This is a guest post from Ciara Conlon, one of Ireland’s best productivity and well-being bloggers.

What are you grateful for today?

How often do you stop to give thanks for all the gifts you have been given? Recently I met a friend for coffee who described to me the changes she’d been experiencing in her life since she started writing what she was grateful for each day.

Previously unhappy in her job, as she started to focus on the positives, little by little things started to change. At work she took note of her boss thanking her for work she had done and her colleagues inviting her for lunch. At home she took note of her healthy children and the shinning sun. The results were much bigger than expected. Her mood improved, her health improved and her relationships both in work and outside have been positively affected.

Hers isn’t the only transformation. Both Amit and I have received a number of similar accounts from those who’ve started incorporating gratitude into their lives. For most, the changes are smaller and more gradual, but for some, gratitude can be transformational.

All this from simply giving thanks?

According to Robert Emmons of The University of California, gratitude is the “forgotten factor” in happiness research. He says scientists are the latecomers. He’s right – religions and philosophies have long embraced gratitude as an indispensable manifestation of virtue, and an integral component of wholeness and well-being. But science is making a quick comeback, over the past 20 years, a large body of scientific data has accumulated on the nature of gratitude, its causes, and its potential consequences for health and well-being.

Catholic Gratitude

I’m Irish and growing up in a catholic house meant being kind to your neighbor, doing good deeds where possible, being honest and having empathy for those who didn’t have as much as we did. We were always reminded how lucky we were and how much we had in comparison to the poor, the sick and the lost souls.

Being grateful was ingrained into everyday life.

Every day we gave thanks for the bread on the table and the roof over our heads. We were reminded daily how many starving children there were in the world and how lucky we were not to be one of them. We were made aware of how many children weren’t lucky enough to be born in a free country. On the other hand, we were born in a country where our forefathers fought and died for our language and our religion, therefore we must be grateful that they did.

But it was only in recent years when I started to challenge my own limiting beliefs when I realized that giving thanks in this way was perhaps not the right type of gratitude. The gratitude I had learnt as a child was about comparing yourself to others in order to be able to feel good about yourself.

Other types of gratitude?

My youngest children often complain about how they don’t have an iPad and their friends do or how it’s not fair that John got a new PC for Christmas and the laptop allocated for their use at home is so old it won’t even play Minecraft. I get irritated and angry that my children can be so selfish and greedy.

So I start by telling them to be grateful for what they have, “there are so many children in the world that have no electronics or that don’t even have enough to eat.” And when they complain about having to walk to school or about bringing the dog for a walk, I tell them to think about the boy who lives around the corner from us who only has one leg. But then I realized I’m making the same mistakes as my catholic parents.

Gratitude should not be a comparison.

Real happiness and real gratitude shouldn’t be about comparing yourself to others, but being happy and grateful for your own situation regardless of what others do or don’t have.

Gratitude not because a situation is better or worse but because it is as it is and we can be thankful. If we stop each day to breathe deeply and be thankful for all that we have, surely it will be more difficult to feel sorry for ourselves. More difficult to wallow in the comparisons of what we lack or what the world hasn’t given us. Life is simple really, and gratitude the only prayer we need to practice.

“Thank you for all that is and thank you that I am part of it.”

So what are you grateful for today?

Ciara Conlon is The Productivity Coach and author of Chaos to Control, a practical guide to getting things done. Ciara helps individuals stop procrastinating and achieve their goals. She believes that with Productivity and Positivity there is little we can’t achieve. Check out her website www.ciaraconlon.com and her online program www.ciaraconlon.com/getset4success.

I just got back from a ten week journey through India. It started out as a two week sightseeing trip with the family, but my mother country had different plans for me.

It was day two, and we had just gotten back from viewing the sights of Delhi – an ancient fort, a modern bazaar, a few beautiful temples. We were all exhausted, so we went straight to bed.

But a few hours later, I woke for a midnight dalliance. I was driven by a compulsion.

I just had to go to the freaking bathroom.

It was a romance that grew only stronger with time – what was supposed to be just a once-off encounter became an unbreakable habit. It started with food poisoning, but turned into something more – cough, cold, sore throat, and finally, fever.

In between I also managed to visit the Taj Mahal, ride an elephant, and a bunch of other fun touristy stuff. Which was all nice, but not the reason I decided to say back an extra two months.

No, it wasn’t because I was trying to lose weight, although food poisoning can do wonders for the waistline. It was because I had encountered a philosophy of life which bewildered me, and because I’d spent half of my time sightseeing and the other half sick, I’d had little time left over for the real cultural experience – mingling with the locals.

It was my first trip to India since I was a baby – my parents left in their twenties, and for 22 years didn’t go back. Now as an adult, I understand why my parents kept me away for so long, and why they tried to convince me not to extend my trip – just like I try to escape the materialism of my culture, my parents tried to escape the ‘laziness’ of theirs.

But I had been intrigued, so I stayed an extra two months.

The Guest is God

How would you respond if a friend asked to sleep on your bed for a week? How about if that friend said there was also going to be a +1 joining – a total stranger?

When I was miserable and sick and coughing all over the place, a total stranger, a friend of a friend, let me stay in her home and sleep on her bed. Her mother fed me, her friend drove me, she entertained me, and all three suggested I come back to visit again – which I did, two months later.

The kindness was mind-boggling. In America, a situation that like would be inconceivable. Attractive, 23 year old females don’t usually let sick, unknown men sleep on their bed for a week.

Not only did she have a boyfriend, he welcomed me himself and took me drinking. When I asked how they could be so kind, they gave me a simple response – “The Guest is God.”

But a few months later, I would learn that this kindness had less to do with religion, and more with the psychology of time.

Amit Bhaiyya, Play With Me!

After my family left and the sightseeing ended, I went to the state of Gujarat, to spend a few weeks with my grandparents. They’re getting old, so I figured I should spend some time with them before I no longer had that opportunity.

If you’re not familiar with my appearance, I’m the guy with grandma on his lap. Besides her and my grandfather, I’m not related to anyone else in the picture – they’re just a few of the locals. Not by chance, those locals turned out to be the friendliest neighbors I’d had in my entire life.

One of them, a college student, drove me around the city on his motorcycle whenever I wanted to go somewhere, even if he was busy with work. When I needed a translator, he was there, free of charge.

As school ended, kids would gradually fill the grounds outside. Their parents joined after they got back from work. The kids would play – everyone else would chat, often until late in the evening.

It’s not like they didn’t have other things to do – they all had computers and TVs.

They simply preferred the company of others.

A few times a week, one of the little ones would come up to my room and say, “Amit Bhaiyya, mara sathe rum.” In English, “Amit brother, play with me.”

It didn’t matter if I was working or in the middle of something. They came up, expected me to drop what I was doing, and join them. Sometimes, they themselves were skipping out on school. A few rupees to the teacher and an A grade could be guaranteed.

At first it was annoying, “I’ve got stuff to do, leave me alone!” But with time, I started listening. At first, I’d tell them to wait an hour, until I finished whatever I was doing. Then it became a half-hour. Eventually, I became just like them – mid-sentence, I’d close my laptop, put on my sandals, and go get sweaty. I know, not the most productive way of getting work done.

But it wasn’t just me or those kids – when I was staying with that stranger, she took a day off from work to show me around. Shops often closed after lunch so that workers could take a nap. Unplanned worker absenteeism is almost twice as high in India than the world as a whole – at some companies, 20% of the workforce at a time regularly calls in sick.¹

Conscientiousness Is King

How to understand that kind behavior?

Most psychologists believe there are five fundamental components to personality, along which every person can be classified and understood.

Using this model, those work skipping Indians would be considered low on conscientiousness and high on agreeableness. How well does that classification hold up to reality?

Those low in conscientiousness:

• are worse employees, being more likely to call in sick and perform lower quality work.^2,3
• are worse students, being more likely to procrastinate and get a lower GPA.^4,5
• are worse citizens, being more likely to commit crime and live off of others.^3,6

So… some of that is true, but some of it not. Indians don’t have anything approaching a puritan work ethic, but they’re no slobs either.

Those high in agreeableness:

• are more likely to trust others.¹³
• are more likely to help others.¹³
• are more likely to cooperate rather than compete.¹⁴

Again, some true, but some not. Take a drive around any of Indian’s major cities, and you’ll learn just how ‘agreeable’ people can be. And by that, I mean that traffic signals get ignored, there are no lanes, cars don’t signal, and I once had to carry my grandmother across a street for fear over her safety.

The five factor model just doesn’t fit. We Americans have decided that the yardstick along which to judge other countries is economic power and growth – money. Using that yardstick, conscientiousness is king – America is best.

But conscientiousness and work-ethic isn’t the defining difference between America and India. It’s the choice of yardstick.

Time or Money?

That Indian stranger made her choice clear – she spent time with me rather than get paid to work.

We’ve made our choice clear as well – compared to the 1980s, we’re spending more time with work, and less on family, friends, church going, recreation, and hobbies.^7,8

Europeans sit somewhere in between, they don’t skip work when they feel like it, but compared to the 1980s, most European citizens have significantly more leisure time. Germans, for example, spend 200 fewer hours per year working.⁸

But the German economy has also been growing half as fast. Not because they’re lazy, but because with each passing year, they trade a little less of their time for money, spending, rather than investing.

What Balance is Best?

From the perspective of well-being, each extreme is stupid – workaholics and full-time hedonists are alike in their unhappiness. But, there are more than two dimensions. The dichotomy isn’t as clear as enjoy the present vs. work for the future.

According to the new psychology of time, there are six dimensions:

Present focus is our natural state – that’s how babies are born. What happens next is the result of culture and environment.

In cultures which value heritage and tradition, past perspective develops. That perspective can move towards the positive (remembering the past as a series of good events), or the negative (remembering the past as a series of regrets and victimizations).

In environments where uncertainty is prevalent, opportunity is slim, and investing for the future more a gamble than calculated choice, present focus develops. That perspective can move towards fatalism (“I can’t control my life; there’s no point trying”), or hedonism (“let’s enjoy!”).

In cultures which value hard work, and in environments where investing for the future pays off, future focus develops. That perspective can move towards goal oriented (working hard to create prosperity for the future), or transcendence (working hard to ensure a place in heaven).

Each person contains a mix of these perspectives, with some stronger than others. The problem is that most cultures tend toward the extremes – the average Indian is high on past and present; the average American on future.⁹

What Combination Is Best?

I won’t say that each perspective has something to offer in moderation – there are no benefits associated with past-negative and present-fatalism:

• Present-fatalism is correlated with unsafe sex, drug use, low self-esteem, and pessimism.⁹
• Past-negative is highly correlated with depression.¹⁰

But with the rest? All correlated with happiness, life satisfaction, vigor, chances of developing positive relationships, self-esteem, and more.^10,11,12

According to Philip Zimbardo, the guy who wrote the Time Paradox and came up with and tested these ideas, the ideal time combination is high on past-positive and medium-high on future-goal oriented and present-hedonism.

There’s a growing recognition in the west that time is meant to be enjoyed, just as much as it’s meant to be invested. It’s why millions of Americans are learning meditation – the value of being present is slowly being appreciated. But the past-positive? It’s been ignored, although psychologists do their part by encouraging patients to re-frame their past in a positive light.

When one of my ex-girlfriends once game me a photo-album as a birthday present, I was bewildered – what am I supposed to do with it? Can I consume it for pleasure? Does it help me achieve my goals?

I’d forgotten how to reminiscence.

With that in mind, I suppose I should haven’t been too surprised with my results from taking the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory. I scored in the:

• 99.9 percentile for future-goal oriented. That is, I’m more goal oriented than 999 out of 1,000 people.
• .5 percentile for present-hedonism. That is, I’m less hedonistic than 199 out of 200 people.
• 5th percentile for present-fatalist. That is, I think (within reason) that I can do anything.
• .2 percentile for past-positive. That is, I reminisce positively about my past exactly never.

Basically, I’m unbalanced as fuck. Half of which owes to my genes and upbringing, the other half to my fight with fibromyalgia, which I’ll give a full accounting of next month. But I’m glad I took the test, and I’m glad I went to India.

Despite the number of positive changes I’ve implemented in my life since founding Happier Human (like gratitude) apparently, I’m still obsessed with the future. That’s got to change.

If you’re not sure where your time-perspective lands, take the quiz yourself. It’ll help to shine light on aspects of your personality you’ve taken for granted and ignored.

To learn more about time perspective, watch this video. With already 3,000,000 views, you can be sure it’s entertaining.

The last time I was on a date, things got awkward.

In itself, nothing new – on my best behavior, I’m unique. Loosened up by alcohol, I turn a bit weird.

It started off normal. Following my own advice, we were eating at the highest rated Italian restaurant in New York City.

I hadn’t had a single expensive meal since quitting my eat-caviar-for-free consulting job. So I ordered an orgasm-in-your-mouth quality steak.

No surprise, it was so good that I wanted to savor the experience. Several times that evening I closed my eyes, stopped paying attention to the sounds around me, and focused exclusively on my sense of taste – on the complex, absolutely delicious waves of flavor washing over my tongue. My mouth may have curled into a creepy smile.

I tried explaining what I was doing – that it wasn’t because she was boring that my eyes were closing. I don’t know if she believed me, but whatever. It was worth it.

Happiness just a hamburger away?

Economists have lots of funny ideas – theories which make sense on paper, but fail to hold up to the complexity of real life. For example, they believe that humans are perfectly rational bundles of intelligence, without emotion or evolutionary handicap. Were that true, HappierHuman wouldn’t exist.

A more subtle mistake is their belief in fixed, short-term utility – that life works like a game of sims.

If your sim is hungry, you spend 10 simoleons to purchase a hamburger. Whether eaten on Monday or on Friday, your mood bar increases by the same amount. Real life doesn’t work that way.

If on Monday a crazy women was blabbing her mouth off across the table, you’d probably be getting only a few dollars worth of burger happiness. If on Friday you were happy and in good company, you’d be getting much more value than the $10 you paid for.

What’s changed is how you’re directing your attention – on Monday the crazy women is absorbing your attention, on Friday you have more ‘free’ attention to spend focusing on enjoying your burger.

Happiness = Quality x Preference x Attention

Economists got the quality and preference parts of the equation mostly right – if you don’t like beef, you’re not going to like a burger, and if the burger is made out of cardboard, even if you’re a beef lover, you probably won’t want to eat it.

But without attention, quality and preference don’t matter at all. With attention, the impact of quality multiplies.

Happiness begets happiness in part because happy people pay more attention to the good.⁴ But why wait for some vestigial biological signal? Take things into your own hands.

Start paying attention.

Ever hear of mindfulness meditation and its mind blowing awesomeness? I have – I’ve been convinced for years that it’s one of the most effective paths to greater happiness.

It took me a dozen false-starts over six years to finally set the habit. Are you the same? Convinced of the benefits, but not motivated enough to wait through weeks and months of mind straining practice?

Well, there’s not much I can do for you. If you want the power to generate happiness on command, you’ve first got to meditate for a few thousand hours (more: here).

But we’ve got one advantage the Buddha didn’t have. He threw away the material world, wanting to rely only on the power of the mind to generate happiness.

But most of the modern Buddhists I know are a bit more optimistic. So am I. Rampant materialism doesn’t work, but retreating to a temple and discarding all earthly attachments? Unnecessary – an over-reaction.

So, let’s take some of Buddha’s magic and combine it with the power of money. There’s nothing mystical about mindfulness. All it means is pay attention.

Routine Lunch x Focused Attention = A Micro Moment of Bliss.

The next time you’re eating something good, take a moment to close your eyes and focus on the pleasant sensations being generated in your mouth. You can take it a step further and be grateful for 1) your tongue, 2) the food, or 3) the people who made the food. I do this every day at lunch. It makes the food taste better.

But how much of a difference can it make, really?

If something tastes good, it tastes good. If something sounds boring, it sounds boring.

