Associate with people who are likely to improve you.
At certain points in our lives, it may not be possible to be happy, but it is possible to try to be happier—as happy as we can be, under the circumstances—and by doing so, fortify ourselves against ad...
Because we’re quite susceptible to goal contagion, we may rapidly pick up someone else’s habits, so it’s helpful to be around people who are good role models.
Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action. The more specific I am about what action to take, the more likely I am to form a habit. A habit to be mo...
Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action.
But perhaps the most acute sense of happiness from writing was the happiness of expressing a very complicated idea - the kind of idea that takes hundreds of pages to capture.
Clarity is one reason that the Strategy of Scheduling is so helpful. It’s important to have time to write; to have time with my family; to read. Instead of spending my day in a chaos of warring priori...
Leisure must be entered on the schedule as its own activity; it’s not something I get only when I have nothing else to do. Because I always have something else to do.
Extroversion: response to reward Neuroticism: response to threat Conscientiousness: response to inhibition (self-control, planning) Agreeableness: regard for others Openness to experience: breadth of...
Fake Self-Actualization Loophole: Often, a loophole is disguised as an embrace of life or an acceptance of self, so that the failure to pursue a habit seems life-affirming—almost spiritual.
Six obvious ways to make an activity less convenient: • Increase the amount of physical or mental energy required (leave the cell phone in another room, ban smoking inside or near a building). • Hid...
Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
For a happy life, it’s important to cultivate an atmosphere of growth—the sense that we’re learning new things, getting stronger, forging new relationships, making things better, helping other people....
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 most people, whenever possible, important habits should be scheduled for the morning. Mornings tend to unfold in a predictable way, and as the day goes on, more complications arise—
For work: I bought some pens. Normally, I used makeshift pens, the kind of unsatisfactory implements that somehow materialized in my bag or in a drawer. But one day, when I was standing in line to buy...
Else. Self-measurement brings self-awareness, and self-awareness strengthens our self-control.
Happy people generally are more forgiving, helpful, and charitable, have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more often withdrawn, d...
Hors d’oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me.… They remind me of one’s childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like—and during the rest of the menu one...
I am living my real life, this is it. Now is now, and if I waited to be happier, waited to have fun, waited to do the things that I know I ought to do, I might never get the chance.
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