We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then – and this is the best part – we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, were free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.
Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn’t-fair results, it turns out that the happy outperform the less happy. Happy people work more hours each week – and they work more in their free time, too.
Superstition is the irrational belief that an object or behavior has the power to influence an outcome, when there’s no logical connection between them. Most of us aren’t superstitious – but most of us are a ‘littlestitious.’
Your unhappiness doesn’t help anyone else – and in fact, as I mentioned in another answer, happy people are more altruistically inclined. So happiness is not a selfish goal.
No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain’s heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from ordinary humanity; there seemed no danger he feared, no effort too great for his limitless energies.
Some kind of clutter is difficult – letting go of things with sentimental value, sifting through papers – but some clutter I find very refreshing to clear. I drive my daughters nuts because I’m always wandering into their rooms to clear clutter.
People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason, in a way that animals can’t do.
It’s true that people do assume that people who are critical are smarter than people who are uncritical.
Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon.
When we don’t get any treats, we feel depleted, resentful, and angry, and we feel justified in self-indulgence. We start to crave comfort – and grab that comfort wherever we can, even if it means breaking good habits.
In ‘Before and After,’ I identify the sixteen strategies that we can use to make or break our habits. Some are quite familiar, such as ‘Monitoring,’ ‘Scheduling,’ and ‘Convenience.’ Some took me a lot of effort to identify, such as ‘Thinking,’ ‘Identity,’ and ‘Clarity.’
Sometimes I think it’s easier to think about being happier, for what ever that means to you then worrying about what is happiness and what would life be if I finally achieved this ultimate happiness?
Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.
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.
What I’ve also noticed is the term happiness, or happy is intimidating to some people. Some people deny that it’s even possible to be happy, or to achieve happiness. Happiness sounds like this magical destination that you arrive at and then everything is sort of solved, or it’s different.
It’s easy to be heavy; hard to be light.
Look for happiness under your own roof.
The number one resolution that people mention to me as something that’s made them happier is – to my surprise – making the bed.
Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.
One of the great joys of falling in love is the feeling that the most extraordinary person in the entire world has chosen you.