When I was a senior in high-school, lots of good things happened to me – for example I got a great SAT score, got accepted to a great college, won a few prestigious competitions, and got two scholarships. But each time something good happened, I was so focused on my future that within minutes I stopped savoring and resumed scheming and dreaming.

A single bowl of cereal gives me as much happiness now as what each of those great events gave me then – that’s the difference savoring making. Best of all, savoring isn’t a yes/no, I’m not messed up like you were Amit so this isn’t relevant to me sort of thing. It’s a spectrum.

To savor is to use the power of attention to increase the intensity and length of a positive feeling.

Those who savor the most are much happier – perhaps as much as 20 to 40% more.¹

Imagine getting 20 to 40% more value out of each of your purchases. Anticipating, taking delight in the details, and reminiscing can help you do that.

It’s simple – pay attention. You spent money on it. You might as well squeeze out the value you deserve.

The reason why a gratitude journal does more for happiness than winning the lottery is because it is a systematic strategy for increasing the amount that you savor – it forces you to pay more attention to the good.

Delight is in the details.

Mindful Game Playing: Every year video game graphics and music improves. How much does that increase the quality of the experience? You tell me – did you enjoy those crappy 8-bit characters you played with as a kid? I did. Like with many other things, it’s an arms race – every year standards increase and gamers come to expect more and more. Game companies buck the trend at their own risk.

Take a moment to bathe in the millions of pixels washing over your eyes every second. You’ll be rewarded with micro moments of bliss.

Mindful Music Listening: Supposedly, combining the power of attention with the power of music can treat depression.³ I’m skeptical - depression is harder to treat than that. But mindful music listening can be an intensely uplifting experience.

Sometimes I close my eyes, sometimes I go out into the sun. Always, I stop what I’m doing. Then, I just listen. Sometimes for just a few seconds, other times for a few minutes. No mental chatter, “oh, that sounds great”. No music inspired daydreaming. Just paying attention to the music. I’ve rediscovered my love for the older parts of my music collection several times using this method – the usual humdrum gets transformed into micro moments of bliss.

Mindful Sex: Well, this probably isn’t a purchase for you, but the bedroom is ripe for some attention. Considering that my family occasionally reads my blog, I’ll let someone else describe the experience: Be Here (In Bed) Now: How Mindfulness Makes for Yummy Sex.

But Mom or Dad, if you do happen to read this, I highly recommend reading the article above. It’s good stuff.

Mindful Drinking: Every sip of soda or coffee is an opportunity. The first time I had a Starbucks Caramel Brûlée Frappaccino I had a mental orgasm. Each sip gave me the chills. The rest of the day I was a bit high. I’m not exaggerating. It was worth the diarrhea (I’m sensitive to dairy and caffeine).

Anyhow, I try hard to recreate that virgin experience. The usual approach would be to increase the quantity of sugar and caffeine. But we know, because of adaption, that doesn’t work so well. What does is paying attention. A single, fully mindful sip of soda gives me the shivers. It’s not easy, but that doesn’t really matter – a little more attention = a little more pleasure, complete focus = a micro moment of bliss.

Paying attention is hard.

Those are just a few examples, but opportunities to pay attention to the good are all around us, every day. Every single purchase is an opportunity to savor, although some are easier than others.

I won’t lie. This is the hardest money secret of the entire series. It’s also the most powerful.

Double your attention, double your happiness? It’s more complicated than that. But it’s also true that most of the happiest people in the world are Buddhist monks.

You don’t have to go to a temple, study their philosophy of life, or even practice meditation. Just pay more attention to the good things in your life.

The year is 2150. By some miracle, you’re still alive. The Happiness Machine has finally been invented.

At a cost of just $100, you can get one for yourself. It’s like a non-stop dose of heroine, ecstasy and marijuana combined, but without any of the negative side-effects – no brain damage, no poisoning, no psychological impairment. Best of all, there’s no dependence.

The Happiness Machine feels just as good on day 200 as it did on day 1, inducing a permanent state of euphoria. The only drawback is that once you’ve plugged yourself in, there’s no going back – the euphoria is permanent.

Would you use it?

There’s a point in my life when I might have answered yes. I’ve spent many of the past 10 years of my life not happy – the thought of the few and far between moments of happiness becoming permanent would have been alluring. But even when depressed, I don’t think I would have used the Happiness Machine.

Because there’s more to life than happiness.

There’s making a difference, accomplishing things, leaving a legacy, having a family.

That was the core message of a recent, popular article by the Atlantic: There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.

I half-way agree – the pursuit of more happiness is only one of many important life goals.

But this article really pissed me off, excuse the language. I wrote up this piece up the same day I read it, but put off hitting the publish button for 3 weeks. I needed the time to delete all the expletives.

Scattered throughout the article are pieces of poisonous, toxic waste. They read like harmless ideas, but represent gross misrepresentations.

Myth 1: Happiness is insignificant.

If that’s what you think, this blog isn’t for you. My view is that happiness is one of a half-dozen pillars which supports a flourishing life – each deserving attention.

Myth 2: The Pursuit of Happiness is Hedonism.

Let’s stop and ask for a second, what exactly are we talking about when we mention happiness?

Entire textbooks have been written trying to define it – for today at least, I won’t try. But let’s forget complex philosophy. In our daily lives, the part of happiness that matters the most is also the easiest to understand – decrease the number of feel bad moments and increase the number of feel good moments.

That’s it. Happiness is, on balance, about feeling good.

There’s more to it – details that I’m ignoring. But for now, that definition is enough.

That’s also the definition most of us think of when we think of happiness. Which makes it clear why many associate the pursuit of happiness with hedonism – define happiness as feeling good, and oh look at that – those hedonistic hipsters out there that are doing drugs and having random sex are actually pursuing happiness.

Except they’re not.

[Hedonism] was related to recent negative events, lack of perceived control, and maladaptive coping dimensions, including anger, withdrawal, and helplessness. In contrast, future orientation was generally related to higher levels of adaptive outcomes, such as perceived control and positive well-being.¹

-The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life.

Hedonism isn’t happiness. It’s short-sighted.² One reason the hippie movement of the 60s failed is because things stopped being fun once people started going hungry.

Yes, too much future focus is a bad thing – you’ve got to stop and have fun every now and again. But hedonism is worse – you’ll end up addicted to drugs, stuck with a half-dozen STDs, unemployed, divorced, or homeless.

The pursuit of happiness requires a balance of both – appreciating the present moment, but also working enough to ensure a successful future.

Myth 3. The Pursuit of Happiness is Selfish.

This myth comes from associating the pursuit of happiness with hedonism, which, as I said above, is wrong. It might have been true in the 60s. Not anymore.

But even if it was still true, this myth would still be wrong. Hedonists aren’t selfish. They’re short-sighted. That’s a big difference.

The pursuit of happiness is associated with selfish behavior — being, as mentioned, a “taker” rather than a “giver.”

-The Atlantic

Bullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllsh*t!

Whoever this “taker” fellow, he gives selfish people a bad name.

This is my definition of selfish: acting in a way that furthers your interests.

By that definition, I consider myself among the top-tier of selfishness – I’m so good at acting in a way that furthers my own interests that most others consider me kind and caring.

No. I’m not saying I’m a psychopath.

I’m saying that selfish people, in the traditional sense of the word, are not selfish at all. They’re stuck in the past – when resources were scarce and selfishness kept people alive.

In the past, being selfish meant taking rather than giving. In the modern world, being selfish means giving rather than taking.

Remember, being selfish means acting in a way that furthers your interests. One of my key interests is being as happy as possible. That’s why I volunteer several hours a week, try to spend more on others than myself, and quit my consulting job in order to work full time trying to make the world a happier place.

Not because I’m selfless or altruistic. Make that claim, and you’d be 100% wrong. It’s because I’m selfish.

The major world religions nailed it hundreds of years ago. Now modern science confirms it:

• The loving are happier than the hateful.^3,4,5,13
• The grateful are happier than the entitled.^{5,6,7,8,9,10,11}
• The compassionate are happier than the indifferent.^{12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20}

 
Look. I understand. You might be rolling your eyes or calling me an idealistic softie.

I’m not talking about becoming a pushover or self-sacrificer.

I’m talking about intelligently pursuing your goals. Can I assume that one of your goals is to get happier? If so:

Which of those six behaviors looks anything like traditional selfish behavior? None – to be intelligently selfish is to be a “giver”, not a “taker”.

In case you’re still skeptical, there’s a lot more evidence that points to the conclusion that selfish people are less happy.

Myth 4: The Pursuit of Happiness is Stupid

It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.

-Victor Frankl

True or false?

Actually, mostly true. The pursuit of happiness is tricky, with dead-ends, pitfalls, and trap doors along the way.

Who’s happier – the American who cares a lot about happiness, or the American who cares more about his community?

It’s the American who cares more about his community.²⁵

The sad truth is that most Americans want to be happier. And in wanting to be happier, many of them end up worse for it. They might spent more time working in order to increase their salary, and desire greatness and start comparing themselves to the best of their community.

That’s dangerous – those with a higher salary are slightly happier, but working long hours (the “puritan ideal”) increases divorce risk, hurts health, increases stress, and more.^26,27 Those who compare themselves to the highest of standards report lower well-being.²⁵

In order to be happier, a reader of this blog might spend more time with their family or work to better themselves, while always cultivating gratitude for what they already have.

No question, that leads to increased happiness. But that’s not what most people think of first when they think, “I want to be happy, what should I do?”

So yes, the pursuit of happiness is correlated with reduced well-being, but that’s because most people have been duped.

One of the most important and growing costs of the modern way of life is ‘cultural fraud’: the promotion of images and ideals of ‘the good life’ that serve the economy but do not meet psychological needs, nor reflect social realities.

-Richard Eckersley

The pursuit of happiness is neither stupid or selfish, but only when done right, free of the toxic waste that’s accumulated in our culture over the past few decades.

Happiness is in the balance – taking enough to keep your needs met, but not so much that you deny yourself the pleasure of kindness; working enough to afford a solid home, but not so much that your partner goes cold in the bedroom.

If you agree, please share this post with your friends using the buttons to your left.

All action is based on prediction.

Every time you do something, its because you or your subconscious brain has predicted that doing so will leave you better off than the alternative.

Decide to stay with your romantic partner? It’s because you predict they’ll make you feel better than being alone or with someone else.

Spend money? It’s because you predict purchasing that object will make you feel better than buying nothing or something else.

Perfect the art of prediction, and no joke, you can take over the world. You’d be able to pick the best romantic partner, best career, best stock portfolio, best education, best everything. No more returns.

In the form of conscious deliberation and subconscious emotion, prediction directs our behavior.

We’re passingly good at it.

We feel that spending time with friends and family will make us happy. So we do it and feel happy.

We deliberate that going for a jog will give us a high. So we do it and feel high.

We deliberate that slacking off at work will get us fired, which in turn will make us feel bad. So we work hard, keep our job, and avoid feeling bad.

But when it comes to money, passingly good becomes pathetically wrong.

Desire distracts.

A college student dreams of becoming a lawyer making a cool $150,000. He’s been told he’s good at arguing and has an eye for detail, he’s hard working and ambitious, and most important of all, he wants that $150,000.

Lawyers are four times more likely to develop depression and two to six times more likely to commit suicide.^1,2

Desire distracts  - only 4 in 10 lawyers would recommend their career to others (this, from the American Bar Association, not some crackpot researcher with an agenda against the profession). What happened to quality of life?

Why gamble and hope to be one of the 40%?

A yelper has spotted a new Mexican restaurant. It’s got a bad rating, but why not give it a try – it’s got a great looking menu, complete with too good to be true pictures of its food.

Desire distracts - less than 1 in 10 yelp users enjoy their meal at a low rated restaurant.³ What happened to quality of food?

Why gamble and hope to be one of the 10%?

Just because the college student desires to be a lawyer, or the yelper desires to eat at that Mexican restaurant, doesn’t mean that doing so will make them happy.

The strength of your desire DOES NOT EQUAL the amount of happiness lying at the end of the road. 

Usually, it does, but when it comes to money, shi*t goes crazy – our desire gets hijacked for purposes not our own.

I’d prefer me and my family to be the ones benefiting from my earning and spending behavior. All too often, I’m not. All too often, we’re not.

Considering how much of our lives revolves around money, that’s a problem. This desire hijacking is the biggest obstacle to our successfully buying happiness.

But there’s a fix – free and easy to implement.

No, not hiding in a cave and trying to avoid the 1,000+ daily desire distorters (also known as marketing messages) thrown our way.

Something much easier.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you now, so first, more on how money makes your usually intelligent brain go haywire.

1. Your memory becomes foolish.
2. Your extrapolations become foolish.
3. Your desire becomes foolish.

1. Your memory becomes foolish.

I know, you’ve never had a conversation like that in your head. But a lot goes on under the hood, below conscious awareness.

Imagine that you purchased a nice, $80,000 car a few years ago. You enjoyed it. It’s getting old. Now it’s time to buy another – a newer model. If you enjoyed it once, you’ll probably enjoy it again.

Maybe…

Have you ever noticed that other people have an uncanny ability to enjoy expensive purchases, even when you can tell they were blatant mistakes?

I’ve noticed that behavior in myself. I spent $1,000 on a training course a few months ago.

Every time I think back on it, there’s a voice that says, “It was a mistake, you freaking moron!” But that voice is quickly overwhelmed – the idea that I wasted $1,000 feels so bad that I immediately search for justifications – reasons why I didn’t really make a mistake, “Oh, but because of that purchase I learned how to do x, y, and z… that’ll probably come in handy… eventually.”

It’s called cognitive dissonance.

1. It’s psychologically painful to simultaneously hold conflicting beliefs.

2. The brain automatically and without conscious awareness changes one or more of those beliefs to bring them into alignment.

Does this seem like voodoo magic? Nope, it’s real and it happens all the time. Two examples:

One: Liberals rarely read the Wallstreet Journal and conversely, conservatives rarely read the New York Times. The information from those other sources conflicts with their preexisting beliefs.

The subconscious answer – avoid reading the conflicting information.

I’m just as guilty as anyone else. I rarely read information from conservative sources.

Two: The Innocence Project frees prisoners who were wrongfully convicted using newly available DNA technology. So far they’ve only been able to free 302 people, despite thousands of innocent people remaining in prison. It’s not for lack of resources – it’s because the effort receives massive resistance from prosecutors and police.

The subconscious answer – discredit the source of conflicting information.

Cognitive dissonance is real, and it happens all the time – for more, in-depth examples:
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.

The larger a purchase, the greater the dissonance when it turns out bad.

The larger a purchase, the more likely we’ll subconsciously convince ourselves we liked it… even when we actually didn’t.

You may be resisting the idea that you dislike your career because you’ve already invested so much time into it.

You may be resisting the idea of making a change – of going somewhere else for vacation this year or buying a different car, laptop, or phone brand because you’ve already invested so much time and money into them.

If you want the best for your money, you’re going to have to deal with cognitive dissonance. Lucky us, we can just sidestep it.

2. Your extrapolations become foolish.

You’ve only got $15 to spend on entertainment this week. You’re a TV junkie. It’s either season 7 of Friends or season 2 of Heroes.

Fixed budget, one choice. Well, you could just download them both illegally, but lets assume you’re not a pirate.

If you’re anything like most people, you decide by going back into your memory and comparing how much you enjoyed each respective series. Whichever one you’ve gotten more pleasure out of, you purchase the next season of.

Common sense. Except things change. The future isn’t always the same as the past.

I should have listened when my friends told me Heroes had gone downhill after season 1. But of course, I like to think I know best.

Usually, I do. But when it comes to spending money, my college degree and latin honors don’t seem to do me much good.

Marketing messages warp our extrapolations.

Let’s say you see an advertisement for axe body spray – you know the kind I’m talking about – a guy sprays himself and then becomes irresistible. If not, a nice refresher:

warning, don’t watch at work or with children around

If you’re a potent man, like me, seeing all of those scantily clad women sparks desire. Here’s where we get tricked, and how marketing companies stay in business -

1. We men get a surge of desire (or not, if we’re married).
2. We associate that desire with axe body spray.
3. We predict that if we purchase axe, that desire will be satisfied and make us feel good.

