it is setting a purpose. We’ll then show how the pursuit of a purpose attracts happiness and success.
Sharma argues that humans have lost sight of what really matters in life. We’re caught up in unimportant details, such as career success and social status, rather than the big-picture considerations that make life worth living, like family, love, and community.
(Shortform note: Sharma provides a few examples of the big-picture priorities that make life worth living but mainly lets the reader decide what their own top priorities should be. Others specifically recommend the pursuit of purpose, proper use of time, maintenance of health, and strengthening of relationships as life’s most critical priorities.)
Sharma demands you ask yourself how you’ll feel about your life on your deathbed. Will you feel that you had the best impact possible on the world and those around you? Your answer might be “no,” and that’s okay. We’ll soon cover Sharma’s advice on changes you can make to respond affirmatively.
The Most Frequent Regrets at the End of Life
Sharma insists that you ask yourself whether you’ll be content with the shape of your life on your deathbed. But it can be difficult to know by which metrics we’ll judge our happiness when we’re dying.
To help us to answer this question, a palliative nurse gathered five of the most frequently expressed regrets people had at the end of their days. These are:
I should have been more authentic.
I should have prioritized work less.
I should have said how I felt more often.
I should have clung to important friendships.
I should have been happier.
Rather than thinking broadly about whether or not you’ll be “happy” with your life as Sharma suggests, perhaps ask yourself if you’ll have any of the above regrets on your deathbed. This will help you to identify specific ways you can change your life for the better.
If you want to look back on your life with satisfaction, Sharma says, first understand that you and only you are in control of your life. To lead a life you won’t regret, take action to make that possible—in other words, seize control of your life.
(Shortform note: Sharma tells you to take control of your life, but this can be difficult for someone with an external locus of control. The locus of control indicates how in-control of their own life a person feels: An external locus means a person doesn’t believe they have much control, while an internal locus indicates that person feels in control. You can shift your locus of control internally by taking responsibility for your actions, strengthening your belief in your agency, and viewing failure as a learning opportunity.)
Understanding that you’re in control of your life is only helpful if you know what you want your life to look like, writes Sharma. To understand how to craft a life you’re proud of, figure out what your life’s purpose is. Your purpose is the special ability you were born with that you can use to make the world a better place. If you’re not sure of your purpose, Sharma suggests you ask yourself what strengths you have and how you can put them to good use—that’s your purpose. For instance, you might be an excellent piano player. Your purpose, then, could be to bring pleasure to audiences.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends finding your purpose or special ability, but this is easier said than done—especially if, due to low self-esteem or lack of confidence, you struggle to see what your strengths and abilities are. If you struggle to define your purpose, consider reading more. Adolescents who read poetry and fiction have a greater sense of purpose because they access new ideas that can unlock the door to their purpose. You might also find your purpose by helping those who’ve suffered in the same ways you have. If, for instance, you’ve always struggled with anxiety, you might help others with it.)
Working towards a purpose that benefits others is how you bring happiness and success into your life, claims Sharma. Happiness and success are not goals you strive toward—they’re atmospheres you build around yourself by acting in service of a selfless purpose.
Are There Other Ways to Achieve Happiness and Success?
Sharma’s belief that happiness and success are a side-effect of pursuing an altruistic purpose, rather than goals to strive toward in themselves, flies in the face of much self-help literature. Gretchen Rubin’s popular The Happiness Project, for instance, discusses optimizing various realms of your life, like work, parenting, and relationships, to achieve personal happiness. Similarly, Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles offers 67 principles that move you closer to personal success.
That said, The Happiness Project includes many self-improvement suggestions that benefit others and that you can thus see as forms of altruism. Even The Success Principles recommends that you display appreciation for others, thereby adding happiness to the world. It seems both approaches—self-improvement and pursuing an altruistic purpose—spread both inner and outer joy, meaning you can implement both in your quest for happiness.
In the last chapter, we described how humans waste their lives by prioritizing the wrong things and how you can stop wasting and gain control of your life by determining its purpose. In this chapter, we’ll discuss the first way to seize control of your life, according to Sharma: by staying focused on your purpose at all times in our distraction-filled world.
Here, we’ll cover six strategies to maintain focus on your purpose each day:
First, Sharma advises you to take 30 minutes of each morning to align yourself with your purpose. This ensures that everything you do that day is in service of achieving that purpose. A tool to aid with this alignment is a written set of personal principles, says Sharma. Write down the values you hold most dear and the precepts you want to govern your conduct and thoughts, and refer to this every morning.
(Shortform note: Sharma dives into greater detail on the importance of mornings in The 5 AM Club, describing a morning routine that differs from the written alignment exercise he recommends here. In The 5 AM Club, Sharma recommends breaking the first hour of your day into three equal parts: exercise, reflection, and growth. The reflection and growth portions are similar to what Sharma advocates for here: time to reflect on your purpose and ensure you’re pursuing it. However, he also feels that exercise produces worthy health and cognitive benefits and that you should therefore allocate 20 minutes to it.)
After the first 30 minutes of your day, only do things that are in line with your purpose, insists Sharma. Figure out what’s non-essential and eliminate it from your schedule. For instance, imagine you’re a public personality with the life’s purpose of connecting deeply with your loved ones. You might initially attend events every night rather than spend time with your family, thus losing alignment with your purpose. Choose instead to eliminate unnecessary events.
(Shortform note: Prioritizing purpose-aligned work over non-purpose-aligned activities sounds similar to Cal Newport’s advice to prioritize deep work over shallow work. Newport argues in Deep Work that you should prioritize deep work, cognitively demanding tasks that only you can do, over shallow work—administrative chores that anyone could handle. Deep work, unlike shallow work, is likely aligned with your purpose.)
When you become weighed down by minor problems and lose sight of your purpose—which may happen despite aligning yourself with it every morning—take a step back to gain perspective, counsels Sharma. Remember how fleeting life is and reorient toward your purpose.
If you struggle to gain perspective, take the somewhat extreme step to imagine your own funeral, advises Sharma. This helps you recognize the fleeting nature of life. Given that you have so little time on earth, it’ll seem wasteful to let problems rob you of precious moments of happiness and the meaningful pursuit of your purpose.
Additional Ways to Gain Perspective
Imagining your funeral as a way to gain perspective may be too morbid for some. Other ways to gain perspective include:
Shutting down black-and-white thinking. In times of stress, it’s easy to develop perfectionistic feelings that things must be a certain way or else they’re not worth doing. Stop yourself when you notice those thoughts and remember: Few things in the universe operate on an all-or-nothing basis.
