Make it easy to do right and hard to go wrong.
Keep it simple' wasn't always the right response. Many things that boosted my happiness also added complexity to my life. Having children. Learning to post videos to my website. Going to an out-of-tow...
Keep a sense of humor. Over and over, I see that levity helps diffuse practically any difficult situation—which
Jamie has a transition habit when he comes home from work. He gives everyone a hello kiss, then disappears for twenty minutes or so. He changes out of his suit, sends one last round of emails, glances...
It’s a Secret of Adulthood: The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all.
It's so easy to wish that we'd made an effort in the past, so that we'd happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is m...
It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously—and als...
It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
In one study, when subjects made a shopping list for what they’d eat in a week, more chose a healthy snack instead of an unhealthy snack; when asked what they’d choose now, more people chose the unhea...
In fact, the Upholder commitment to meeting expectations can sometimes make Upholders seem…cold. There’s a relentless quality to Upholders. They’re going to do what must be done even, sometimes, if th...
If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.
I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change.
I was always telling myself, Keep it simple. But as Albert Einstein pointed out, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You'll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You'll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate...
How can I deprive myself of something without feeling deprived? When it comes to habits, feeling deprived is a pernicious state. When we feel deprived, we feel entitled to compensate ourselves—often,...
How about this, I suggested. Instead of feeling that you’ve blown the day and thinking, ‘I’ll get back on track tomorrow,’ try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoo...
Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life.
For most of us, the real aim isn’t to enjoy a few pleasures right now, but to build habits that will make us happy over the long term. Sometimes, that means giving up something in the present, or dema...
For instance, in The Artist’s Way, her influential book about cultivating creativity, Julia Cameron suggests scheduling an artist’s date,
False Choice Loophole: This is the loophole-seeking strategy I most often invoke. I pose two activities in opposition, as though I have to make an either/or decision, when in fact, the two aren’t nece...