In my experience, rarely does purchasing the right body spray suddenly turn a man into a ladies magnet. And so, the desire unfulfilled, latches onto another product (thanks to a friendly nudge from another well intentioned advertisement).

It’s not just sexual suggestion. There’s an entire category of mischief, in which the object that creates desire has little or even nothing to do with the actual consumption experience.

You finally buy your vacation home, predicting quite moments by the lake… but end up spending all of your time swatting mosquitoes.

You splurge on a trip to Disneyland, predicting many family bonding moments… but end up spending most of your time in line, sweating and increasingly anger prone.

Without actually living the experience, it’s often difficult to make accurate prediction.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of Disneyland. But there’s a quick, costless way to double-check, ahead of time, that you too, will enjoy the experience.

3. Your desire becomes foolish.

You smell a cheese pizza. Your desire shoots through the roof. You buy it, you eat it, and for a moment, you feel bliss.

This isn’t an article about health or dieting, so whatever. I consider that example a success. You had desire, you acted on it, you felt good for it.

But all too often, desire has nothing to do with happiness.

The primitive part of your brain doesn’t care about your happiness. To it, happiness is a means to an end, one of many tools it can use to motivate you to act in ways it thinks will help you survive and spread your genes.

Your primitive brain wants you to consume fatty, sugary food. Your motivation? Eating it makes you happy. That way, you go out of your way the next time you’re shopping to buy even more fatty, sugary food.

It works something like this:

That’s your desire and happiness systems in alignment – you desire those things which make you happy.

Sometimes, though, things go a bit wrong:

That’s your desire system out of alignment with your happiness system – all desire and no happiness.

You’d hope that if something didn’t satisfy you, you’d stop desiring it (any exes come to mind?). But you weren’t made to handle the craziness of the modern world.

Among other things, as you become more attractive, you start comparing yourself to ever more beautiful standards (how many ‘ugly’ friends do you have?). The good-looking are just a few percentage points happier than the ugly.^4,5,6

That’s okay with your primitive brain – the more attractive your partner, the more attractive your offspring. Win for your genes.

But I suspect the reason you purchased that dieting program is because you wanted to feel happier and more confident, not because you wanted more attractive children.

For you, happiness is the end, not a means.

So, the way to sidestep all of these problems?

Ask those who have already made the purchase how it made them feel.

How was that restaurant? That vacation? That laptop? That movie?

I’m not suggesting you become a clone – obviously we’re all different.

On Yelp you can filter by type of cuisine. On Goodreads by literary subgenre. On IMDb by demographic. On Amazon, they’ve got recommendations based specifically on people similar to you.

When it comes to money, rather than thinking, “I’m different, but sometimes others are similar to me,” I suggest taking the opposite perspective.

“My consumer preferences are similar to others, but sometimes they’re different.”

No. I’m not a communist. Well, if you’re going to call me that, at least call me a happy commi. I’ve found great success in adopting that mindset – fewer bad apples, more shining stars.

Some lawyers are happy with their career. Many are not. Thinking of going into law? I suggest investigating what makes those happy lawyers different, and seeing if you too, are one of the exceptions.

It’s not about justifying yourself to some invisible stoic judge. It’s about getting the most for your time and money.

• Metacritic.com – for movies, games, tv, and music.
• Yelp – for restaurants and other local businesses.
• Goodreads – for books and comics.
• Amazon – for everything.
• Imdb – for movies and TV.
• Glassdoor – for jobs.
• Pandora – for music.
• CNet Reviews – for electronics.
• Trip Advisor – for trips and vacations. *hat tip Joel
• HappierHuman – for life goals.
• Your friends – for everything else.

These websites aren’t perfect – some reviews are fake, some are made by people radically different from you, sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is more the folly of the masses.

But give it a try. You might be surprised. There are lot of people in this world more similar to you than you might think – there’s 7 billion of us, after all.

Did I miss any good review sites? Have any more tips for getting more out of reviews? Please share!

Confident that you’ll achieve your New Year’s resolution?

Most people are. Only 12% succeed.¹

88% of New Year’s resolutions fail.

Let’s make this time different.

Gamble and wish for the best, or take the long-term approach and guarantee eventual success.

Develop The Skill of Accomplishment

Accomplishment is not one inspirational technique or burst of willpower away.

It’s a skill, with lessons to practice and techniques to internalize.

The skills on this page have been tested by over 100,000 people across 103 scientific studies, to:

Improve diabetes self-management.74 Increase fruit consumption by 117% for seven days.42 Reduce calorie consumption by more than 100 per day.77

Take faster action towards cutting back on bad habits.78 Reduce alcohol consumption by 25% for a month.43 Reduce relapse.101,102

Increase work speed.6 Increase the likelihood of finishing a project on time.48,49,100 Increase ease of effort and work endurance.16,17,26,30

Score 20 to 35% higher on a series of foreign language learning quizzes.44 Complete 60% more practice questions in preparation for the PSAT.41 Spend 22 to 37% longer studying for a midterm.49

Accomplishment is hard. It has never in the history of human-kind ever been so unnatural.

Our brains weren’t designed to resist fatty food or exercise because the doctor said so.

Luckily, we happen to be the most adaptable species in the galaxy. We can rewire our instinct driven behavior into goal driven behavior.

Done right, we can even make pursuing our goals enjoyable.

Let’s take a look at the achievement equation. To hack it, we must first understand it.

Luck is uncontrollable and willpower requires too much effort, so let’s put those aside.

↑Value, ↑Likelihood, ↓Delay, ↓Distractions, ↑Expertise → ↑Success

If you’re not making the progress you want, one or more of those factors needs tweaking.

Let’s get started.

1. Value

Obviously you care about your goal – otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. But knowing your goal is important isn’t enough. You’ve got to feel that it’s important.

Our brain acts more on what it feels than on what it thinks. Let’s not fight it.

We could try to control our emotions and develop indomitable willpower… but that’s no fun.

There’s an easier way. We can translate what we know into what we feel.

Energy

When you’re tired or unhappy, the brain shifts towards short-term goals. A promotion years away may have once excited it, but bombard your body with fatigue or anxiety, and it will start to care much more about satisfying your instincts. On the flip side, when you’re happy or energized, even the most grueling of tasks can seem enjoyable.

• ↑Energy & Mood
• 1. Exercise,
•  2. Consume Caffeine Intelligently,
•  3. Listen To Music,                                                     
•            4. Increase Your Positivity Ratio,
•  5. Eat For Energy,
•  6. Change Your Environment,                 
•            7. Improve Your Sleep

Emotion Convincing

Scientists like to use stuffy language, calling it emotion regulation. I call it emotion convincing. Sometimes our heart needs a reminder or two for why it should care.

• ↑Emotion Convincing
• 8. Implementation Intentions,
•  9. Process Visualization,
•  10. Internalize The Why

Social Power

The easiest way to reach success is to put yourself in a social situation where achievement is the only acceptable option. We care what other people think. Rather than pretending that we don’t, let’s use that to our advantage.

• ↑Social Power
• 11. Join a Success Circle,
•  12. Get Accountable,
•  13. Choose Your Own D*mn Goals

2. Likelihood

We’re all natural optimists, over-estimating our chances of success. That’s often a good thing – if we didn’t think our effort was going to make a difference, we wouldn’t try.

You’ve got to make 2013 different. Not because there’s anything wrong with you as you are, but because for every year that you don’t make change, you make your failure habit stronger, closing up the possibility of future change.

How much harder would you give this time a try if you thought you had a 100% chance of making it – of losing weight, getting published, or kicking your addiction?

100% is impossible, but you can do better than what you’ve been working with. You can increase your expectations of success.

• ↑Likelihood
  • 14. Kaizen,
  •  15. Outcome Visualization,
  •  16. Mental Contrasting

3. Delay

Our forefathers didn’t have the luxury of worrying about retirement – of some uncertain event 30 years into the future. For them, every week was a challenge enough. They couldn’t afford to spare any energy.

Now it’s the other way around – those who invest do the best. But still, our natural inclination towards the present remains unchanged.

No surprise that school children are unmotivated – we adults often have difficulty motivating ourselves for rewards that lie just a few months away (e.g. cookie now vs. look good four months later); children are expected to train for an adulthood that is years into the future? Absurd!

It’s easier to bring our rewards closer towards the present, than to suppress our natural, short-term orientation.

• ↓Delay
  • 17. Chunk,
  •  18. Timebox,
  •  19. Create Artificial Rewards

4. Distraction

Value is relative. Growing up, my parents didn’t allow me to watch TV or play video games. Reading and playing with the neighbors was a joy, because compared to my next best options of studying or doing nothing, they were so much better.

If you want your kids to read, don’t force them. Rather, setup their environment in such a way that reading becomes enjoyable – make it their best form of entertainment.

When I wanted to start eating healthy, I threw away all of the junk food in my home and paid others to shop for me (the candy was too tempting in person).

If you want to get work done on your computer, disconnect from the internet – deal with distraction.

• ↓Distraction
  • 20. Mono-task,
  •  21. Destroy Distraction,
  •  22. Just Do It

5. Expertise

All the motivation in the world is useless if you’re doing the wrong things. Most personal goals fail, but often because of lack of knowledge, not lack of motivation.

Most of what we read on the internet about dieting is worse than garbage – making it near impossible to keep off any of the weight that we manage to lose.

Pursuing your goal without building expertise is like gambling – maybe you’ll get lucky and do the right things, maybe you won’t.

A little effort upfront can save you dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours of unnecessary floundering later. Almost 4 out of every 5 small business owners fail. It’s not because they’re lazy.

• ↑Expertise
  • 23. Premortem,
  •  24. Read Up,
  •  25. Ask For Help,
  •  26. Track & Experiment

6. Cocktails

There are almost 15,000 words on this page, enough to fill a 30 page e-book. Overwhelming, I know.

The point of this article isn’t for you to pick out a single technique and then go running. It’s to transform the way you look at accomplishment from yes/no, success/failure into structured training, gradual experimentation, and consistent progress.

For that to happen, you have to know which combination of accomplishment sub-skills to deploy against each unique challenge. Then you’ve got to be able use them effectively. Over time, you’ll develop those abilities.

Maybe you’re already a super-achiever. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter.

Accomplishment is a skill, with dozens of sub-components to be studied and trained. Level 10 or level 0, all of us have room for tremendous improvement.

To get started right away, I recommend trying out a few of my favorite cocktails.

• Cocktails
  • 27. Ulysses Contract,
  •  28. MCIIPV,
  •  29. EChunk,
  •  30. The Skill of Accomplishment

If you already have a goal in mind, consider which part of the achievement equation could use improvement. Is your reward too far out? Then jump to the ↓Delay section. Afraid your effort won’t pay off? Jump to the ↑Likelihood section.

Let’s get to it! Click below or keep on scrolling.

• ↑Value
  • ↑Energy & Mood
  • 1. Exercise,
  •  2. Consume Caffeine Intelligently,
  •  3. Listen To Music,                                                     
  •            4. Increase Your Positivity Ratio,
  •  5. Eat For Energy,
  •  6. Change Your Environment,                 
  •            7. Improve Your Sleep
  • ↑Emotion Convincing
  • 8. Implementation Intentions,
  •  9. Process Visualization,
  •  10. Internalize The Why
  • ↑Social Power
  • 11. Join a Success Circle,
  •  12. Get Accountable,
  •  13. Choose Your Own D*mn Goals

• ↑Likelihood
  • 14. Kaizen,
  •  15. Outcome Visualization,
  •  16. Mental Contrasting

• ↓Delay
  • 17. Chunk,
  •  18. Timebox,
  •  19. Create Artificial Rewards

• ↓Distraction
  • 20. Mono-task,
  •  21. Destroy Distraction,
  •  22. Just Do It

• ↑Expertise
  • 23. Premortem,
  •  24. Read Up,
  •  25. Ask For Help,
  •  26. Track & Experiment

• Cocktails
  • 27. Ulysses Contract,
  •  28. MCIIPV,
  •  29. EChunk,
  •  30. The Skill of Accomplishment

 


↑Energy & Mood → ↑Value → ↑Success
 

1. Exercise

  
Exercising regularly is one of the best things I’ve ever done for my productivity. The energy from just a few minutes of intense jogging can propel me throughout the day. I use to loath physical exercise. Now I’m a junkie – whenever I’m tired I go for a quick sprint or pull out some squats. 30 minutes later, I’m perked up and work is fun again.

I don’t do it because I care much about my health. It’s the energy.

Why: Exercise reduces symptoms of fatigue, increases vigor, reduces stress, and may increase mood almost as effectively as the anti-depressant Zoloft. ^2,3,4,5 Exercise has been repeatedly shown to increase workplace performance.

In eight studies which implemented workplace exercise programs, burnout and anxiety were reduced and productivity and job satisfaction increased.⁶ Employees performed better on exercise than non-exercise days.⁷

Time Commitment: medium

For folks just getting started – walking is not exercise. It’s better than sitting… but you’ll only be getting a fraction of the productivity and mood gains.

At the same time, studies have shown that non-exercisers going harder than they are capable may make them feel worse – both physically and emotionally. The key is to self-select a challenge you think you are capable of handling; it is in those cases that participants have reported the greatest mood and energy improvements.³

Don’t worry if you have to start really low. When I started training for my 8k over six months ago, all I could run was .2 miles before getting wiped out.

2. Consume Caffeine

  
Caffeine is a wonder drug – more than 90% of Americans take at least one hit a day. The few who don’t are often under or over-sensitive, unable to access caffeine’s benefits.

Why: Caffeine is awesome.¹³

Time Commitment: low

Studies have suggested that many habitual, heavy coffee drinkers (300mg+ per day) have lower mood and greater anxiety and irritability than non-consumers.^14,15,16 Because we quickly develop tolerance, much of caffeine’s mood boost then comes from withdrawal alleviation.

Although the scientists are still debating the specifics, the underlying principle is clear – those who regularly consume large amounts of caffeine are doing it wrong.

Near all habitual caffeine drinkers have developed tolerance – where one soda once sufficed, three cups of coffee are now required. The tolerance is only partial – although they may have lower baseline mood, their overall concentration will be still higher.¹⁶

But heavy drinker or not, by keeping in mind a few principles and exercising some self-control, you can maximize caffeine’s mood and productivity boosting potential:

1. In one study of habitual drinkers, consuming caffeine again after 4 to 6 hours had no overall impact on mood – the total quantity of caffeine and its resulting tolerance was too strong. On the other hand, those who waited 8 hours saw an increase in energy and relaxation, and a much larger increase in cognitive performance.¹⁷ Other studies concur – less is more, even if it seems like less at first.
2. Don’t drink before sleeping. Caffeine stays in our systems for five to ten hours. Although you may not have any trouble falling asleep, your sleep quality will be reduced, hurting your mood and energy levels.^18,19

Because I’m a slow metabolizer (drugs last in my system much longer than in normal people), my optimal dosing schedule is 100mg of caffeine and l-theanine once every other day first thing in the morning. Much more effective for me than twice or thrice daily consumption.

3. Listen to Music

  
The sweet sound of Lady Gaga or Britney Spears… what could possibly be more motivating?

Why: In the short-term, music is distracting. It has been shown to reduce reading comprehension, memory recall, and performance on a variety of other cognitive tasks.^{21,22,23,24,25} But still, music is awesome – it releases serotonin and dopamine, effortlessly increasing mood and motivation.²⁶

Time Commitment: low

Music is more distracting than it is motivating, which is why, on balance, it reduces short-term performance. However, because it increases mood and motivation, music makes work seem less demanding (perhaps even bearable pleasurable), extends the amount of time we can focus (often more important than having optimal performance), and makes boring tasks more tolerable (where it doesn’t matter if our mental performance has declined – drudge work doesn’t usually require peak intelligence).