Viewing your life from a friend’s perspective. How might a close friend regard a current difficulty you’re experiencing? Would they tell you to continue stressing out over it, or would they advise you to relax? By putting yourself in the position of someone you know to be empathetic, you can develop that kinder perspective yourself.
To consistently pursue your purpose, get good at asking for what you want, says Sharma. You’re the only person who can change your life, so if you need something to align your life with your purpose, ask for it. For instance, if you need to step back from a work project that’s keeping you at the office late, ask your boss if she can take you off it.
(Shortform note: Sharma insists you learn to ask for what you want but doesn’t offer specific tips on how to do this. One way to ask for what you want is to be specific. When you’re ultra-specific about what you need, you’re more likely to get it.)
To constantly pursue your purpose, Sharma recommends setting plenty of goals. Goals are the bite-sized chunks of your overall purpose you can tackle every day. By setting goals, says Sharma, you give yourself the agency to accomplish them.
For instance, if your purpose is to be a caring parent, your goal might be to spend one screen-free hour with your child every evening. Now that you’ve set that goal, you won’t wait around for your child’s tablet to break, for example, to organize screen-free time. Instead, you’ll actively make room for that hour.
(Shortform note: Sharma advocates strongly for setting goals but doesn’t elaborate on what to do if you fall short of them, which is an inevitable and normal part of life. Tony Robbins’s Awaken the Giant Within makes room for the inevitable failure by saying that even when you fall short of a goal, you still learn something from the experience of striving for it. Plus, failure may re-orient you to pursue a more rewarding and even more purposeful goal.)
The last way Sharma recommends staying in tune with your purpose is by writing about your experiences, lessons, and revelations every night. This lets you reflect and grow from the events of the day and determine if you’ve lived it in alignment with your purpose. If you haven’t, start the next day with a renewed resolution to make it purpose-oriented.
For instance, you might find while writing that you spent most of your evening sorting out a problem with your computer and were terse with your child, even though your purpose is to be a loving parent. Knowing this, you can pursue your purpose more effectively the next evening.
(Shortform note: In Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans break down the act of journaling (what, in essence, Sharma is describing here) even further than Sharma does. They recommend dividing your journal into two parts: an activity log to record your emotional state and a reflections section to describe your takeaways from the activity log. Thus, you can both record how you’re feeling in the moment (or at the end of the day, as Sharma recommends) and also devise lessons and actionables from those feelings.)
Create a set of goals that move you closer toward your purpose each day, month, and year.
Note down your life’s purpose (or purposes). (As a reminder, your purpose is the special ability you were born with that you can use to make the world better. This might be: “to be a good caregiver,” “to always spread kindness,” or “to bring joy to the world through my art.”)
Now, think about how you want to grow toward your purpose over the course of a year. Describe one or two goals you can achieve in a year that align you with your purpose. (If your purpose is to always spread kindness, a year’s goal might be to find a new job in customer service, so you can spread kindness at work.)
Next, break down that year’s goal (or goals) into smaller goals you can accomplish each month. (To get a customer service job by the end of a year, each month, you might set the goal of sending out four resumes and attending one networking event.)
Finally, break your monthly goal down into smaller daily goals. (To attend a networking event once a month, every day, you might dedicate fifteen minutes to researching such events.)
Now that you know how to stay aligned with your purpose every day, we’ll tackle a similar topic: the ways you can live fully every day. We’ll first cover Sharma’s definition of living fully. We’ll then discuss five strategies to carry out this practice in your daily life.
According to Sharma, living fully means imbuing every moment with intention and significance even when you’re not actively pursuing your purpose. For instance, if you’re watching a movie with your partner, you may not be actively pursuing your purpose of becoming a concert pianist. However, you can still make this a meaningful experience by connecting with your partner.
You don’t have to start grand, world-changing projects, like founding a charity, to live fully, assures Sharma. You actually live most fully in the small moments—like in a supermarket queue. Rather than scrolling through social media, strike up a conversation with someone in line or notice a baby smiling at you. Use the moment to form connections or find joy.
Other Ways to Live Fully
Sharma defines a full life as one in which you make every moment—especially the small moments—meaningful and intentional. Others, though, think you live most fully when you invest in strong relationships. In the 83-year old Harvard Study of Adult Development, findings showed that social connections, more than anything else, were predictive of personal happiness and health—two attributes you can view as synonymous with “living fully.” And it’s not the number of relationships a person has but rather the relationships’ quality that leads to greater happiness and longer-lasting health.
Rather than making every moment in your life matter, therefore, you might solely make your relationships more meaningful.
To live fully, Sharma advises you to view each day as if it were a micro-version of your whole life. If the way you live today reflected the way you live your entire life, what would you do with your 24 hours? Would you mindlessly chase after success or devote time to family and community?
(Shortform note: Sharma’s advice to live every day as if it were a micro-version of your life may not work for everyone. Due to factors outside of your control—poor health, bad weather, emergencies, and so on—it’s simply not possible to live every day as you would want to live your entire life. Further, this approach can create guilt and anxiety when you have a sub-par day. An alternative, less stressful approach is to check in with yourself periodically to make sure you’re generally living in a way that’s reflective of what you want your life to look like.)
To soak up the most of life, Sharma suggests actively cherishing life and the moments of beauty in it. Take active joy when you see a lovely flower, for instance, to make the moment more impactful.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends cherishing your life by finding joy wherever you can. You can also actively create situations that provide joy, by, for instance, striking up conversations with strangers, donating to a charity, or exercising regularly.)
Sharma feels that you live a full life by taking risks and seeking adventure. He doesn’t think this means acting carelessly or always gaining from risks. Instead, he believes that when you’re habitually adventurous, you experience more of life and avoid regret. For instance, someone who regularly attends speed-dating events may not find a partner but will go on more dates than someone who won’t take that risk.
Taking Better Risks
You may struggle to follow Sharma’s advice to take more risks and be more adventurous if you’re naturally risk-averse. While you can’t eradicate your risk aversion, you can hone your risk-taking skills so that, moving forward, you take risks with less fear:
Practice with low-risk and low-pressure decisions. Take the risk of purchasing a new toothpaste brand, for instance.
Create a pros and cons list and weigh them against each other.
Don’t fixate on the worst-case scenario. This may stymie you, and the worst-case scenario is unlikely to occur.
Think like someone else. Limit your natural risk aversion by adopting a persona when making decisions. Approach decisions as a world-famous rock star, for instance.
