The Happiness Equation
Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything.
Or stated another way: Contentment + Freedom = Happiness
In his best selling book, The Happiness Equation, Neil Pasricha provides nine secrets to get us to happiness.
- Be happy first. Instead of trying to do great work, to have a big success and then be happy instead, try to be happy which will result in great work and success.
- Do it for you. Find what you love to do and then do it because it brings you satisfaction, not for the money or fame. If those things come then it’s all gravy.
- Remember the Lottery. There are about 7 billion people on earth and 115 billion who have ever lived. That means 14 out of every 15 people who have ever existed are already dead. Just being alive means you have already won.
- Never Retire. Don’t allow your age to determine when you stop working. Learn to practice what the Okinawans call ikigai (pronounced “icky guy”), which means “the reason you wake up in the morning.”
- Overvalue you. Don’t judge a salary by the year but understand the hourly rate. For example, if you are a Harvard MBA working for a big consulting firm making $120,000 yearly versus a school teacher making $45,000 a year, you will be surprised to learn both are making the same hourly wage.
- Create space. Breaking your time into four quadrants of Burn, Space, Doing and Thinking – just make sure you are not spending the majority of your time in the burn quadrant or else you can burn your self out. Learn to take time to make some space for yourself to clear your mind.
- Just do it. This is similar to The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins in that you just do it. Most people first ask can they do it, do they want to do it and then they consider doing it. But we should just do it first, then review what you have done and then determine if you want to do it again. Remember, motivation doesn’t cause action. Action causes motivation.
- Be you. The relationship you have with yourself is your most important relationship. Strive for harmony in what you think, say, and do. In the book, he describes three simple tests: The Saturday Morning Test, The Bench Test, and the Five People Test. Buy the book so you can learn and apply these tests to your life.
- Don’t take advice. Hear it, but decide what to do yourself. Every piece of advice you receive, you can receive the opposite advice and both can be compelling and true. For example, “birds of a feather flock together” is a cliche we are all familiar with. But so is, “opposites attract.” As my good friend the late Wayne Dywer always would say, “learn to become independent of the good opinion of other people.“
With the equation of Contentment + Freedom = Happiness and applying these nine secrets, you will have an amazing life filled with self-satisfaction and happiness.
To receive your free Happiness Equation Key Resources please visit the Institute for Global Happiness.