Vocal music is more distracting than non-vocal music. Even if enjoyable, the brain must further split its attention to process the lyrics.²⁷

But don’t switch to classical music just yet. What’s more important is that you enjoy the music; otherwise, you won’t find any of the benefits.³⁰

4. Increase Your Positivity Ratio

  
Make happiness an active priority – practice gratitude, do yoga, make more time for friends, exercise.

Why: One of the primary functions of positive emotion is to signal safety and satiety. From Barbara Fredrickson, the discoverer of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion,

When there are few threats demanding intense, narrowed attention, positive emotions allow us to pursue our long-term interests. In our ancestors, transitory states of positive emotions led to behavior that may seem pointless or extravagant from the perspective of immediate survival, but that conferred serious advantages in the long term.

When we are happy, short-term distractions become less biologically important, and therefore less psychologically alluring (e.g. fatty food and facebook become easier to resist).³¹

Happier people make more money (the happiness comes first), devote more energy to making their marriage successful, are more productive employees, and more.^{32, 33, 34, 35, 36}

Time Commitment: high

For me, happiness and goal achievement are a positive spiral – the more I achieve, the happier I am, and the happier I am, the more energy I have to achieve.

More on the power of positive emotion.

5. Eat For Energy

Don’t skip breakfast and try to avoid large, carb-heavy lunches. I won’t say more than that, anything else and I’ll be treading into religious territory – everyone has their own ‘true’ beliefs (and for good reason, nutrition science is hard stuff).

Why: Without energy, work just isn’t going to get done – low energy equals low motivation. My afternoons became a lot more productive once I stopped gorging on Indian food for lunch.

Time Commitment: medium

You don’t need me to tell you how to improve your diet. You already know how. Just don’t underestimate its impact on your productivity. Like I said with exercise, when I do eat healthy, I don’t do it because I care about my body, I do it because I want to be energetic and productive.

6. Change Your Environment

Go somewhere different. Now pursue your goal. If you’re trying to get into an exercise habit, drive to a park; if you’re trying to study for an exam, go to the library. Once you feel your motivation dropping, move somewhere else.

Why: As we become more and more comfortable in the same environment, our level of energy decreases – we feel safe and no longer need to be as alert. In which environment do you think you’d feel more motivated – sitting in your office, or sitting on top of a moving train?

Sitting on top of a moving train is probably too much, but we could often use a splash in the face. Moving to a new environment can give you just that, but without the cold punch.

Time Commitment: medium

When I have trouble motivating myself, I either go for a quick run, or drive over to my local library. The change of environment gets me re-energized. After an hour, when my motivation has started falling low again, I’ll go to the local cafe. After another hour, I might go to Barnes & Nobles.

Because of all the driving, I’m spending less time actually working, but the effort I do put in is of higher quality.

Every change of scenery replenishes my motivation.

7. Improve Your Sleep

  
It matters.

Why: 150 research studies confirm what you already knew – poor sleep impairs health, lowers mood, decreases life satisfaction, and cuts productivity.³⁷ For a laymen friendly review of the research, read this article: Lack of Sleep in the Workplace: What the Psychologist-Manager Should Know About Sleep.

Some highlights:
-Poor sleep costs the US economy between $16 and $136 billion a year in lost productivity.
-Routinely getting poor sleep (e.g. insomnia, less than 7 hours of sleep a night, drinking caffeine in the evening): slows response times, causes lapses of attention, reduces mental endurance, impairs learning, reduces willpower and goal commitment, and increases impulsivity.
-In a 2007 survey of 28,902 American workers, 38% reported feeling fatigued at work within the past 2 weeks.³⁸

Is that extra hour or two really worth it?

Time Commitment: high

I know it can be tough – I’ve been fighting with sleep problems my entire adult life. But by treating sleep like a skill, rather than a one-off problem to be shooed away, I’ve made slow but consistent progress.

P.S. For you dieters – poor sleep is correlated with future weight gain.³⁹

↑Emotion Convincing → ↑Value → ↑Success

  

8. Implementation Intentions

  
Write down or verbalize your response given a set of two to five triggers, in the form ‘when [trigger], I will [action]‘. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight:

1. ‘As soon as I come home from work, I will change clothes and then go for a 10 minute jog.’
2. ‘Whenever I am given unhealthy food, I will throw it into the garbage.’
3. ‘When I am hungry in-between meals, I will eat an apple.’

Why: Planning when and where to implement an action strengthens the mental association between a particular situation and its desired action.⁴⁵ For example, implementation intentions helped participants of one study to more regularly consume a vitamin – when they encountered certain triggers (e.g. finishing breakfast, getting home from work), their emotions were trigger in such a way to encourage consumption of the vitamin.⁴⁰

This skill has a strong track record, having been used to increase grades, increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, increase physical activity, and reduce alcohol consumption.^41,42,43,44

A review of 94 implementation intention studies showed a consistent result – it helps.⁴⁶

Time Commitment: low

Flossing regularly before going to sleep will form a subconscious trigger – making it easier and easier with time. This is why habits are so powerful. Implementation intentions helps form habits without the need to actually perform the actions, making it easier when time comes to actually do it.

9. Process Visualization

  
Visualize yourself in the process of completing the steps involved in your goal in such a way that leads to success. For example, if you wish to get good grades, vividly visualize yourself studying in a way that leads to your getting an A – visualize the locations that you will be studying at, you flipping through your notes, eliminating distractions, turning down your friend’s offer to go partying, and so on.

Why: Process visualization creates two positive changes:

1) The process of mentally rehearsing the steps required to achieve a goal reduces the stress and anxiety that thinking about it generates – students are able to get themselves to more easily study after process visualization in part because the act of studying is no longer as aversive (“I visualized it, and it wasn’t so bad”). As a result, they study longer and get better grades compared to those who do nothing special or use outcome visualization (4 more hours studying for an exam & a 9% higher grade).⁴⁹

2) Process visualization translates vague goals into concrete steps, taking the S in SMART goals a step further. Furthermore, the act of visualizing these steps convinces the brain that they are more do-able than previously thought. When the brain thinks its effort is more likely to pay off, motivation further increases. Those students who used process visualization were three times more likely to complete a school project by a self-selected deadline (as opposed to the usual last minute).⁴⁹

Time Commitment: low

Although process visualization easily makes up for the time commitment required, there is a technique that requires just a bit more effort, but is much more powerful.

10. Internalize The Why

  
Write down three to ten positive changes that will occur if you successfully complete your goal. Now list three to ten negative aspects of reality which will not change if you do not successfully complete your goal.

Why: We can convince our subconscious that a goal is more important than it previously thought by bringing to conscious awareness particular reasons, positive or negative, why it should devote more of its scarce energy towards that pursuit. The more emotionally evocative the reason the better.

If you cannot immediately and without effort name five to ten reasons why you are pursuing a particular goal, you have yet to internalize your motivations for pursuing it. The more internalized a motivation, the more powerful it becomes.⁵⁵

Time Commitment: medium

To maximize the effectiveness of this skill, re-read your reasons for pursuing your goal until you can effortlessly recall them from memory. At that point, verbalize that list in your head (or out-loud if you’re alone or not self-conscious) whenever you need a boost of motivation.

↑Social Power → ↑Value → ↑Success

  

11. Join a Success Circle

  
Join a physical or virtual community of people who are successfully pursuing the same goal(s) as you.

Why: We are social creatures:

1. We subconsciously value higher those goals actively pursued by others, even strangers.^50,51,52
2. The higher the group standard, the greater the loss of status when you underperform.⁵¹ Loss of status is one of the most powerful motivators in the world.

Time Commitment: medium

Asian American immigrants are not smarter than you – they just get whipped when they don’t get A’s.

It’s (usually) not as bad as it sounds.

In middle-school, my friends were normal – anything higher than a B was enough to impress. Come high-school, I randomly found myself friends with the over-achievers:a B+ stood for bad+, being vice-president of a club was considered slacking, taking a break over the summer was for underachievers.

Having a straight A GPA, being president of at least 2 clubs, and going to Princeton or Harvard for summer classes was the norm (not exaggerating). From middle-school to high-school I went from being ‘normal’ to a ‘highest achiever’. I wasn’t ostracized by my friends when I did poorly, but because it was normal for them to work hard, it became normal for me. Because it was normal for them to find school interesting and full of opportunity, it became normal for me.

We weren’t really ‘working hard’, we were just playing in a way much different from most people. It was because of them, my first success circle, that I was able to become a ‘high-achiever’.

Failure is poison. Accept only high-standards.

When failure becomes common in a group, standards lower and your chances of success plummet. Success becomes extraordinary, and failure becomes okay.

Just don’t bite off more than you can handle – otherwise the positive accountability will become devastating stress and inferiority.

Web 2.0 to the rescue.

Finding a physical group of successful dieters, lovers, or meditators can be hard or impossible if you don’t live in or near a big city. I know – where I live now there are few communities of the kind I’m looking for.

The web has success groups of every kind, many available for free. If you detect low standards, you can easily leave and try again elsewhere.

I’m currently a member of 3 success circles, without which I never would have made it as far as I have. They’ve helped me recover when I was faltering. They’ve infused what could have been solitary with fun and community. They’re worth the time.




12. Get Accountable


  
Find someone else who is trying to achieve a goal. If it’s the same goal, that’s even better. A few times a month, check-in with each other. Discuss progress. If there’s been no progress, discuss roadblocks and potential countermeasures.

Don’t find a nagging partner, but someone who can help you stay true to your own intentions.

Why: It’s not so embarrassing to make excuses to ourselves when we fail. But once we’ve made a public commitment to someone we respect, those flimsy excuses no longer hold up as well. Within cooperative environments, we have a strong instinct to appear consistent and reliable – of doing what we said we’d do.^53,54

Time Commitment: medium

A wise life coach once said to me that the most valuable service she provided was accountability. Lucky for us, we don’t need to pay $80 an hour to get that service – all we need is a willing friend or family member.




13. Choose Your Own D*mn Goals


  
Excuse my language, but I’ve got a long personal history of relentlessly pursuing goals not of my own choosing. These goals were self-initiated, it’s not as though someone else explicitly told me to pursue them. But just as social pressure can be a powerful tool for promoting goal achievement, it can be a powerful tool for goal dissonance – for pitting one part of our self against another.

So ask yourself – “am I pursuing this goal because I really want to?, because it matches with my broad goals in life and is enjoyable? or because social pressure is making me feel insecure?”

Why: There’s nothing wrong with losing weight because you’re insecure about your appearance – the world would be a disgusting place (probably) if no one showered, everyone weighed over 500 pounds, and walked around naked.

The problem is that the further the goal from your underlying values and desires, the more difficult it becomes to generate and sustain motivation. Just as important, the further your goal from your core desires, the smaller the emotional benefits from making progress on and completing it.^55,58

Time Commitment: high

One reason work is often such a chore is because we have little intrinsic motivation – we do it for the money. Sadly, money is a necessity.

Many of our goals are not. They should be relentlessly discarded and selectively pursued – after all, our time is limited. Better to spend it on things we actually care about.

Complete these 4 questions if you’re not sure about your goal.

Participants across several studies were asked to complete the following four-item questionnaire. You should complete it as well if you’re unsure about one of your goals.

On a scale of 1 ( not at all because of this reason) to 9 ( completely because of this reason), you strive for this goal because:

1. somebody else wants you to, or because the situation seems to compel it.
2. you really believe that it’s an important goal to have.
3. you would feel ashamed, guilty, or anxious if you didn’t.
4. of the enjoyment or stimulation which that goal provides you.

Add up your responses from items 2 and 4, and then subtract your responses from items 1 and 3. There is no calculate button, because mental math should be sufficient

The higher the better – the easier you’ll find it to put in effort, the more likely you’ll stick it through, and the better you’ll feel as you make progress and eventually complete the goal.^56,57 It’s difficult to change your responses to the above questions just by wanting your motivation to be more intrinsic; it’s much easier to pick a different goal.

If you scored below 0, please take another look at your decision.

Self-concordance and the 4 types of motivation.

According to self-concordance theory, goals are motivated for either intrinsic or extrinsic reasons.

Intrinsic – The goal is self-stimulating. On average, the act of pursuing the goal itself provides happiness, let alone actually achieving it. Most hobbies are pursued for intrinsic reasons.
Identified (non-internalized intrinsic) – The goal is meaningful. The pursuit of the goal may not provide pleasure, but it is still easy to motivate oneself to do it because of its self-identified importance (e.g. a parent changing the smelly diaper of their baby – it may not be fun, but it gets done). This reason is not considered internalized, because if it was, it would provide pleasure.
Introjected (non-internalized extrinsic) – The goal is pursued out of anxiety, guilt, or insecurity. This reason is not considered internalized, because if it was, the underlying motivation would be explicitly pointed at social pressure.
Extrinsic – The goal is pursued for social reasons.

Although this model can be useful for helping us gain perspective over the underlying motivations behind our goal selection, keep in mind that it is a simplification. A more comprehensive model of motivation would recognize that goals can be motivated for both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons, working together in an opposing or complementary fashion.



↑Likelihood → ↑Success

  



14. Kaizen


  
Make the task so small that you cannot fail. If your goal is to start a flossing habit, make the task to floss just one tooth. If your goal is to exercise 60 minutes a week, make the task to go for a 30 second jog.

Once you’ve got step one under control, move on to step two – floss two teeth or go for a 60 second jog.

Why: Small continuous improvement has four advantages: low risk, re-commitment, positive spirals, and strong foundations.

1) By making the task so small that you cannot fail, your likelihood of success will increase several-fold, in turn increasing your motivation. As long as the progression from task 1 to eventual completion is clear, motivation for each sub-goal (floss one tooth, floss two teach, etc…) will remain high.

2) Small continuous improvement automatically implements the principle of re-commitment. After accomplishing task 1, you must consciously re-affirm your decision to continue onto task 2. Re-affirming a goal periodically will cause your brain to automatically value the goal higher, in turn increasing motivation.⁶⁰

3) Through the use of this skill, you can trigger a positive spiral of achievement and optimism. The confidence and positive feelings that result in completing task 1 will propel you forward into task 2 (“flossing 1 tooth was so easy! Of course I can floss two teeth next time”).^61,62,63,64

4) The start is often the hardest part – picking up the floss, putting on the running shoes, etc… Kaizen helps to establish the habit of starting, building a base for future improvement.⁶⁰

Time Commitment: low

I used Kaizen to help build my meditation and running habits. For the first few months, I only ran for a few minutes. Although I knew that a few minutes was not enough to get my body in shape, I was building the foundations for a running habit. A few months later I was able to run an 8k.

Likewise with meditation. I currently only meditate for 5 minutes a day. It’s not much, but it’s much better than before when I would meditate for 30 minutes one day and then 0 minutes for the next week. Because 5 minutes is so easy, I do it. I’m building a foundation for later.

Kaizen = organizational science ≠ motivational psychology.

Kaizen has been extensively studied and validated in the context of organizational science – to my knowledge; however, kaizen has yet to be studied by motivational psychology.

Despite the lack of scientific validation, I confidently include kaizen among the 30 core motivational skills for a combination of two reasons:

1) The individual theoretical components of kaizen have been extensively studied, even if kaizen as a whole has not been.
2) Life-coaches have validated kaizen out on the field – it’s gets people taking sustained action.




15. Outcome Visualization


  
Visualize completion of a desired goal – you’ve finally lost that weight, completed that project, developed a meditation habit. The more vivid, the better. Activate multiple senses if you can.

Why: By making a desired future appear so easily in our mind’s eye, our expectation of success increases – generating motivation. Our reward system thinks that because we were able to so easily imagine the desired future, it must be more likely to come true than we previously thought.⁷³ When we think our effort is more likely to payout, we get more motivated.

Outcome visualization has been shown to increase goal commitment, increase music and sports performance, help with weight loss, and more.^65,66,67,68 There’s a reason you’ve heard about visualization so many times already. But it’s not all smiles.