To take more risks and seek out adventure, you may need to alter the way you think, writes Sharma. This is because your thoughts dictate what you can accomplish in life. If you think you’re a capable person, you’ll be a capable person. If you fixate on your limitations, however, you’ll likely never be able to surpass them, warns Sharma.
If you believe, for instance, that you can play sports, you’ll take the risk of trying out for a team, which will expand the scope and joy of your life. If you believe you’re terrible at sports, though, you’ll never take that risk. Your life becomes smaller, and you’ll live it less fully.
(Shortform note: Sharma isn’t the first self-help author to discuss the impact your thoughts have on your life’s trajectory and scope. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich covers this at length in the context of achieving personal success: If you want to be successful, writes Hill, think only about the possibility of success, never about the possibility of failure. Hill is more dogged than Sharma in his insistence on a success mindset, however, pushing the reader to pursue and think about their purpose and route to success in every waking moment, while Sharma makes room for non-purpose-aligned activities.)
Sharma says to live fully, surround yourself with people and things that reflect the life you want to have. This is because your environment shapes your thoughts, and your thoughts, as just discussed, shape your world and the way you live in it. For instance, beautify your office, subscribe to a new streaming service, or take a class to meet like-minded people.
(Shortform note: As Sharma suggests, your environment profoundly impacts your mental state and in particular your mental health. For instance, a dark space can exacerbate depression, and living in a high-crime neighborhood can worsen anxiety. If you’d benefit from a change in your environment, approach upgrades from five angles: aesthetics, sensory input, people, culture and values, and familiarity (the degree to which you feel comfortable in a space). Tackle improvements from one angle at a time.)
To make the most of all your existence has to offer, move through life in your own way, insists Sharma. Lead the lifestyle you want, consume the media you like, and talk about the things you’re interested in. If you constantly do things you don’t genuinely want to do, adds Sharma, you won’t get as much out of life.
If, for instance, your friends are having kids, don’t feel compelled to start a family yourself simply because others are. If you have kids because you feel you should, parenthood probably won’t be fulfilling.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends always being yourself, advice expanded upon by Brené Brown in her book The Gifts of Imperfection. Brown advocates for always showing your most authentic self to the world, but goes a step further to discuss the obstacles to authenticity. You may fear resistance from loved ones if you become more authentic, for instance. To overcome this fear, recognize that though there may be pain involved in learning to live authentically, it’ll be more painful to live inauthentically, writes Brown.)
Assess the benefits and disadvantages of risks to strengthen your risk-taking muscle.
Note an area of your life in which you feel you’re holding yourself back. Describe what you wish to do or try more in that area. (An example area might be your social life, and your wish might be to meet more neighbors.)
Now, describe the benefits you’d gain by taking more risks in the area you noted. (For instance, if you take risks that make you more social in your neighborhood, you might make friends to take walks with.) List as many benefits as you can.
Next, describe the beliefs or fears that underpin your reticence to take risks in this area. What is keeping you in your comfort zone in this area of your life? (You might fear, for instance, that you won’t have anything in common with your neighbors or that everyone in your neighborhood already knows each other well.) List as many fears as you can.
Now, think about the fears you just listed and consider how likely they are to occur. Additionally, reflect on how you might reduce the chances of those fears being realized or mitigate the discomfort that might arise if they are realized. (For instance, if you’re afraid you won’t have anything in common with your neighbors, you might simply initiate a casual conversation about an interest of yours and see how they react.)
Now that you’ve completed this exercise, how do you feel about taking risks in this area of your life? Are you more or less likely to take the risks you want? Explain your answer.
In the last chapter, we talked about gaining control of your life by living every moment fully. In this chapter, we’ll introduce another way of seizing control of your life: being mindful at all times.
(Shortform note: Living fully and living mindfully have much in common. They both help you to get the most out of every moment of life. But while living fully may involve doing things you wouldn’t ordinarily do or shifting your perspective in some way, being mindful doesn’t imply this. Instead, mindful living simply means being more present and self-aware at all times.)
We’ll begin this chapter by discussing the need for mindfulness and the ways to achieve it. We’ll then move on to some specific areas of your life where mindfulness is especially useful.
Mindfulness is key to seizing control of your life, writes Sharma. If you focus fully on the task at hand, you execute it to the best of your ability. You gain more control over what you do and your impact.
(Shortform note: Intense focus on the present can be helpful in your work life, too, according to Cal Newport in Deep Work. Newport’s concept of deep work is an activity that demands all your concentration. As we move toward an economy in which deep work is more necessary than shallow work, honing your ability to do deep work increases your workplace value.)
Sharma recognizes that it’s hard to concentrate because our world is full of distractions. But you possess the power to concentrate: Learn to control your thoughts and focus. If you can’t, your attention will constantly shift, and you’ll never progress toward your purpose.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s advice to control your thoughts and avoid distraction has much in common with Buddhist teachings. In Buddhism, "Right Concentration,” the ability to focus on a single activity or idea, is part of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path that leads to enlightenment. Buddhist teachings add that learning to concentrate intently on negative desires or feelings, such as revenge, does not lead to enlightenment. Your state of mind must be pure and open-hearted, with a desire to attain a higher level of awareness.)
Sharma recommends five specific strategies to build your ability to be mindful:
Meditation increases your ability to concentrate and be present, says Sharma. He recommends developing a regular meditation practice.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends you start meditating regularly, but he doesn’t offer specific suggestions on how to do that. A basic practice is to develop an awareness of your body and breathing and to stay with the in- and outflow of the breath until your mind wanders. When you notice your mind wandering, bring your attention back to the breath without admonishing yourself for having lost concentration. Do this for a set amount of time, like 10 or 15 minutes.)
Read something physical (like a book or magazine) and mark in the margin of the text whenever you become distracted, advises Sharma. This shows you how often you get lost in thought and lets you practice coming back to presence.
(Shortform note: Sharma advises you to notice when you get distracted while reading, but reading offers several other ways to strengthen your mindfulness muscle, too. For instance, turn off all technology while reading and notice how often you think about checking your phone or email.)
Go on walks without a destination and without thinking about your life’s worries, advises Sharma. Be aware of your surroundings and bring your attention back to them when it has wandered.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends leaving behind your worries when you go on walks. But how do you “leave behind” worries? In his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie recommends learning to accept what’s outside of your control and thinking about how likely it is your worries will come to pass—which usually isn’t that likely. Disengage from your worries before a walk by taking these steps.)
Sharma proposes that you plant a tree to become more mindful of the passage of time. The changing leaves will keep you connected to the cycles of nature and ground you in the present.
(Shortform note: Beyond the mindfulness benefits, living near trees can actually reduce the negative impacts of depression and stress on health. This is because green spaces offer room to exercise and enjoy social interactions, activities that combat mental distress.)
Finally, after work, mindfully de-stress before engaging with your loved ones, urges Sharma. Sit outside your home for a bit or take a quick walk to disengage from work and be more present with the people you love.
(Shortform note: Sharma gears his advice about de-stressing after work toward people who work in an office. But what about people working from home—how should they de-stress when there’s no barrier between their job and their personal life? One way is to set up an end-of-work ritual that helps you transition from work mode to after-work mode. Completely turn off your work-related technology, for instance, to give yourself time to prepare to be with your family.)
We’ve just talked about the importance of mindfulness and the ways you can build your capacity for mindfulness. Now, we’ll talk about two specific areas of your life where mindfulness is especially critical.
The first area is your instincts. Sharma claims that usually, your instincts about people, things, and circumstances are right, and when you’re mindful of them, you’re more likely to make decisions that move you closer to your purpose.
(Shortform note: Sharma suggests heeding your instincts more often since they’re generally reliable. Research confirms that some of your instincts—specifically, first impressions of other people—are reasonably accurate indicators of whether or not you’ll get along with someone. In a study, researchers compared the first impressions of strangers meeting a person—who we’ll call Person A—to personality reports on Person A completed by their longtime friends. The first impressions were similar to the personality reports by longtime friends, showing that the participants’ instincts were accurate.)
The other area of life you should bring mindfulness to, says Sharma, is your weaknesses. Understand what your personal hurdles are and then make necessary changes to overcome those hurdles and effectively seize control of your life.
(Shortform note: Sharma advises you to be aware of your weaknesses, but it’s often not easy to determine what they are in the first place. Thanks for the Feedback offers advice on how to locate your blind spots: the weaknesses you’re unable to see. One way to do this is to record yourself in situations where you’re experiencing difficulty—perhaps in conversation with a co-worker. A recording tells you objectively how you behave and sound in that situation, allowing you to assess if the difficulty you’re experiencing is due to a behavioral blind spot (for instance, being rude to people).)
Most people have times during the day in which they regularly “tune out.” This might be on the commute, during a class, or in front of the TV at the end of the day. Rather than disconnecting, you can actually use these times to practice mindfulness.
Identify one or two times during the day during which you normally disconnect from reality. What are the circumstances in which you do this, and how do you disconnect? (For instance, you might disconnect on your train ride home by listening to music or scrolling through social media.)
Note down why you zone out during that time. (Are you exhausted? Bored? Uninspired?) Be as specific as possible.
Write down a way you can instead be mindful during that time, taking into account why you zone out in the first place. Don’t force yourself to be mindful in a way that isn’t conducive to the state you’re in. (If, for instance, on your homebound commute, you zone out because you’re exhausted, you might be mindful by tuning in to your body and sense how exhaustion feels. You might not want to try being mindful of the scenery, as that might simply be too taxing at that moment.)
Another way Sharma suggests you take charge of your life is by handling difficulties with grace. Challenges and hardship are an unavoidable part of life, but you don’t have to let them wrest control from you.
We’ll first cover two changes to your thinking that will help you cope more effectively with challenges. We’ll then discuss three actions you can take to handle problems and remain in control of your life.
To handle difficulty more gracefully, Sharma demands you exert mental energy only on what you can improve in the present and future rather than on the past. Beating yourself up over unchangeable mistakes only prevents you from moving on.
Instead, says Sharma, figure out what lessons you can derive from your mistake. View mistakes as blessings because they provide you with insights that help you become a better person.
(Shortform note: Sharma tells you to avoid backward-looking and non-productive thinking. This specific type of thinking is called rumination: the act of dwelling on or obsessing over negative events or situations. One way to combat rumination is to orient your focus toward the positives of a situation—similarly to Sharma’s recommendation to view mistakes as lessons, rather than shortcomings. For example, if you feel you made a social gaffe, frame it as a learning experience. You wouldn’t have gained the knowledge to do better next time without this failure.)
Sharma’s second recommended mental adjustment to cope better with problems is to stop finding fault in things and people that aren’t completely to your liking. See divergence and difference as beautiful and critical to the functioning of the world, not as impediments.
(Shortform note: Since the publication of this book in 1999, celebrating diversity and difference and promoting inclusion have become foundational concerns to the way we live—and especially to the way we work. Businesses usually promote diversity through educational programs and diversity and inclusion groups. For organizations, this ensures employee understanding of difference and compliance with diversity projects, as employers can’t guarantee employees will make the necessary mental adjustments themselves.)
Now that you’ve changed your thought patterns to cope more skillfully with difficulty, Sharma recommends adopting three actions to handle difficulty on a daily basis:
Sharma strongly advises you to learn how to control angry outbursts. Reacting with anger is a habit that can ruin relationships and cause others to label you as a hothead.
The Power of Anger
Sharma advises you to get your temper under control. But are there ever times when reacting in anger is constructive? In The Upside of Your Dark Side, Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener argue that anger about injustice can catalyze positive change in the world. What’s more, hiding anger is unhealthy and can increase the likelihood of developing bronchitis and heart attacks.
Yet the authors do also warn that letting your anger get the best of you can be destructive and suggest ways to control it. You can, for instance, let your conversation partner know when you’re angry so they understand why it’s difficult for you to communicate well in that moment.
Sharma proposes two specific ways to prevent angry reactions:
When tempted to respond angrily, count to 100, advises Sharma. Your anger may dissipate in that time.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s advice to count to 100 when angry is similar to the advice to take a break from a tense situation or conversation—which may be more actionable if you can’t find a way to pause the conversation to count to 100. When you feel anger building, get a glass of water or use the restroom.)
Sharma also recommends the “Three Gates Technique” created by ancient thinkers to approach tense or anger-filled situations. Ask yourself the following three questions before responding angrily to someone:
1) Are my words true? For instance, is my accusation that my co-worker takes two-hour lunches true? Or is there another explanation for their midday absence?
2) Are my words needed? Do I need to address this issue? Perhaps my co-worker’s going through a difficult time and will return to their normal hours soon.
3) Are my words gentle? If I address my co-worker, will I do so kindly?
If you can respond ‘yes’ to all three questions, then speak. If not, consider modifying or withholding your speech.
Other Versions of the Three Gates Technique
The Three Gate Technique to which Sharma refers here has somewhat nebulous origins and seems to have surfaced in different iterations at different times. Some attribute it to the Sufi poet Rumi and others to the Greek philosopher Socrates, who called it the Triple Filter Test.