Time Commitment: low

Some studies have shown outcome visualization be harmful, causing participants to take longer to establish a romantic relationship, get a good job, and recover from surgery.⁶⁹ Others have shown that in many circumstances, it is ineffective.⁷⁰

So don’t actually use positive visualization!

We’ve got stronger, more reliable tools now, like process visualization, mental contrasting, implementation intentions, and MCIIPV.

How could outcome visualization possibly be harmful?

Two reasons – fantasy indulgence and fear of failure

Fantasy indulgence. Visualization works by increasing expectations of success – “if I can imagine it, surely I can achieve it.” Sometimes; however, it works too well.

If expectations of success increase unbounded by reality, as positive visualization is oft to encourage, our reward center may think that the task is so easy that we don’t need to work hard to achieve the goal – that it need not mobilize the bodies energy. Rather than increasing arousal, which increases motivation, positive visualization sometimes decreases it.⁷¹

If you fear failure, positive visualization may not be for you.

One of the key differentiating features between successful positive visualization and unsuccessful or harmful positive visualization wasn’t the specifics of the technique, but the personalities of the people doing it.

Pessimists and those afraid of failure showed the worst responses to positive visualization – they felt dejected rather than energized, “it would be nice to lose weight… but that’s probably not going to happen.” The more often they visualized, the more often they thought about how unlikely it was that they would actually be able to accomplish their goal.⁷² That’s not so motivating.

There are many other groups of people who can be harmed by positive visualization. The best way is to check for yourself – does visualization:

1. Leave me feeling positive and energized?
2. Actually result in my taking action?

If yes to both, give it a go. Although I still recommend using Implementation Intentions, Mental Contrasting, or Process Visualization.




16. Mental Contrasting


  
Visualize completion of a desired goal – you’ve finally lost that weight, completed that project, developed a meditation habit. Hone in on the most positive aspect of having made the change.

Now visualize three to five aspects of your present reality that stand in the way of making that change come true, like being distracted, having no time, or feeling unmotivated.

Why: Mental contrasting is outcome visualization on steroids – it takes away much of the risk while significantly increasing the potential upside, helping to increase grades, manage weight, and quit bad habits.

Students who used mental contrasting improved their grades by more than those who used positive visualization (e.g. 4th graders scored 35% higher in a foreign vocabulary quiz that they had 2 weeks to prepare for). ^75,76

Diabetes patients who used mental contrasting controlled their condition better than those who used positive visualization alone.⁷⁴

Dieters who used mental contrasting ate less and exercised more over a 2-week period than those who used positive visualization alone.⁷⁷

Smokers who used mental contrasting took more immediate action towards quitting.⁷⁸

Time Commitment: low

Mental contrasting is more effective than positive visualization alone because it draws a clear connection between the desired future and the obstacles that stand in the way. In other words, it causes the brain to think – if I can mobilize the energy to conquer these specific, present challenges, I can make real my desired future.

Mental contrasting is effective in translating temporary motivation into long-term commitment, but only when the brain is convinced. When expectations are low, mental contrasting has been shown to reduce goal commitment – it makes even more clear to the brain how out-of-reach the visualized future is (because of how large the visualized obstacles are).⁷⁹

That’s a good thing – it’s good to give up on unrealistic goals from the get-go. Then attention can be focused on goals more likely to be achieved. This doesn’t mean giving up on large dreams – only on breaking them up into smaller, more digestible pieces.



↓Delay → ↑Success

  



17. Chunk


  

Break up your goal into smaller pieces. Commit to achieving just the first piece. After completion, commit to achieving the second piece, and so on.

Why: One of the principal complaints against the kaizen technique is that it is too slow. Chunking is faster – rather than slowly working up to the final pace (jogging 30 seconds –> jog 3 minutes –> jogging 30 minutes), the same pace is maintained throughout the whole process, while the focus is on the actual outcome (lose 1 pound –> lose another pound –> eventually lose enough pounds to meet overall goal).

Breaking up a goal into smaller pieces and re-committing for each piece has the advantage of making it more digestible, creating shorter deadlines, and forcing re-commitment.

1) Smaller pieces are more digestible. The more digestible a goal, the more effort the brain will put forth.^61,62,63,64

2) Smaller pieces have shorter deadlines. The closer one reaches to a deadline, the more effort the brain will put forth. ⁶⁰

3) Re-committing for each smaller piece will help to re-ignite and maintain motivation.⁶⁰

Time Commitment: low

Writing this article has taken me almost 100 hours. Finding the motivation to complete such a gargantuan task can often be difficult: ‘will anyone even read it?’, ‘why am I putting in so much effort?’, and ‘I can’t believe how much more I’ve got left to do!’.

To maintain my motivation, I used a combination of the skills introduced on this page, prominent of which was chunking.

This article was a continuous evolution – I didn’t start out with a clear idea of what would be included.

But on an approximate level, I chunked the 30 skills into 7 groups (e.g. energy, expertise, delay), and then gave myself the goal of completing the rough draft of one chunk each day.

Having a series of 1-day deadlines vs a 7 day deadline helped keep my focus. As the night approached, I knew I had to pick up the pace.

Having a series of chunks also helped keep me motivated because rather than having a small percentage of completion each day, I had a series of completed pieces I could look back on and feel proud of (‘I’m making progress! vs. ugh, so much left to do’).




18. Timebox


  
Split your goal into subtasks which can be completed within a few minutes to a few hours. Select one subtask, estimate the amount of time required to complete it, and multiply by 1.3 (we tend to chronically underestimate how long things will take to finish). Now schedule this time into your calendar, or start immediately and use a timer.

Once time is up, never work on the subtask again (or less extreme, for another 7 to 30 days).

Why: The further away a reward, the less valuable it becomes.⁸⁰ Quintessential procrastination – more than 80% of college students wait until right before the deadline to get serious. By creating artificial deadlines, we can focus our effort, days or weeks before the actual deadline.⁸¹

Time Commitment: low

The problem is that unless we actually believe our self-threat to never again work on the subtask, the artificial deadline won’t work. The artificial deadline must become real.

So pick a sub-task which is important but not critical – one where perfection isn’t necessary. Don’t use timeboxing half-heartedly, if you set deadlines and then repeatedly miss them, you’ll be lowering your self-credibility.

Difficult but powerful.

Timeboxing = high-intensity effort = coming alive.

I’m a perfectionist (if that wasn’t already obvious ). For example, I have a tendency to turn my writing into a marathon – low energy spread out over a long period of time.

Marathon runners look like gaunt twigs. Sprinters look well-defined, vibrant, and sexy.

High-intensity effort interspersed with periods of rest are more likely to trigger states of flow, create growth, and be innately enjoyable.

Contrary to expectations, rather than making goal achievement more stressful, timeboxing can make it more fun, in a way a little bit like playing a game (‘ah! I’ve only got 5 minutes left!’). When I’m able to conquer my perfectionist tendencies and successfully timebox, I find myself getting more done in less time, while better enjoying the process.




19. Create Artificial Rewards


  
After making difficult progress on your goal, reward yourself. For example, whenever I beat one of my running records, I drink a bear afterwards.

Why: The ultimate reward for your goal could be months or years away. By providing more immediate rewards, we can also provide more immediate motivation. Just as important, by rewarding only high-effort, you can develop your learned industriousness.⁸²

First discovered in 1992, learned industriousness is the phenomenon that when high effort is rewarded in one task (e.g. praise for studying hard), people apply more effort towards other tasks (e.g. making the varsity soccer team).⁸³ Recall pavlov’s bell – a dog was repeatedly given food after hearing the ring of a bell. Later, the dog would immediately start to salivate after hearing the ring of a bell, anticipating the presentation of food.

Likewise with humans, learned industriousness – a reward is repeatedly given after displays of high-effort. Later, that person will immediately start to feel the reward after applying high-effort.

For as long as high-effort occasionally results in extrinsic reward, the initial application of high-effort will cause the brain to internally generate both desire and pleasure (dopamine and serotonin, respectively).

Time Commitment: medium

Using extrinsic motivators can be dangerous. It can:

1) Displace intrinsic motivators, causing pursuit of the goal to become less enjoyable over time (e.g. giving a bonus to the programmer who worked overtime for fun backfires and causes him to slowly find overtime less and less enjoyable).^84,85

2) Reinforce the wrong behavior (e.g. when you have a beer after exercising, regardless of how much time you put in, you will be more likely to exercise, but less likely to have high-effort sessions; when CEO’s are rewarded for short-term firm profitability, they are significantly more likely to take dangerous risks *cough cough* financial crisis).⁸⁶

3) Completely backfire (e.g. if you’re trying to lose weight, and you reward yourself with ice-cream after exercising, you may end up gaining rather than losing weight).

For best results, use extrinsic motivators in moderation, and especially after applying high-effort. When possible, reward effort rather than results.

One of the most dangerous extrinsic motivators? Tests and report cards. They often turn love of learning into hate of all things related to education.



↓Distractions → ↑Success

  



20. Mono-task


  
Focus single-mindedly on the task at hand.

If your goal is to lose weight, stop working/reading/etc… while eating lunch. Focus exclusively on the food – how it tastes, how full you are, and so on.

If your goal is to write chapter 1 of your long-overdue novel, turn off your TV and internet connection – then get writing.

Why: Our desire for fatty, sugary food is vestigial – thousands of years ago when food was scare that desire kept us alive. Now it gives us heart attacks. Likewise, our desire for information is vestigial – thousands of years ago when information was scarce, the more we knew the better. Now, in an endless sea of information (e-mail, facebook, news, youtube, etc…), it keeps us from focusing on the things that really matters.

Time Commitment: medium

Sometimes multitasking is the price we pay for living in the modern world – some e-mails just can’t wait.⁸⁷ Other times, the task at hand is so aversive that without something else to keep us distracted, it just isn’t getting done (e.g. listening to music while exercising). But in many other cases, multitasking is biology gone wrong.

With respect to control over attention, the mental state of a multi-tasker may be similar to that of a depressed person.⁹⁰

Multi-tasking a myth?

Some scientists think that multi-tasking is just a myth – that it is humanly impossible for us to focus on more than one thing at the same time. Instead, they believe that we are actually rapidly task-switching – moving between tasks so quickly that it provides the illusion of simultaneous processing.

I think multi-tasking is a continuum. For tasks that are rote and require little intelligence, multi-tasking is possible (e.g. talking to a friend while walking). For other tasks, multi-tasking is impossible (doing math homework while watching TV).⁹¹

The more difficult a task, the more ‘multi-tasking’ will become task-switching. Because our brains weren’t designed for efficient task-switching, the more difficult a task, the more ‘multi-tasking’ will hurt: temporarily lowering intelligence, impairing the ability to filter out useless information, reducing creativity, increasing time to completion, and making entering a state of flow more difficult.^87,88,89




21. Destroy Distractions


  
Identify your largest distractions – cookies in the pantry if you’re trying to lose weight or internet access if you’re trying to write a book, and destroy it. Throw out the cookies; turn off your internet modem.

Why: It is usually easier to destroy a distraction than to resist it, as destruction is one-off and preemptive.

1) Destruction is a one-off process. Once the cookies are gone, it’ll take another trip to the store to replenish your supplies. On the other hand, if you keep your cookies around, every time you get hungry, you’ll be tempted to take a bite.

2) By acting before being hit with desire, destruction can coincide with peak condition. Throwing away your cookies while you’re full (hours before you’re hungry), blocking your e-mail while you’re still fresh (hours before you’ve gotten tired of working), or flossing an hour before you go to sleep (before all you can think about it sleep) is much easier than trying to take similar actions during the throes of desire.^92,93,94

Time Commitment: medium

One of the two reasons why talk of willpower is absent from this article is because I believe it’s more productive and enjoyable to be strategic (e.g. destroy distraction), than to perpetually fight against yourself (willpower).

Printer to the rescue.

I like reading news, checking my e-mail, intellectualizing on forums, and browsing twitter. In the absence of social pressure, it makes getting hard work done difficult.

For example, research papers can be kind of dry sometimes. It makes staying on task difficult. I tried many of the other skills listed on this page. The most effective was to print them out and go to quiet, unconnected places (e.g. the library, Barnes & Nobles). With everyone else working, and with no distractions in sight, getting hard work done became much easier, and in many cases, pleasurable.

E-mail notification is negative priming.

Primers can be a good thing. Keeping your jogging shoes next to the door will help remind you every time you pass by of your desire to get exercising, even if you don’t consciously see them.⁹⁵

Primers can also be a bad thing. Every time your e-mail notification gives a ding, your desire to consume information will be re-ignited. You don’t necessarily have to block access to your e-mail, just eliminate reminders, things which uncontrollably increase your desire to switch attention to other activities.

*I was considering adding priming as a skill, but because there is some controversy over the accuracy of priming research, I decided to leave it out.




22. Just Do It


  
The start is often the hardest part. So just do it. Stop all of your current activity. Pause. Then start. Commit to working on your goal for just 1 minute.

Why: Being in the moment of pursuing your goal can sometimes be pleasurable. Yet the act of starting pursuit almost always seems highly aversive.

For example, if you were to compare the pleasure of writing with the pleasure of procrastinating (e.g. reading the news), writing would almost always come out on top for me. Yet I find I need to motivate myself to stop reading and start writing. This is happening because of emotional baggage, hyperbolic discounting, and terrible affective forecasting.

1) Our goals often come with emotional baggage. Thinking about exercising can remind of one’s weight, causing anxiety. Thinking about studying can remind of test taking, disapproving parents, and low grades, again causing anxiety. This can happen at the subconscious level – e.g. many girls have a conditioned flinch response against math, which they pick up from their female teachers.⁹⁶

2) Hyperbolic discounting. It may not be the act of pursuing the goal that is aversive, but the act of disengaging from procrastination. The momentary loss from pulling away from Facebook or the comfort of your chair may be small, but because the delay is so small (immediate, in fact) its impact on motivation can become outsized.⁶⁰ This can be why we have trouble leaving our TV or computer at night, despite our strong urge to sleep.

3) Humans are terrible affective forecasters. That is, we aren’t good at predicting what will make us happy and by how much. Because many goals require high effort, we may subconsciously make the incorrect assumption that high-effort = unpleasurable. Once we begin, we learn this is not true, and so are able to continue. Because we are human (e.g. really strange biological creatures), we quickly forget and continue making similar errors in the future.⁹⁷

Time Commitment: low

Logically knowing that pursuing your goal may not be as bad as it feels can help give you the push you need.

Stopping all of your current activity and pausing can help deal with hyperbolic discounting.

Just committing to work for 1 minute can help deal with the aversiveness of the task (“I’ll only be doing it for a minute, so it won’t be so bad”).

Hopefully, you’ll find that 1 minute becomes 15, 30, 60 or more minutes. It often does with me.



↑Expertise → ↑Success

  



23. Premortem


  
Imagine that it’s a few months from now and the worst has happened – your most important goal lies unfulfilled. Within this hypothetical reality, ask yourself what happened – “where did I go wrong?” Then develop and deploy specific counter-measures to avert that horrid future.

Why: “Projects fail at a spectacular rate.”¹⁰⁰

Wise words, Harvard. They’re talking about corporate projects – for example, some 70%+ of IT projects fall behind schedule, under deliver, or outright fail. The same applies with personal projects – the majority of New Year’s resolutions go uncompleted.

Without taking a cold, hard look at reality, that’s unlikely to change.

“Why do most projects fail? Are we specifically doing things to address those reasons?” Asking those questions is a first step, and it’s effective.

Moving on to “Why did my project fail?” next increases the specificity, making the counter-measures more effective. Sadly, these questions usually go unasked.

Time Commitment: < 1 hour, but sometimes longer

I've already started work on a marriage premortem, even though I'm single at the moment (ladies, feel free to e-mail me your number). It's no use ignoring the divorce statistics - there will be nothing special about my marriage until I specifically make it so.

For each of my major life goals I have completed a premortem. If you're already failed once, you're in luck - you can complete a post-mortem. Given that events have already come to pass, no hypothesizing required.

My marriage premortem.