Furthermore, in Buddhism, there’s a similar series of five questions to check if your speech is appropriate:
Is it spoken at the right time?
Is it spoken in truth?
Is it spoken affectionately?
Is it spoken beneficially?
Is it spoken with a mind of goodwill?
These three questions incorporate the Three Gates questions. However, with its additional two questions, the Buddhist approach places a heavier emphasis on speaking compassionately than the Three Gates Technique. If there’s even a trace of malice or ill will, in Buddhist thought, you should withhold speech.
To deal more effectively with challenges in your day-to-day life, Sharma recommends writing down your problems. This relieves you of the burden of thinking about them and may also help you solve them: You might realize that some problems aren’t actually problems, that you can solve some easily, and that you don’t need to worry as much about others.
(Shortform note: Sharma suggests writing down your problems to get a better mental handle on them. Beyond this basic recommendation, it may even be more beneficial to hand-write your problems rather than type them. This is because you can’t write as fast as you type and therefore must express problems concisely. You thus avoid diluting your understanding of the problem through wordiness.)
The final action Sharma recommends to prevent problems from consuming your daily life is to schedule periodic stretches of “worry time.” This can be up to 30 minutes at the end of the day. But when those 30 minutes are up, stop worrying and move on to something new.
(Shortform note: It’s helpful to set up parameters for Sharma’s suggested “worry time” so you get all your worries off your chest effectively. First, determine a regular time of day and amount of time to worry—Sharma suggests worrying at the end of the day, but you might find a different time (such as first thing in the morning) that suits you better. Whatever the case, the worry time should last no more than 30 minutes. Worry in an uncomfortable place far from spaces you enjoy being in. To conclude your worry time, shift to an activity you enjoy.)
View your mistakes objectively as learning opportunities, rather than as personal shortcomings.
Describe a moment in the last month when you made a mistake and the context in which you made the error. (This can be a big or a small mistake.)
Write down why you made that mistake—what logic or reasoning were you following? (For instance, if a work presentation didn’t go well, you might note down that you were trying to implement new and unfamiliar feedback or that you were working with imperfect knowledge of the topic.) Be specific and objective—don’t justify a mistake by simply writing down that you’re “bad at presentations,” for instance.
Now, imagine the very same situation that prompted your mistake will arise again. You cannot avoid it, but you can change how you approach it based on what you learned from your reflection on your last mistake. Write down how you’ll apply that learning to this new situation. (For instance, in your next presentation, you’ll be sure to get the resources you need to be fully informed or ask follow-up questions about feedback you don’t understand.)
Now that you can handle challenges more gracefully, we’ll discuss how to take the reins of your life by benefiting from the support and wisdom of others.
Sharma believes that you can’t possibly accrue all the experiences you need to pursue your purpose first-hand. However, you can gain the learning you’d acquire from those experiences second-hand from others. In this chapter, we’ll talk through five specific ways to gather the wisdom and support of those around you.
Sharma’s first recommendation for gaining input from others is to create an imaginary panel of specialized mentors and turn to them for guidance. When you need advice on a tough problem, imagine what a mentor would tell you.
You don’t have to know these mentors, and they don’t have to even be alive, assures Sharma. They should just be figures you admire and who have something to offer to your life. For instance, your panel might consist of Steve Jobs for advice on innovation, Oprah for advice on self-care, and the Dalai Lama for advice on spirituality.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends heeding the (imaginary) advice of a panel of specialists in their fields. But David Epstein, author of Range, would argue that it’s wiser to heed the advice of generalists, rather than specialists. Generalists, he feels, are better equipped to handle unpredictability and adapt to novel circumstances than specialists. Therefore, when building your panel of mentors, consider including some generalists who can “advise” you on many areas of life.)
In addition to creating your imaginary panel of supporters, Sharma also recommends building an active group of three to four people who offer mutual support in achieving goals. Pick a few friends who have a good head on their shoulders and to whom you, in turn, have something to offer. Set up a weekly meeting with this group to talk through current challenges.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends creating a support group of at least three to four trustworthy people. Not everyone may know four such people, though, and studies even showed that in 2004, many Americans had no close friends. To meet more people to add to your trusted group of supporters, expand your network of casual friendships and acquaintances. Casual acquaintances can eventually become trusted confidants.)
In addition to an informal support system, Sharma also believes you might benefit from hiring a life coach. An experienced life coach can help you arrange the pieces of your life to better achieve your purpose. They also offer an outside perspective to help you form the right patterns of behaviors and thoughts faster than you could alone.
(Shortform note: Sharma advises you to get a life coach to benefit from their expertise and perspective. Paradoxically, there’s been an increase in the number of life coaches aged between 25 and 35—an age group, one could argue, that hasn’t yet accrued enough life experience to successfully help others. Indeed, after a 29-year old reporter hired a 21-year old life coach, she discovered that a loss of youthful idealism might be required for life coaches to be able to fully empathize with clients. The coach Sharma would recommend would likely be one with some years of life experience under their belt.)
To attract the wisdom of others into your life, Sharma also recommends building a list of champions you’d like to meet someday.
(Shortform note: Sharma wants you to try to meet your champions, but that might not always be a great idea. When you meet an idol and see they’re human, just like you, they lose the ability to teach and inspire you. The enchantment around them may fade—or worse, you might realize they’re downright unpleasant.)
Additionally, claims Sharma, because there are only six degrees of separation between all humans, it should be easy to move along the chain between yourself and your champion to meet them.
(Shortform note: Sharma mentions the concept of six degrees of separation, and indeed, there’s proof that there are approximately six degrees of separation between every individual on earth—specifically, though, 6.6 degrees. In 2008, Microsoft conducted a study in which it analyzed 30 billion email conversations between 180 million people across several continents. While some duos were separated by up to 29 degrees, 78% of duos were separated by only 6.6 degrees, meaning there’s a good chance you’re not too far from meeting your champions.)
Sharma’s final recommendation for attracting support is the least formal: Invest time and energy into forming good friendships. Putting yourself out there can be difficult, but taking the initiative typically pays off. New friendships add not only support but also joy to your life.
(Shortform note: Sharma advises you to proactively build strong friendships. But it can be hard for adults, especially adults over the age of 30, to do this. With family and work taking up most of your time, making new friends can seem superfluous, no matter how much joy they might bring. One way to overcome these time constraints is to make friends for existing commitments: for example, a yoga friend, a work friend, or a parenting friend. This takes the pressure off you to make swaths of time for friendship-building, since you’re already engaging in these activities.)
Assemble a team of imaginary mentors to guide your decision-making.
Write down all of the different realms you can break your life into. (These might be realms like work, friends, family, and creativity.)
For each realm listed, note down a goal you’d like to achieve or something you’d like to do better. (In the realm of creativity, for instance, you might want to develop greater discipline around creating each morning.)
Now, for each realm, think about and write down the name of a person who’s achieved the goal you noted. (For creative discipline, you might look to Kurt Vonnegut, for instance.)
Finally, write down what that person would say or do to help you achieve your goal. What sort of advice would they give you? How would they go about achieving the goal you noted?
In the last chapter, we described the ways you can seize control of your life by availing yourself of the wisdom and support of others. In this chapter, we’ll focus on how you can develop your self-discipline to get a handle on your life. We’ll first discuss how you can see discipline as a form of self-care, rather than self-punishment. We’ll then introduce six approaches to building your self-discipline.
Sharma argues that being disciplined is a form of self-care. When you exert discipline over yourself, you make choices that are unpleasant in the short term but better for you in the long term. These hard choices also often guide you toward your purpose. Additionally, by putting in the work to improve yourself, you don’t wait around for the world to force you to improve—an experience that’s usually more painful, claims Sharma.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s a big believer in self-discipline, but others take a more critical stance toward it. Some feel that self-discipline stems from deep-seated anxiety over not finishing projects on time or a sense that your worth is completely based on your performance. Self-discipline, therefore, might not confer greater benefit to you in the long run, as Sharma believes, because you never give yourself the chance to enjoy the fruits of your labors. You’re too busy working to avoid guilt or anxiety over the next project.)
Here are six approaches to building your self-discipline:
Sharma believes that action, not intention, is the key to being disciplined. If you intend to improve an area of your life, don’t stop there—take the necessary actions to improve it.
Taking action can be difficult, admits Sharma. But the good news is that by regularly taking disciplined actions, those actions become increasingly appealing and easy to make. If you keep pushing yourself to socialize, it will become easier and more fun.
(Shortform note: Science backs up Sharma’s claim that your enjoyment of a difficult activity increases the more you do it—specifically, science around running for exercise. While running can be unpleasant at first, the neurological benefits—reduced stress and increased mindfulness—eventually make it enjoyable. Of course, it takes time to reach that stage of enjoyment, and in the meantime, you can make running—or any other activity—easier by starting small and building up. As long as you’re acting on your intention in some way, even small, you’re heading in the right direction.)
A specific way to exert better follow-through on your intentions, according to Sharma, is to refrain from saying things you don’t mean: Don’t make commitments to yourself and others that you can’t or won’t keep. Don’t, for instance, tell yourself that you’ll go to someone’s birthday party if you know ahead of time that you’ll be too exhausted to attend. Not meeting the obligation will reduce your faith in yourself.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s advice about honesty is akin to don Miguel Ruiz’s advice in The Four Agreements to only ever speak the truth and avoid meaningless or false speech. But unlike Sharma, who frames this advice in the context of building self-discipline, Ruiz writes about false speech in the context of advancing the greater societal good. False speech can have unpleasant, unintended consequences for those around you—like when you pass an offhand, untrue remark about a friend’s outfit that leaves them feeling insecure the rest of the day.)
Another way Sharma recommends being more disciplined is by treating your time as a commodity. You have a finite amount of hours on this planet, so don’t waste even a single one. As a specific example of treating your time as a commodity, Sharma recommends you don’t always answer the phone when it rings. When you drop a task to respond to someone else’s need, you treat your time like a wasteable resource.
Sharma adds that often, you must train your brain not to respond instantly to every input that comes your way. But when you become less trigger-happy, you’ll realize the things that used to seem so urgent never truly were.
(Shortform note: At the time of this book’s publication, our world was much less tech-saturated than it is today. The importance of not responding immediately to every ping, call, or message, therefore, is all the greater now—yet our resistance to such stimuli is all the weaker. Statistics show that 16% of adolescents have smartphone addictions, with symptoms like phantom vibrations and feelings of social isolation when away from their phones. To combat the encroachment of tech on their lives, some have gone even further than Sharma’s recommendations to ignore notifications and not respond instantly: They’ve turned to digital detoxes in which they go cold turkey on certain tech or phase out tech over 30 days.)
Another important element of increasing discipline is becoming a more disciplined listener, insists Sharma. View every interaction as an opportunity to grow and build trust between you and the other person—not as a chance to express your views. When you listen in a disciplined way, you’re more likely to learn and grow as a result of the conversation.
(Shortform note: Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life provides a further reason to listen in a disciplined way: You can learn from others’ mistakes. Peterson asserts that many people use speech to reason through their thoughts. They make sense of the past and plan for the future by talking things out. When you listen well, therefore, you learn lessons from their lives and avoid the difficulties they experienced.)
Sharma proposes three specific strategies to become a more disciplined listener:
If you find yourself talking for more than a minute without input from your conversation partner, you’re talking too much, says Sharma. Be mindful and don’t speak for longer than this amount.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends curbing the amount of time you speak at once. While this likely remains a good general tip, there are some fields where talkativeness, a common trait in extroverts, is useful: People who like making small talk tend to perform well in public relations, sales, and event planning.)
Interruptions are often just a way to wedge thoughts or opinions into a conversation, claims Sharma. Instead of doing this, double down on listening.
(Shortform note: Sharma advises against interrupting, but different people have different views on this practice. For some, interrupting is a sign of engagement, not a show of narcissism or rudeness. Therefore, before applying Sharma’s advice, gauge how your conversation partner reacts to interjections. If they seem not to mind them, then continuing to interject can keep the conversation flowing smoothly.)
If you’re in a professional setting—for instance, a meeting or an interview—take notes during the conversation, advises Sharma. This tells your conversational partner that you’re paying attention and are committed to learning from them.
(Shortform note: Beyond showing that you’re listening, notes can help you use the content of the conversation to your benefit. In Getting Things Done, David Allen suggests capturing everything you need or want to do in note form so you can act on it.)
Another form of self-discipline Sharma recommends is being silent for one hour a day. Intentional silence builds willpower that you can apply to other areas of your life.
(Shortform note: Silence has health benefits in addition to cognitive benefits. In moments of stress, silence can help lower blood pressure and muscle tension, decrease your heart rate, and calm your breathing. However, building quiet into your day can be hard, especially for extroverts who often need noise to feel comfortable. Extroverts can start small, by, for instance, drinking their morning coffee without talking, and build up to completely silent and still moments.)