This one is still a work in progress. Look forward to a much more complete public premortem in the months to come.

“We fell out of love. Once the honeymoon period ended… all those small quirks I use to think were cute started getting on my nerves. With each passing day we started complaining more and appreciating less.”

• I won’t get married until I have a stable income, and sure as heck won’t have a baby out of wedlock.
• I practice self-compassion and gratitude meditation at least twice every week, both of which reduce divorce risk by themselves, but are also effective tools for increasing happiness, which in turn further reduces divorce risk.^98,99
• I am actively working to make myself a more interesting person. Being interesting and jointly doing interesting things with a loved one helps build a meaningful relationship while keeping the sparks of passion alive, at least according to Todd Kashdan.
• I’m terrible at conflict resolution, speaking about my emotions, and other key areas of relationship communication. As of now, I’m working on improving my ability to verbalize my emotions.

This is an incomplete list, and so far, I’ve only come a small way. If I were to get married today, I think my divorce risk would be only slightly lower than the national average for my demographic profile (~20%). It’s a good thing I’ve got at least a few years to get ready .

FYI – 20% is f*cking unacceptable. I’m not taking such crazy chances with my marriage – one of the most important things in life.




24. Ask For Help


  
Make an appointment with a professional or talk to a few winners.

Why: Can you imagine trying to become a piano virtuoso without taking lessons? I can’t. Then why do you try to lose weight without talking to a nutritionist or trainer?

Because it’s easier to lose weight than to learn piano, sure. But so much easier that you’ve been able to reach success on your own?

Professionals provide accountability. It’s also their job to know what works and what doesn’t, specifically for you.

Much of what you read in books or on the web will be generalized for the average person. Professionals will often have enough experience to know what works better for different types of people.

With professionals, your chances of going wrong will be low, but it’s still good to learn as much as you can from other sources. From winners, your dangers are much higher.

Just because a diet worked on your friend, doesn’t mean it’ll work with you – she could have just gotten lucky, or your body types could be completely different.

Time Commitment: medium

The role of luck in our culture is too far downplayed. That’s dangerous, because it means that many people who are giving advice shouldn’t be (perhaps me? ). In the gym, we may try to emulate the routines of the most ripped out hunk. Sadly, their routine may be no better than one picked randomly. Because of their genetics, any routine may have gotten them ripped.

It’s common practice in business school to study successful businesses and draw generalized lessons from them.

That’s dangerous.

Survivorship bias.

It’s the height of hubris to look at something as complex as a business, with millions of moving parts, and to confidently declare a few dozen of those parts to have been integral to its success. By only studying the successes, the problem gets much worse.

You look at a few successful companies (e.g. Fannie Mae a few years ago), pick out a few traits which could have reasonably lead to its success (e.g. implementing a culture of disciple), and pump out a best selling book. Which would be fine, if the advice was accurate. But often, it’s not.

If you’d also looked at the failures, many of them would’ve had a culture of discipline too, in which case, the advice was useless. To draw accurate lessons, you have to look at all of the data. More here.

It gets more complicated than this, but there is a reason why science is often better than anecdotes. It’s not that science doesn’t have its own share of problems… but on average, it’s much more accurate than the advice of your successful friend.

How asking for help got me a date with Ben Bernanke.

When I was a senior in high-school, I decided to put together a team and enter into the Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy Challenge. I had no background in economics, our school had never entered into this competition before, and our team’s adviser was a janitor.

This janitor got me and my team a date with Ben Bernanke.

This janitor had the humility and courage to ask for help – he knew that he knew squat about monetary policy, so he asked as many people as he could to give us a hand. We ended up getting feedback on our presentation and knowledge almost a dozen times from industry experts (he’s a really awesome janitor). Most teams got feedback from just one person – their advisor.

Despite it being the first year our school had entered into the competition, we ended up beating out ~300 teams to come in 2nd place in the nation. Hello $700/night hotel rooms (the finals were held in Washington D.C., and the Fed spared no expense in our hospitality ).

One of the things our team learned from repeatedly talking to experts was that the knowledge stored in the standard AP economics textbook was garbage. According to them, The Wall Street Journal was just as bad. It was at their suggestion I started reading research papers.

It was then that my love of research was born.




25. Read Up


  
Go to amazon.com, your library, or your bookstore and pick out at least three books about the goal you are trying to achieve. Make sure the books provide different perspectives – you don’t want three books from the same author or 3 books pushing the same ideas.

Why: You’re not the first person to try to quit smoking, lose weight, or start a business. Millions have before you. Many offer to share their wisdom and experience – all you need do in order to gain access is borrow or purchase their books.

Time Commitment: high

More than a few times in my life I’ve managed to quickly change failure into success or even avert failure altogether, all by pickup up and digesting a few quality books. Sadly, books don’t hold all the answer. That’s why we’ve got to track & experiment.




26. Track & Experiment


  
Select one easily measurable marker of success. If you’re trying to lose weight, measure your weight at the end of every week; if you’re trying to quit smoking, measure the number of cigarettes you smoke each day. Now create an achievement strategy (e.g. I will exercise three times a week, and use mental contrasting and social accountability to help motivate me).

Measure your results. Make some new changes (e.g. consume a vitamin supplement). Measure your results. Repeat until you’re satisfied with your trajectory.

Why: If we humans were all the same, there would be no need to experiment. We could do whatever the blog or book recommended and be guaranteed of success. Because we’re so different; however, we have to work incrementally to increase our understanding of our brain and body – of what works and what doesn’t.

Time Commitment: medium

Tracking progress can also help maintain and focus motivation – we see progress and know it’s working, and because we’re tracking something quantifiable, we also have a more specific goal to work towards (e.g. rather than trying to ‘improve your smoking habit’, you are trying to ‘decrease consumption by 5%’).


Cocktails

  



27. Ulysses Contract


  
Go to stickk.com, select an anti-charity, goal, referee, and dollar amount.

For example, two months ago I funded an escrow account with $200. If I bailed on running the Philadelphia 8k, the money would go to the NRA. I ran the 8k, so a friend, my referee, gave me the money back.

Why: Stickk.com combines two powerful motivators – social pressure and loss aversion.^101,102

Social pressure is motivating because we don’t want to look lazy and inconsistent in-front of our friends. Loss aversion is motivating because we fight harder to keep what we have than to get more of it.

Said differently – the amount of sadness and anger you would feel if you were robbed of $5,000 would be much greater than the happiness and joy from randomly winning $5,000.

Read Thinking Fast And Slow for a review of this and other fun quirks of human decision making.

Time Commitment: medium

Last week I funded an escrow account with $500. If I don’t finish my first book within the next four months, the money will go to the NRA. I really don’t want to lose $500. I really, really don’t want the NRA to have an extra $500 to spend. Considering my lack of funds and stance on gun control, I expect to be highly motivated as I get closer to the deadline.

Support the NRA? No problem – stickk offers a range of anti-charities.

Expect your success rate to double once you put money on the line.




28. MCIIPV


  

MCIIPV = Mental Contrasting (MC) + Implementation Intentions (II) + Process Visualization (PV)

1. Visualize completion of a desired goal – you’ve finally lost that weight, completed that project, developed a meditation habit. Hone in on the most positive aspect of having made the change.

Now visualize two to four aspects of your present reality that stand in the way of making that change come true, like being distracted, feeling tempted, or binge like behavior.

2. Write down or verbalize an implementation intention for each of the obstacles you identified, in the form ‘when [trigger], I will [action]‘. For example,:

1. ‘When I feel distracted, I will move to a quiet space.’
2. ‘When I feel tempted, I will internally repeat to myself the value of what I’m trying to accomplish.’
3. ‘After I start to binge, I will remind myself that the whole day has not yet been wasted. I will create an easily achievable chunk.’

3. Visualize yourself encountering each of those obstacles and then taking the response that you indicated in the previous step. The more sensory detail, the better.

Why: Mental contrasting, implementation intentions, and process visualization are each individually effective. According to a promising new line of study, they become even more effective when used together.

Over 7 days, implementation intentions alone increased fruit consumption by 75%. Combined with process visualization, it increase fruit consumption by 115%.⁴²

Used separately, both implementation intentions and mental contrasting reduced calorie consumption. Combined, they caused participants to consume 160 fewer calories per day for a week.¹⁰³

In another study, participants who used mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions just once completed 60% more PSAT practice questions during their summer break.⁴¹

Time Commitment: low

Because this cocktail is so easy to use, takes little time, and is yet still so powerful, I use it frequently.




29. EChunk


  
Decide on and commit to immediately completing a chunk. Now go for a quick sprint or jog. Come back and complete the chunk. Repeat as many times as desired.

Why: Chunking lowers the amount of energy required to make progress on a goal, as it makes the work more digestible and the deadline more immediate. Going for a quick jog or sprint provides the necessary energy.

Time Commitment: medium

I often wish my body could handle more frequent exercise, so that I could utilize this cocktail more often.




30. The Skill of Accomplishment


  
Accomplishment is a skill. Lacking motivation? Do you know why?

Do you know which part of the motivation equation needs tweaking?



Is it low value? Do you not care enough?
Is it low likelihood? Do you think you don’t have a chance of making it?
Is it high delay? Is the reward too far out into the future?
Is it high distraction? Too much competing for your attention?
Is it low expertise? Motivated but still stumbling?

To be able to identify the problem as well as a possible solution is the final but most important skill – the skill of accomplishment.

The gamble of accomplishment is to hope that during those few critical moments of success or failure, the necessary willpower will auto-magically appear.

The skill of accomplishment is to prepare in advance.

The gamble of accomplishment is to put self-esteem first, pushing responsibility for failure onto others or lack of effort.

The skill of accomplishment is to make incremental progress, making sure that from each failure comes a lesson learned and skill further trained.

The skill of accomplishment is to get your goal done.
 

Ready, set, start!

 
Did I miss an important skill? Have a useful story to share? Know which skills you’re going to use to make this year a success? Please, share below!
 

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93. Vohs, K. D., Baumeister, R. F., Schmeichel, B. J., Twenge, J. M., Nelson, N. M., & Tice, D. M. (2008). Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: a limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative. Journal of personality and social psychology, 94(5), 883.

94. Hagger, M. S., Wood, C., Stiff, C., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. (2010). Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 136(4), 495.

95. Capa, R. L., Cleeremans, A., Bustin, G. M., Bouquet, C. A., & Hansenne, M. (2011). Effects of Subliminal Priming on Nonconscious Goal Pursuit and Effort-Related Cardiovascular Response. Social Cognition, 29(4), 430-444. doi:10.1521/soco.2011.29.4.430

96. Beilock, S. L., Gunderson, E. A., Ramirez, G., & Levine, S. C. (2010). Female teachers’ math anxiety affects girls’ math achievement. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America, 107(5), 1860-1863.

97. Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective Forecasting. Current Directions In Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 14(3), 131-134. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00355.x

98. Neff, K. D. & McGeehee, P. (2010). Self-compassion and psychological resilience among adolescents and young adults. Self and Identity, 9, 225-240.

99. Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital Processes Predictive of Later Dissolution: Behavior, Physiology, and Health. Journal Of Personality & Social Psychology, 63(2), 221-233.

100. Gary Klein. Performing a Project Premortem. http://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem/ar/1

101. ANDREOU, C. (2008). MAKING A CLEAN BREAK: ADDICTION AND ULYSSES CONTRACTS. Bioethics, 22(1), 25-31. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00588.x

102. Bryan, G., Karlan, D., & Nelson, S. (2010). Commitment devices. Annu. Rev. Econ., 2(1), 671-698.

103. Adriaanse, M. A., Oettingen, G., Gollwitzer, P. M., Hennes, E. P., de Ridder, D. D., & de Wit, J. F. (2010). When planning is not enough: Fighting unhealthy snacking habits by mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). European Journal Of Social Psychology, 40(7), 1277-1293. doi:10.1002/ejsp.730

]]> http://happierhuman.com/skill-of-accomplishment/feed/ 26 http://happierhuman.com/skill-of-accomplishment/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HappierhumanHappinessAnalysis/~3/daXnjiOcZvU/ http://happierhuman.com/money-and-happiness-2/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:23:27 +0000 Amit Amin http://happierhuman.com/?p=926

Do you remember that feeling… of the night before Christmas, of being so excited and full of anticipation that you couldn’t fall asleep?

I do, but I’ve really got to squeeze my brain. That youthful luster is a long gone memory.

Maturity happened.

As an adult in training, my natural urge to anticipate was discouraged. For some reason, that urge was associated with childlike immaturity.

An an American male, expressions of excitement and joy were further discouraged. To be ‘cool’ is to be composed and in control.

That’s a shame.

We’re missing out on a lot.

This is part two in an eleven-part series on money and happiness.

The act of consumption is not the only moment of pleasure. 

Imagine that next Friday, you’re doing something you’ve been looking forward to: hanging out with good friends, going to a sports game, meeting me in person, whatever. 

When does this event increase your happiness?



Only on Friday, the day of the actual event? No, that’s not right.

In the days after, you’re likely to be a bit happier too.



Because the event is so pleasurable, it leaves a positive aftertaste which lingers for a few days.

But the picture is still incomplete.

Does thinking about a vacation or hot date soon to come give you an excited smile? Does thinking about a promotion or big goal you’ve been working hard towards fire you up? That’s pleasure, just in a different form.



Anticipation is pleasure.

The ability to anticipate is positively correlated with optimism, self-control, the intensity and frequency of happy moods, self-esteem, and more.¹

Those with a greater ability to anticipate experience more pleasure in the days and weeks before a vacation than those with an average ability. This is especially important, because anticipation of a future vacation usually brings more pleasure than reminiscing about a past vacation.¹

Similar results have been found in over ten other studies – anticipation is more evocative than reminiscence.^{2, 3}

Sometimes, because we view the future through rose-colored glasses, anticipation is more pleasurable than the act of consumption itself.⁴

So, what can we do to get more anticipatory happiness?

1. Buy many small pleasures.
2. Pay now and consume later.
3. Create anticipation triggers.

1.Buy many small pleasures.

Splitting up large purchases into small ones can increase total pleasure by sidestepping the curse of adaption. This applies as much to the moment of consumption as to the anticipation of consumption.

Each additional serving (cookie, drink, TV show, video game, pair of jeans, etc…) produces less pleasure and less anticipation than the last one.

In a world without adaption, the anticipation of eating ten cookies at once would be ten times greater than the anticipation of eating just one. In our world, ten cookies at once provide only two to five times as much anticipatory pleasure as one cookie.

You can easily confirm this for yourself.

Imagine that at the end of this week, you’ll be presented with one serving of your favorite dessert. Feel the anticipation. Now imagine that you’ll be presented with ten servings of your favorite dessert, which you must eat at once.

Did you experience 10x as much anticipation? If so, I feel bad for your heart…



The second option has got a lot more anticipation action going for it.

Although each individual event provides less anticipatory pleasure, all together, the total pleasure is much larger.

The actual numbers are arbitrary (a cookie gives 2 units of happiness… huh?), but the underling principal is not – small is powerful.

For more - Money Secret #1: Buy Many Small Pleasures.

2. Pay now and consume later.

How much would you be willing to pay to kiss your favorite celebrity three hours from now? How about three days from now?

In a study which asked exactly that question, people were willing to pay 37% more for the second option than for the first. There were other options too. As long as the wait wasn’t too long, like 10 years, people were willing to pay more.⁵

The extra hours, days, and weeks gave people more time to anticipate their sweet and sexy, hypothetical kiss.



The strategy is easy to understand – purchase now and consume later. It’s not as easy to implement.

Lucky for us, this is a three in one – get more pleasure from your money, develop your self-control skills, and get more pleasure from your money.

The first two are self-explanatory. By consuming later, we increase anticipatory pleasure while exercising our self-control muscle.

The third is a bonus – more anticipation also equals more pleasure during consumption.

The last few albums I’ve purchased, I’ve put off listening to for two to three days. No surprise, I felt a lot of anticipation.

But because of that anticipation, once I got around to actually listening to the music, I put in extra time and effort into savoring the experience. I can easily say that the pleasure I got from those listening experiences was the greatest any music has ever provided me.

It was hard. It was worth it.

But if you’re lazy like me, you’ll like strategy number three.

3. Create anticipation triggers.

Tie together a trigger with the mental action of anticipation. That is what I call happiness magic – just by taking a moment to anticipate, you’re creating happiness out of nothing.

Every time I lie down in my bed, I take a moment to be grateful for how comfortable the mattress, pillow, and blanket are. That’s a gratitude trigger. Magic trick #1.

Almost every time I take a break from work, I take a moment to look forward to the evening’s activities. That’s an anticipation trigger. Magic trick #2.

Here are some ideas from my life:

When you…	anticipate…
are hungry	the next meal you will be eating.
take a shower	your weekend plans.
drink coffee	feeling the buzz.
are bored	the next fun thing you will be doing.
are tired	your next workout.
see your loved one	your next night out.
finish watching a show you like	the next episode.
finish reading a chapter of a book you like	the next chapter.
see	the next HappierHuman post you will read.

 

This is all a work in progress for me – there are dozens more opportunities for me to bring anticipation into my life. Still, I’ve already noticed a difference.

What about with you?

How can you bring more anticipatory happiness into your life? Comment below!

This is part two of my eleven-part series on money and happiness. Check out the rest! Money Secret #1: Buy Many Small Pleasures Money Secret #2: Anticipate As If You’re Going to Kiss Mila Kunis Money Secret #3: The Stoic’s Guide To Buying Happiness Money Secret #4: Delight Is in the Details

 

References

1. Bryant, F. B. (2003). Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI): A scale for measuring
beliefs about savouring. Journal of Mental Health, 12, 175-196.

2. Caruso, E. M., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2008). A Wrinkle in Time: Asymmetric Valuation of Past and Future Events. Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 19(8), 796-801. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02159.x

3. Van Boven, L., & Ashworth, L. (2007). Looking forward, looking back:
Anticipation is more evocative than retrospection. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 136(2), 289-300.

4. Dunn, E. W., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2011). If money doesn’t make you happy, then you probably aren’t spending it right. Journal Of Consumer Psychology (Elsevier Science), 21(2), 115-125. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.02.002

5. Loewenstein, G. (1987). Anticipation and the valuation of delayed consumption.
The Economic Journal, 97(387), 666?684.

 

]]> http://happierhuman.com/money-and-happiness-2/feed/ 20 http://happierhuman.com/money-and-happiness-2/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HappierhumanHappinessAnalysis/~3/OV0PC7JWuB8/ http://happierhuman.com/be-thankful/#comments Thu, 22 Nov 2012 14:47:51 +0000 Amit Amin http://happierhuman.com/?p=922

Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not, taking time to be grateful reaps many rewards.

Gratitude is both a skill and a personality trait – with time, it develops and matures.

Six months ago when I began my journey, each night was a struggle – it took effort to come up with things to write in my gratitude journal.

In the spirit of this holiday, I wanted to see how much that had changed.

I just spent the past 2 hours in an intense meditation, coming up with as many reasons to be thankful as I could.

There was only one criteria – did thinking about the item generate feelings of positive emotion? If yes, it was put on the list.

I ended up 168 items. Wow, does 2 hours of continuous gratitude practice feel great!

But just two or three items is enough. If you’re feeling adventurous, write a hand-written note.

Let’s make today a great day. Happy Thanksgiving!

My gratitude list:

Top 10

1.Thank you, mom and dad, for supporting me over and over again.
2. Thank you, friends, for making life worth living.
3. Thank you, lady luck, for letting me be born as Amit Amin.
4. Thank you, readers, for encouraging me on my journey.
5. Thank you, evolution, for giving birth to a species capable of experiencing pleasure, happiness, and compassion.
6. Thank you, evolution, for giving birth to a species capable of overcoming its biological limitations.
7. Thank you, USA, for converting mother nature into delicious food, powerful electronics, hot water, and more, in spite of being so inefficient.
8. Thank you, USA, for tolerating my eccentricity.
9. Thank you, WW-P HSN, NYU Stern, Wikinvest, Navon Partners, Unseek, and Deloitte & Touche for teaching me so many valuable skills.
10. Thank you, almond milk, for tasting so good.

Health

1. Thank you, vaccines, for keeping me from getting sick.
2. Thank you, dentists, for keeping my teeth from aching in pain.
3. Thank you, floss & fluoride, for keeping my dentist visits from hurting too much.
4. Thank you, retainer, for keeping my smile nice and pretty.
5. Thank you, Mayo Clinic, for finally giving me some answers.
6. Thank you, Buddha, for popularizing the power of meditation.
7. Thank you, COBRA, for making my health insurance at least somewhat affordable.
8. Thank you, Uncle Bob, for introducing me to the health dangers of porn and masturbation.
9. Thank you, GHB, for being such an awesome, legally prescribed drug.
10. Thank you, steroids, for teaching me what female periods are probably like.
11. Thank you, heat pads, for feeling so good.
12. Thank you, nails, for giving me something to play with when I’m bored.
13. Thank you, stomach, for experiencing hunger, without which food would give no pleasure.
14. Thank you, bladder, for being able to hold it.
15. Thank you, skin, for being able to feel.
16. Thank you, ears, for being able to hear.
17. Thank you, tongue, for being able to taste.
18. Thank you, nose, for being able to smell.
19. Thank you, legs, for helping me move around.
20. Thank you, arms, for helping me interact with the world.

Beauty

21. Thank you, autumn leaves, for looking so beautiful when illuminated by the sun.
22. Thank you, moon, for looking so dashing at night.
23. Thank you, women, for being so beautiful.
24. Thank you, glasses, for helping me to see the world as it is meant to be seen.
25. Thank you, sunrise, for filling me with energy.
26. Thank you, sunset, for filling the sky with a fantastic combination of colors.
27. Thank you, waterfalls, for being awesome.
28. Thank you, geysers, for also being awesome.

Smell

29. Thank you, candles, for smelling good in so many different varieties.
30. Thank you, food, for smelling so good that you taste better.
31. Thank you, women’s hair, for smelling good.
32. Thank you, nature, for smelling good.

Biology

33. Thank you, evolution, for giving birth to a species capable of experiencing pleasure and happiness, and capable of overcoming its biological limitations.
34. Thank you, sex, for feeling so good.
35. Thank you, love, for feeling so good.
36. Thank you, happiness, for feeling so food.
37. Thank you, evolution, for creating a species capable of appreciating more than five sense.
38. Thank you, evolution, for giving our species the female gender, who keeps things interesting.
39. Thank you, biology, for appreciating the temperature.

Piano

40. Thank you, piano, for creating such beautiful music.
41. Thank you, Chuan C. Chang , for writing the world’s best book on piano pedagogy, The Fundamentals of Piano Practice.
42. Thank you, Robert Taub, for teaching me how to play the piano, inspite of my body weaknesses.
43. Thank you, piano, for motivating me to overcome my physical weaknesses.
44. Thank you, piano, for impressing the ladies.
45. Thank you, piano, for giving me the chills.

Technology

46. Thank you, keyboard, for being so easy to use.
47. Thank you, $1,500 desktop computer, for having beast level speed.
48. Thank you, Bill Gates, for creating such an awesome tool and making nerds look cool.
49. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, for making stalking socially acceptable.
50. Thank you, Amazon, for being so awesome, and for making books cheap and accessible.
51. Thank you, headphones, for letting me privately listen to my wacky music.
52. Thank you, internet, for giving me access to the world’s best knowledge.
53. Thank you, Google, for making findable that knowledge.
54. Thank you, Google, for driving folks to this website, and keeping my writings from growing too lonely.
55. Thank you, iTunes, for letting me purchase individual songs.
56. Thank you, YouTube, for introducing me to so much fantastic music.
57. Thank you, artificial light, for greatly extending the usable hours in a day.
58. Thank you, technology, for so dramatically increasing the standards of living.
59. Thank you, speel checkr, for covaring up my 1st grade levl speeling.
60. Thank you, typing, for covering up my terrible hand-writing.
61. Thank you, elance, for helping me run a virtual business.

Food

62. Thank you, K-Mart, for stocking my favorite brand of almond milk.
63. Thank you, stomach, for tolerating almond milk.
64. Thank you, Lucky Charms, for having yummy marshmallows.
65. Thank you, chicken tikka masala + naan, being so yummy.
66. Thank you, NYC, for providing me with so many diverse, yummy meals.
67. Thank you, Deloitte & Touche, for introducing me to and paying the entrance fee for food heaven.
68. Thank you, Japan, for inventing and popularizing delicious, dairy and spice free curry.
69. Thank you, Japan, for RAMEN!!!!
70. Thank you, corn, for giving birth to popcorn.
71. Thank you, Portugal, for having insane amounts of salt on all of your food, just the way I like it.
72. Thank you, taco bell, for having the world’s most delicious tacos.
73. Thank you, water, for tasting so good after a hard run.
74. Thank you, pepsi, for tasting so good you give me the chills.
75. Thank you, steak, for melting in my mouth like a lump of yummy.
76. Thank you, moscato, for introducing me to the tasty world of alcohol.
77. Thank you, blue moon, for being such a delicious beer.
78. Thank you, lemonade, for tingling my tongue.
79. Thank you, french kisses, for tingling my tongue.
80. Thank you, vodka, for getting me tipsy so quickly.
81. Thank you, fruits & vegetables, for keeping me healthy.
82. Thank you, Starbucks Caramel Brulee Frappuccino, for making me happy.

Family

83. Thank you, mom, for nurturing my kindness, and from preventing me from becoming materialistic.
84. Thank you, mom & dad, for denying me easy access to T.V. and video games until I was in highschool.
85. Thank you, mom & dad, for passing on your learning and curiosity genes.
86. Thank you, mom, for driving me to my sports lessons when I was a kid.
87. Thank you dad, for paying for my sports lessons when I was a kid.
88. Thank you, mom, for making me do Kumon when I was a kid.
89. Thank you, sister, for setting such great expectations that I was forced to try hard.
90. Thank you, mom & dad, for moving to a neighborhood with so many smart asians.
91. Thank you, mom & dad, for giving me my own room.
92. Thank you, dad, for giving me my own computer, on which I pretended to study but actually played games and watched movies.
93. Thank you, dad, for paying for my phone bill.
94. Thank you, mom & dad, for letting me choose my own spiritual beliefs.
95. Thank you, mom & dad, for always keeping the doors to your home open.
96. Thank you, dad, for paying for tennis lessons.

Mundane

97. Thank you, chair, for being so comfortable.
98. Thank you, science, for making heating affordable and more sustainable than burning trees all day.
99. Thank you, tissues, for relieving my itches without leaving behind a bloody nose.
100. Thank you, water bottles, for so conveniently transporting sanitary water.
101. Thank you, soap, for being shaped in a way such that you don’t easily slip from my grip.
102. Thank you, soap stand, for being shaped in such a way that the soap doesn’t easily slip from your grip.
103. Thank you, goddess of luck, for keeping me alive to my 23rd birthday.

Country

104. Thank you, USA, for providing me with hot water that feels oh so good.
105. Thank you, USA, for tolerating my comparatively wacky beliefs.
106. Thank you, USA, for containing so many amazing people.
107.Thank you, USA, for being so great despite making so many mistakes.
108. Thank you, USA, for, on average, progressing forwards rather than backwards.
109. Thank you, USA, for giving out almost $100 billion dollars in foreign aid each year.
110. Thank you, USA, for enforcing most of your laws.

Love

111. Thank you, Vaidehi, for making my first proposal a successful one.
112. Thank you, Rose, for making a 14-year old happy.
113. Thank you, Carolyn, for not calling the police on me.
114. Thank you, Sheffy, for showing me the power of love.
115. Thank you, [miscellaneous random girls], for spicing things up.
116. Thank you, Alisha, for keeping me company despite my being me.
117. Thank you, [name redacted], for getting my heart going again.

Friends

118. Thank you, all, for making life worth living.

Music

119. Thank you, newgrounds.com, for introducing me to so much great music.
120. Thank you, iPhone, for playing music.
121. Thank you, Pandora, for introducing me to so much great music.
122. Thank you, all of you awesome electronic artists, who release music for free.
123. Thank you, my biology, for converting music into happiness and the chills.

Sports

124. Thank you, tennis, for being so much fun.
125. Thank you, Ugide, for teaching me how to play tennis.
126. Thank you, WW-P, for having a tennis wall, my always ready tennis partner.
127. Thank you, tennis, for teaching me how to sprint.
128. Thank you, body, for being able to play without too much pain.
129. Thank you, biology, for releasing opioids in response to prolonged running.
130. Thank you, intense exercise, for providing marijuana legally and for free.
131. Thank you, aerobic exercise, for quickly filling me up with energy.
132. Thank you, ballroom dancing, for teaching me to how dance sexy.
133. Thank you, ballroom dancing, for having a female to male ratio of 4 to 1.
134. Thank you, ballroom dancing, for creating an environment that encourages physical contact with beautiful women.
135. Thank you, reader, for understanding that I am not a lecher.
136. Thank you, ballroom dancing, for increasing my appreciation of music.
137. Thank you, ballroom dancing, for being so much fun.
138. Thank you, ballroom dancing, for forcing me to wear dance shoes, which helped me understand the hell that are heals.
139. Thank you, NYU ballroom dancing team, for teaching me how to dance for just $2 a lesson.
140. Thank you, Jennifer, for whipping my body into shape.
141. Thank you, tai chi, for being physically exhausting but mentally refreshing.
142. Thank you, yoga, for curing my headaches and making my muscles feel good.

Environment

143. Thank you, air, for not smelling funny in NJ. It’s the garden state, not the garbage state!
144. Thank you, ecosystems of the world, for being able to support life.
145. Thank you, tectonic plates, volcanoes, hurricanes, and all other natural disasters, for not having killed me yet.
146. Thank you, environment, for being resilient enough to tolerate centuries of abuse at the hands of humans.

NYC

147. Thank you, NYC, for having all the wonders of the world within a quick 30 minute trip.
148. Thank you, NYC, for making easily available delicious cuisines from all over the world.
149. Thank you, NYC, for having one of the best transportation systems in the world.
150. Thank you, NYC, for delivering fresh ramen and indian curry hot to my door, on demand.
151. Thank you, NYC, for having classes for just about everything.

Study Abroad in Shanghai

152. Thank you, study abroad, for teaching me that communists are human too.
153. Thank you, study abroad, for teaching me that communism is a highly inaccurate label for China.
154. Thank you, study abroad, for introducing me to the awesomeness of having a campus.
155. Thank you, China, for being so cheap that I could eat two breakfasts, three lunches, and two dinners a day, for a cost of less than a few dollars.
156. Thank you, China, for introducing me to tai chi.

Work

157. Thank you, Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Christopher Peterson, Barbara Fredrickson, Jonathan Haidt, Daniel Kahneman, and others, for creating the life-changing science of positive psychology.
158. Thank you, Scott Dinsmore & Corbett Bar, for inspiring me to create this blog.
159. Thank you, David Teten, for re-introducing me to the world of startups.
160. Thank you, Foster Provost, for going out of your way to help me understand and apply the science of data mining.
161. Thank you, Facebook, for introducing me to my first job.
162. Thank you, Wikinvest, for being my first employer, teaching me lots, taking me on a journey to San Francisco, and paying me good money for two years.
163. Thank you, Michael Sha, for cooking awesome food for your lowly peons, letting me take naps whenever I wanted, and letting me bring a whip to the office.
164. Thank you, NYU Stern, for taking me around the world, to Portugal, Singapore, Florida, and China.
165. Thank you, Mr. Levine, for being the world’s best janitor, taking me to Washington D.C., and teaching me the power of asking for help.
166. Thank you, Mr.Glover, for passing on your wisdom.
167. Thank you, Columbia University, for introducing me to the efficient market hypothesis, before Wall-Street was able to corrupt me.
168. Thank you, Harvard University, for challenging me in a way no other place has ever trusted me enough to do so.