Sharma advises you to bring discipline to the care of your body. When you take care of yourself through exercise and wholesome eating, not only do you reap the benefits of good health, but you also strengthen your mind and gain perspective on life.
(Shortform note: Scientific evidence links good physical health to good mental health, thus backing up Sharma’s argument. Exercising regularly reduces the effects of anxiety and depression and elevates your mood and self-esteem.)
The final form of self-discipline Sharma advises is to always bring a book to read during unexpected downtime. Make the most of minutes spent in transit or waiting for a friend by expanding your knowledge.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends filling downtime with meaningful activity as a self-disciplinary practice, presumably so you can make the most of your time. But others argue for regularly giving yourself time to be idle. When you allow your mind to wander and dream, you enhance your creative powers and productivity and recharge your brian’s battery.)
Assess how carefully you spend your time and make necessary changes to spend it more effectively.
Pick a recent day to perform a time analysis on. Write down what your planned activities were for that day and the amount of time you wanted to allocate to each activity. Ensure each minute of the day is allocated in some way, even if it was just for downtime. (Don’t write down how you actually spent your time—we’ll look at that in the next step of this exercise.)
Now, note on your schedule when you were pulled away from the task or activity you should have been doing. (For instance, if from 8:30 a.m. to 8:50 a.m. you meant to eat a peaceful breakfast but actually spent that time frantically searching for an article of clothing to wear to work, make note of that.) How many activities did you fully accomplish? How closely did you stick to your ideal schedule?
Finally, for each time you were pulled away from the task at hand, note how you might prevent this from happening in the future. You’ll have more control over certain distractions than others, and there may be distractions you simply cannot ignore—for instance, when your boss needs you. But wherever possible, devise a defense mechanism to deal with incursions on your time.
Sharma also discusses kindness as a tactic to develop your control over your life and steer it toward your purpose. We’ll first describe why Sharma feels kindness is integral to pursuing your purpose. We’ll then cover six ways in which you can spread kindness to yourself and others.
Sharma’s recommendation is to simply be kind to yourself and others as often as possible. When you do this, you more effectively pursue your altruistic purpose in life. Let’s say your purpose is to add value to your community. When you perform community service with a kind disposition, you add more value than if you had a sullen or even neutral disposition.
(Shortform note: Beyond enabling you to more effectively pursue your purpose, practicing self-kindness has other benefits. Being kind to yourself turns off your body’s threat response, thereby calming your heart rate and reducing damage to your immune system. In this relaxed, unthreatened state, your body can regenerate and heal. Being kind to others, in turn, can have a positive impact on your mood and self-esteem.)
Here are six strategies Sharma recommends to spread kindness:
One way to be kinder to yourself is to find a reason to laugh every day, says Sharma. Laughter has stress-relieving and energizing properties that make your life more pleasant.
(Shortform note: As Sharma suggests, laughter has scientifically-proven health benefits: It can increase your oxygen intake, which stimulates your muscles, lungs, and heart. Laughter can also even enhance the functioning of your immune system and ease pain.)
When spending money, spread kindness spiritually by being grateful that the money came to you and passing it along with kind wishes, suggests Sharma. Gratitude is a form of kindness to yourself because it makes you aware of the blessings in your life. Furthermore, by wishing that the recipient benefits from your money, you enhance your capacity for compassion—a form of kindness to others.
(Shortform note: You can deploy gratitude to make your life better outside the realm of monetary transactions—for instance, to build new good habits, writes Atomic Habits author James Clear. When implementing a challenging habit—like regular exercise—feel grateful that you have the mobility to exercise, rather than fixating on any inconveniences of working out.)
One way to practically spread kindness to others is to send thank you notes, writes Sharma. This small act of gratitude can have a hugely positive effect on the recipient.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends writing more thank you notes, but this is a form of communication that’s become somewhat forgotten in the digital age. To send an effective thank you note, get to the point of the message—the thanks—quickly and specify how or why you are thankful. End by expressing how you can repay the kindness—by inviting the recipient out for coffee, for instance.)
Sharma believes you can be kind to yourself by forgiving others quickly. When you forgive, you relieve yourself of the burden of carrying negative feelings and make room for happiness.
(Shortform note: In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie recommends an extra, important element to the act of forgiving: actually thanking someone you feel has wronged you if they taught you something. For example, if a motorist yells at you for not having your headlights on, thank them—or send mental thanks—for letting you know.)
Humility is a great way to spread kindness, claims Sharma, because it shows others you’re open to and respectful of their ideas. By being humble, you signal to others that you’re aware you don’t know everything (and never will) and that you’ll listen to them with an open mind.
(Shortform note: Humility isn’t just a way to spread kindness—it’s also an important tool for having difficult conversations. As the authors of Crucial Conversations discuss, a combination of humility and confidence lets you speak clearly while being open to learning and changing your mind.)
Finally, spread kindness by acquiring specialized knowledge and sharing it, says Sharma. When you contribute something new to a project, conversation, or relationship, you add value, and others can benefit from your insights. If, for instance, a grandparent is developing Alzheimer’s disease, educate yourself about supporting someone with this disease and implement that learning to make your grandparent’s life better.
(Shortform note: Ego Is the Enemy author Ryan Holiday also makes an argument for constantly educating yourself, but his motivation is attaining personal success rather than spreading kindness. Holiday claims that being a constant learner allows you to continue growing, thereby continuing to excel in your field.)
Find an area to expand your knowledge in the service of others.
Think about your friends and family: Who in your life is struggling in some way? (This might be a mental health struggle, an academic struggle, or some other struggle.) Note who this person is and be as specific as possible about what their current challenge is.
What knowledge or information could help the person overcome their struggle? Write down as many suggestions as possible. (For instance, if your friend suffers from social anxiety, read some articles by psychologists on how to cope with this form of anxiety.)
Now, how can you acquire the information that might help this person overcome their struggle? (For instance, what sorts of literature, documentaries, podcasts, and so on might you consume to assist them?) Write down as many ideas as possible.
Now that you know how to use kindness to exert greater control over your life, we’ll end by talking about how you can use downtime and mental breaks to be more in control and pursue your purpose more productively.
We’ll first cover three different breaks you can incorporate into your daily and weekly routines. We’ll then move on to five other ways to step back and let go that have the power to rejuvenate you and restore your control over life.