Time to go eat turkey and mashed potatoes! 

]]> http://happierhuman.com/be-thankful/feed/ 12 http://happierhuman.com/be-thankful/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HappierhumanHappinessAnalysis/~3/xycLQ1rYtI0/ http://happierhuman.com/money-and-happiness-1/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:14:43 +0000 Amit Amin http://happierhuman.com/?p=908

Does money buy happiness?

It can.

Financial security reduces divorce rates, increases life span, and just plain feels good.^1,2,3

Wealth purchases life-changing vacations, variety – the spice of life, and free time – with which to actually live life.

Despite this, the average person with a family income greater than $75,000 is just 12% happier than the average person with a family income of $30,000.⁴ They’ve adapted. To them, a juicy steak tastes just a bit better than $1 ramen tastes to me.

The common refrain money doesn’t buy happiness is true, but with a caveat – for the average person, money doesn’t buy happiness.

There are outliers – people who have very little money, but smile like kings, and people who double their income, and in the process, also double their happiness.

 
I am not one of those people. Most people aren’t.

After all, dozens of studies have shown it mostly true – for the average person, money doesn’t buy happiness.⁵

There’s a fix. We just need to stop being average.

Daniel Gilbert, the author of Stumbling on Happiness, says,

If money doesn’t make you happy, then you probably aren’t spending it right.⁵

Money does buy happiness, but only when used in particular, often counter-intuitive ways.

This is part one in an eleven-part series on money and happiness. Let’s start with something practical and immediately implementable! 

Buy many small pleasures, rather than a few big ones. 

When I discover a new piece of entertainment I really like, whether an 800 page book, 50 episode series, $1,500 computer, or a new album, I devour it, as if possessed by a temporary addiction.

That’s stupid. I slob through what I should be savoring. Just as stupid, I waste the power of small.



You can either eat a 12 oz cookie now, or eat one 6 oz cookie today, and another tomorrow.

You can either purchase a 3 minute, continuous massage, or two 90 second massages, separated by 20 seconds.

Which would you pick? Which would you expect to give you more total pleasure?

What about listening to the newest song released by your favorite band, or listening to the first 160 seconds… taking a 20 second break, and then finishing the song?

I sure as heck wouldn’t want to have a song interrupted in the middle. That would really annoy me. No surprise, that would really annoy other people too.

In a 2008 study, participants were introduced to new music, exactly as described in the hypothetical above – half listened to the whole song at once, and the other half were interrupted in the middle for 20 seconds.

The participants were first asked which situation they expected to give them more pleasure. After the experience, they were asked how irritated they felt, and how much pleasure they experienced.

Those that were interrupted reported feeling annoyed. They also reported experiencing twice as much enjoyment than those in the continuous listening condition.⁶

Yes. You read that correctly. Those that were interrupted better enjoyed the experience.

The strangeness doesn’t stop with just this particular study.

In a study which replicated the hypothetical massage example above, participants reported being willing to pay twice as much for the separate massages, then for the combined, continuous massage.⁶ Most people extract greater pleasure from having two cookies on separate days, than both at once.⁷

Most absurd of all, the average person enjoys television more when it has commercials, than when they have been removed.8

I know. You probably thinking that you’re not that average person. Maybe – but in each of those studies, participants were consistently wrong. They expected to better enjoy the large, continuous experience. They almost never did.

You can read the studies yourself here and here.

What craziness is going on?

Adaption. A blessing to one in hard circumstances; a pain in the a&& to one in mild circumstances.

Most of us are in mild circumstances.

During any given experience, as time passes, one of three things happens:

1. We sensitize, getting more and more enjoyment or pain.
2. We adapt, getting less and less enjoyment or pain.
3. We neither sensitize or adapt, getting the same enjoyment or pain over and over again.

Socializing is usually awesome because it falls under category 3 - it feels great each and every time we do it. In another post in the series, I’ll talk about what types of things fall under this category, because we’ll want to get as much of them as we can.

Sadly, most the things we buy with money fall under the second category, with them giving us less and less enjoyment over time.

Suppose we’ve been given six cookies, and decide to eat them all at once.

The first cookie gives us a jolt of ecstasy. The second, a more mild buzz. The third, a pleasant sensation. The fourth, a tingle. The fifth, nothing. The sixth, stomach pain.

The total pleasure from eating those six cookies? Ecstasy + pleasant jolt + mild buzz  + tingle + nothing + stomach pain.

Graphically, it looks like this:



Yes, I have a weak stomach. It can only handle 6 cookies.

Although you may be able to eat more cookies before they start giving you pain – after the first few bites, just like with me and hundreds of study participants, those cookies will start giving you less and less pleasure.

It’s not just cookies.

Six months ago I purchased a $1,500 beast of a computer. For all of my teenage and adult years, I always wanted a computer that worked, fast.

I’m using that computer right now… and it is giving me no more pleasure than my old $500 laptop. The first few days and weeks I was ecstatic.

Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed,

poweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer,

zombies exploding!


 



But soon, rather than comparing my $1,500 beast to my $500 laptop, I started comparing it to those first few months when it worked perfectly. You know how that goes. Viruses and malware bring even the best of computers to their knees.

Total pleasure from spending $1,500 on an awesome computer? Ecstasy + pleasant jolt + mild buzz  + tingle + nothing + stomach pain.

Large house, finished basement, expensive car, brand name clothes – the same pattern applies. Over time, the object gives less and less pleasure.

We can fight back.

Adaption goes away quickly. Have cookie number one today, cookie number two tomorrow, take a break for a day, have another cookie, and so on.

What’s the result? Ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy.

Graphically, it looks like this:



We took something big – six cookies at once, and divided it into many small things -six separate cookies.

The same principal applies to my $1,500 mistake. If I had spent it instead on several small things, my total pleasure would have much greater.

I should have gotten the cheapest computer that would let me remain productive, and spent the rest on smaller purchases:

Purchase 1: Ballroom dance lessons. Ecstasy.

Purchase 2: Hot dates in the city. Ecstasy.

Purchase 3: Gifts for family members. Ecstasy.

Purchase 4: Shiatsu massages. Ecstasy.

.
.
.

Purchase 15: Drinks with friends. Ecstasy.

Total pleasure? Ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy + ecstasy.

When you can, divide up large purchases into smaller ones. By doing so, the curse of adaption can be partially subverted.

It won’t always be easy, but if you give in to average desires, the outcome will also be like average – money won’t buy you happiness.

This is part one of my eleven-part series on money and happiness. Check out the rest! Money Secret #1: Buy Many Small Pleasures Money Secret #2: Anticipate As If You’re Going to Kiss Mila Kunis Money Secret #3: The Stoic’s Guide To Buying Happiness Money Secret #4: Delight Is in the Details

 

References
1. Oklahoma tops list of highest divorce rates [http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44308315/ns/today-money/t/oklahoma-tops-list-highest-divorce-rates/#.UDaqXRrLyRl]
2. Why do Low-Income Couples Marry Less and Divorce More? [http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/view.asp?m=71qaai3adkwny5cktesq&u=20447447&f=h]
3. Trends in Mortality Differentials and Life Expectancy, By Average Relative Earnings [http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/workingpapers/wp108.html]
4. General Social Surveys, 1972-2006
5. Dunn, E. W., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2011). If money doesn’t make you happy, then you probably aren’t spending it right. Journal Of Consumer Psychology (Elsevier Science), 21(2), 115-125. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.02.002
6. Nelson, L. D., & Meyvis, T. (2008). Interrupted consumption: Adaptation and
the disruption of hedonic experience. Journal of Marketing Research, 45,
654−664.
7. Linville, P. W., & Fischer, G. W. (1991). Preferences for Separating or Combining Events. Journal Of Personality & Social Psychology, 60(1), 5-23.
8. Nelson, Leif, Tom Meyvis, and Jeff Galak (2009), “Enhancing the Television Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruptions,”Journal of Consumer Research, 36 (August), 160-172.
]]> http://happierhuman.com/money-and-happiness-1/feed/ 25 http://happierhuman.com/money-and-happiness-1/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HappierhumanHappinessAnalysis/~3/i32GzmwgiY0/ http://happierhuman.com/positivity-ratio/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:55:51 +0000 Amit Amin http://happierhuman.com/?p=800

A marriage with 5x more positivity than negativity is significantly less likely to result in divorce.¹

A business team with 5x more positivity than negativity is significantly more likely to make money.²

College students with 3x more positivity than negativity are significantly more likely to have flourishing mental health.³

In general – when a human system contains 3 to 5x as much positivity as negativity, it is significantly more likely to thrive.

What this means, is that it is sometimes possible to reduce the complexity of human emotion into useful prediction: flourish or flounder.

Just as important, this complexity can be assessed with a quick, 20-question quiz.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Looking back over the past 24 hours, indicate the greatest amount that you have experienced of each of the following feelings

Amused, fun-loving, or silly?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Scared, fearful, or afraid?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Awe, wonder, or amazement?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Stressed, nervous, or overwhelmed?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Grateful, appreciative, or thankful?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Hopeful, optimistic, or encouraged?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Sad, downhearted, or unhappy?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Hate, distrust, or suspicion?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Inspired, uplifted, or elevated?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Interested, alert, or curious?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Guilty, repentant, or blameworthy?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Joyful, glad, or happy?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Love, closeness, or trust?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Embarrassed or self-conscious?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Proud, confident, or self-assured?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Serene, content, or peaceful?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Angry, irritated, or annoyed?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Ashamed, humiliated, or disgraced?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Contemptuous, scornful, or disdainful?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Disgust, distaste, or revulsion?

Not at all

A little bit

Moderately

Quite a Bit

Extremely

Submit

You have a positivity ratio of .25.
You have a positivity ratio of .75.
You have a positivity ratio of 1.25.
You have a positivity ratio of 1.75.
You have a positivity ratio of 2.25.
You have a positivity ratio of 2.75.
You have a positivity ratio of 3.25.
You have a positivity ratio of 3.75.
You have a positivity ratio of 4.25.
You have a positivity ratio of 4.75.
You have a positivity ratio greater than 5.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
What does that number mean?



If your ratio is below 1.0, you may be caught in a downward spiral of stress and negativity. You may even be depressed.

If your ratio is between 1.5 and 2.5 – that’s normal. You life has more positivity than negativity, but not by a margin large enough to trigger an upward spiral.

If your ratio is between 3 and 5, you’ve hit the sweet spot.

If your ratio is above 9, you’re approaching a danger zone – one with too much positivity and not enough reality.

You shouldn’t read too much into your score, because there are grey zones between the classifications, the results of a single day can be unrepresentative, and different ratios are optimal for different people at different times.

But the positivity ratio is my measure of choice for mental health – much like how some people measure blood pressure or cholesterol to keep track of their heart health, starting last month I have been measuring my positivity ratio daily in order to keep track of my mental health.

I will continue to do so until my ratio stabilizes above 3.0.

The many benefits of positivity.

During a four year study of married couples, those who started out with a positivity ratio below 1.0 were three times more likely to consider divorce, twice as likely to get separated, and two-and-a-half times as likely to get divorced as couples with a ratio above 5.0.¹

During a study of business teams, those with a positivity ratio above 5.0 were found to more readily alternate between advocating their own beliefs, asking questions about the beliefs of others, talking about themselves, and talking about others. Those with a ratio below 1.0 predominantly talked about themselves and their own ideas. The result: lower profitability for their business team, lower customer satisfaction, and lower assessments by superiors, peers, and subordinates.²

During dozens of experimental studies which raised the positivity ratio of participants, increased positivity led to increased productivity, social capital, mental health, and physical health.^{4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21}

A positivity ratio above 3.0 can’t cure cancer, but it can offer a tremendous life advantage.



This post summarizes the 31 benefits of gratitude, which matches up well with the many benefits of positivity.
This page contains what I believe to be the most time-effective method of raising one’s positivity ratio.
This free eBook contains what I believe to be the 16 most effect methods of raising one’s positivity ratio.
This page contains more studies relevant to the positivity ratio.

What’s so special about the number 3.0?

Why do we need so much more positivity than negativity to get all of those benefits?

In economics, it’s called prospect theory. In English – we feel our losses much stronger than our gains.

Yesterday, a friend complimented my writings on this blog – my mood was elevated for two hours. Last month, a friend said the opposite, that I was wasting my time and spewing nonsense. It depressed my mood for a few days.

You receive a raise at work – you’re happy for a few days, maybe a week or two. You receive a paycut – I imagine you’ll be dejected, furious, or both for at least a few weeks.

Because we respond disproportionately to negativity, it takes 3x more positivity than negativity to fully replace anxiety with feelings of safety.

That’s why having a high positivity ratio increases your chances of flourishing.

Broaden-and-Build baby.

Why do we need emotion? Thousands of years ago, it got us to do things which kept us alive and our genes propagating.



Without fear, humans would have been unable to react fast enough.



Without anger, humans would not have had sufficient motivation to adequately punish crime. Can you imagine dispassionately assaulting someone? I can’t. Remember, we’re talking about thousands of years ago – they didn’t have police and jails back then.

Each negative emotion has a set of functions which cause immediate changes in behavior. Positive emotion has a more complex role.



If caveman Joe spent all of his time strengthening his social relationships, he’d go hungry and die. But if he spent all of his time gathering food, when he got sick he’d have no one to take care of him – once again, he’d die.

Both have to happen for him to survive – he needs both friends and food.

Because long-term investment, like playing, making friends, exercising, being optimistic, exploring, and learning new skills are all calorically expensive, Joe’s body needed a signal which would help him know when he should go gathering, and when he should go investing.

That signal was positive emotion. From Barbara Fredrickson’s paper, Beyond the Moment:

When we are in a state of relative safety and satiety—when there are few threats demanding intense, narrowed attention—positive emotions allow us to pursue our long-term interests. In our ancestors, transitory states of positive emotions led to behavior that may seem pointless or extravagant from the perspective of immediate survival, but that perhaps conferred serious advantages in the long term.

A positivity ratio above 3.0 signaled safety and satiety – that Joe was surrounded by friends, healthy, had a stockpile of food, and that now was the best time to make long-term investments.

That is the function of positive emotion – to tell the body, now is the time – you are safe, so you can stop worrying about the day-to-day worries of the present, and go make true your dreams of the future.

This isn’t a pet theory of mine – this is one of the most cited findings in the field of psychology, having been referenced by nearly 4,000 papers in the 10 years since it was published (the average paper is referenced just 10 times)²².

Which is all well and good, but why talk about all of this theory?

Because I want to make this point – positive emotion is vestigial. Not undesirable or ignorable, like an appendix (after all, what would life be like without positive emotion?), but vestigial. It has lost it’s original function.

Like how wisdom teeth are now more a bother than a blessing, I believe the main biological function of positive emotion has been made near useless by the modern world.

We’re all safe; we’re all sated.

For most of us, there are no tigers or food shortages lurking around the corner. None.

For most of us, lack of positive emotion is no reason not to seek out new friends or to learn new skills. In fact, to let a lack of positivity restrict our growth behavior is counterproductive. The fastest path to happiness is to do those things which are usually done when one is happy (e.g. spend time with friends and family, develop hobbies, help others, etc…).

Just as important, the modern world demands constant long-term investment, whether we have a high positivity ratio or not. For those who wish to rise to the top, the benefits of positivity are no benefits, but requirements, to be faked or forced as necessary.

Don’t feel like networking? Too bad. Don’t feel like keeping your skills up-to-date? Too bad. Don’t feel like saving? Too bad.

If this were Tony Robbin’s blog, this would be the part where I would tell you to man up and work hard every day, whether you feel like it or not.

But this is my blog, so instead, I’ll say this:

Positive emotion has lost its primary biological function.

So do with it whatever you want. Be content. Strive for more. Wait until you’ve got a family, great job, and a big house. Seize your happiness advantage now.

Whatever.

I think you know my choice. What’s yours?

References

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