Sharma recommends you incorporate several types of intentional breaks in your daily life. The point of these breaks is to refresh your mind and energize you to live the rest of your day or week in service of your purpose—not to disengage from reality, for instance, by scrolling through social media feeds.
(Shortform note: In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown elaborates on the idea that we need intentional breaks in our days by introducing the acronym DIG. People who DIG are good at taking intentional breaks: They’re Deliberate in their choices of what to dedicate their energy toward, Inspired to make things better for themselves, and get Going to act on that inspiration. Applying DIG can help you more proactively take the right kind of break when you need it.)
Here are three breaks Sharma recommends:
Sharma proposes building a personal break into your week. This can be a whole day or just a few hours for activities that replenish you and reconnect you to your purpose. Pick up a creative pursuit or simply an entertaining one, says Sharma. The main point is that you allow yourself to do what you want.
(Shortform note: A common counter to Sharma’s advice to take personal breaks is that you’re too busy. But while busyness is often presented as a virtue, it can also be a way to avoid difficult thoughts that might come up during breaks. For example, being “too busy” to reconnect with your purpose means you don’t have to think about how detached your life may be from it. If you constantly claim you’re too busy to take time for yourself, you might be especially in need of a personal break to reconnect to your purpose.)
In addition to weekly breaks, take short imaginary holidays when you need a quick refresh, says Sharma. An imaginary holiday is simply a visualization of being in your favorite vacation spot, which you can do at any time during the day.
To take an imaginary holiday, writes Sharma, close your eyes and envision yourself in your favorite holiday destination. See the scenery, smell the smells, feel the atmosphere. You trick your brain into thinking you are on holiday and derive many of the same replenishing benefits.
(Shortform note: You might consider Sharma’s description of an imaginary holiday a form of self-hypnosis. In self-hypnosis, you achieve a state of focus and suggestibility and then visualize in great detail a goal you’d like to achieve, such as giving up smoking or, as Sharma suggests, relaxation. You can use self-hypnosis as a tool for improved sleep, weight loss, and even pain management. It’s important to practice self-hypnosis regularly and firmly believe in its power to get the most benefit from it.)
Every so often, take a one-day break from your watch or time-telling digital device, says Sharma. This puts you in tune with your personal rhythms rather than the cycle of the clock.
(Shortform note: Taking breaks from time-telling devices can help you get back into the cycle of your circadian rhythm, which ensures your body functions optimally at every moment over 24 hours. For instance, it makes your digestive system secrete proteins at mealtimes and causes sleepiness at night. Jet lag and shift work can disrupt your circadian rhythm.)
In addition to building regular breaks into your schedule, Sharma also advises you to take permanent breaks from projects that aren’t panning out. If you feel the outcome of a project won’t be worth the investment in it, drop it. Sharma specifically applies this advice to finishing reading books, but it can cover anything: playing in a band you don’t enjoy, volunteering with a group that’s not making a difference, or staying in a job you dislike.
When to Abandon a Project
Sharma recommends abandoning projects when you feel the costs outweigh the benefits, but it’s difficult to know when you reach this point. Ask yourself these four questions to better understand if it’s time to quit something:
Why did I originally undertake this project? If the project’s veered from its original purpose, it might be a sign you should quit.
Why do I want to quit now? Understanding your motivation to quit can help you decide if you should heed that urge or if it’s just a temporary annoyance.
Have I tried everything to make this pay off? If you haven’t done everything possible to make a project work before quitting, you might later regret it.
How will I benefit from quitting? Clarify what you’ll gain by dropping a project. Ideally, this will be time and energy to pursue more purpose-oriented ventures.
Another way Sharma advises you to let go is simply by doing nothing. (This is similar to his recommendation in Tactic 6 to adopt the discipline of silence.) Sharma believes it’s in moments of inactivity that you gain distance from the chaos of regular life and can assess if you’re leading your life in service of your purpose.
(Shortform note: Sharma advocates for making time to do nothing. In our fast-paced world, this can seem like a tall order, which is why you might try the less time-consuming act of mind-wandering. Mind-wandering happens when you’re engaged in a task, but your thoughts are elsewhere. When you let your mind wander, you can do something important yet mentally undemanding—like cleaning the home—while connecting with your purpose.)
Sharma also recommends you let go by consuming good films and music. Watching movies gives you access to ideas, characters, and circumstances you might otherwise never encounter. This exposure lets you bring fresh eyes to your current life and the pursuit of your purpose.
Music, in turn, can give you a powerful mood boost, writes Sharma. Start a collection of good music for every part of your life: work, your commute, celebrations, and so on.
(Shortform note: Sharma’s right about the rejuvenating power of art: Studies have shown that people who regularly attend cultural events enjoy better health, are happier, and suffer less from depression and anxiety. Art can also broaden your mind, as Sharma suggests, with one study showing that students experienced increased critical thinking skills and empathy after a gallery visit. It also seems that both creating and viewing art have the same health benefits. Therefore, if you don’t love galleries but enjoy dabbling in painting on your own, you can still benefit from art’s healing powers.)
Spending regular time in nature is another way to temporarily let go, writes Sharma. You gain perspective, become less stressed, and access creativity that might otherwise be locked away.
(Shortform note: Sharma recommends spending any amount of regular time in nature, but studies have pinpointed the amount of time that confers the greatest benefit: at least 120 minutes, and ideally between 200 and 300 minutes a week. Spending this amount of time in nature has benefits beyond what Sharma mentions: It can improve your mood and confidence and reduce feelings of anger.)
Sharma’s final recommendation for letting go is to avoid reading the news for a week. This frees up time in your day and gives you a better outlook on life because you won’t bombard your mind with unpleasant information about what’s going on in the world.
(Shortform note: Taking a break from the news may prevent you from “doomscrolling”: the 21st-century name given to scrolling through unpleasant news. Social media, combined with a massive amount of—often upsetting—information available online, makes thoughtlessly scrolling through platforms addictive, even as it sinks your mood. If you’re not ready to give up the news for a week as Sharma suggests, limit your doomscrolling by setting a timer.)
Devise your own break that will keep you energized and purpose-aligned. Sharma proposes three types of specific, periodic breaks to build into your schedule. But you can also reflect on your unique needs and build in breaks specific to you.
First, think about your week: On what days or at what hours do you become unmotivated or sluggish? When do you find your energy sinking? (Do you often feel sluggish after lunch? Do you start your weeks with little energy and end them with lots of energy?)
For each of the slumps you’ve noted, what type of break do you think will most help you to stay energized? (After lunch, do you need an energizing break? At the beginning of the week, do you need a break to reconnect to your purpose?)