Neil Pasricha: Simple Rules for Happiness

1. Cultivate Confidence

Strive to maintain a high opinion of yourself and a high opinion of others, avoiding cynicism (low self, low others), arrogance (high self, low others), and insecurity (low self, high others). This mindset helps navigate life with more confidence, intentionality, and happiness.

2. Remember Life’s Lottery

Regularly remind yourself that you’ve already ‘won the lottery’ by being alive, educated, financially stable (if applicable), and living in a free society. This perspective fosters gratitude and prevents taking life for granted.

3. Define Project Success

For any project, decide upfront which type of success you are aiming for: Sales (commercial), Social (peer recognition), or Self (intrinsic satisfaction). This helps manage ambition and contentment, preventing disappointment and allowing focus on what truly matters for that specific endeavor.

4. Adopt ‘Take More Pictures’

Embrace the ’take more pictures’ philosophy in life, understanding that more attempts and experiences lead to more successes and greater resilience. This approach helps in finding what you truly like and overcoming difficult experiences.

5. Design Life with Rules

Consciously design your schedule and create ‘automatic rules for success’ that you follow consistently. This reduces decision fatigue and conserves willpower, allowing your ‘best self’ to guide your actions even when discipline is low.

6. Implement Family Contracts

Sit down with your partner/family to create a ‘family contract’ outlining terms for your life, such as maximum nights away, required family days, individual nights out, and date nights. This ensures intentional investment in relationships and personal time, preventing friction.

7. Use a Monthly Dashboard

At the end of each month, draw a 2x2 dashboard with your ‘ikigai’ (purpose) in the center, tracking ‘Strong Core,’ ‘Fastest Learning,’ ‘Best Family,’ and ‘Best Self’ goals. Color each goal green, yellow, or red to assess and adjust behavior across different life areas for overall harmony.

8. Inspect Career ‘Four S’s’

Evaluate your job/career based on four ‘S’s’: Story (feeling part of something bigger), Social (connection with colleagues), Structure (clear schedule), and Stimulation (learning new things). These elements contribute to career satisfaction and help identify missing aspects when feeling untethered from community or connection.

9. Practice Two-Minute Mornings

In the morning, grab a pen and paper and write down three statements: ‘I will let go of,’ ‘I am grateful for,’ and ‘I will focus on.’ This two-minute investment lowers anxiety and helps you enter the day from a less jolted place than if you were waking up and looking at your phone.

10. Immerse in Nature Daily

Take an ‘interjection’ sometime in your day to immerse yourself in nature, even if it’s just finding the closest bush or tree and taking deep breaths. This practice (shinrin-yoku) boosts mental and physiological health by increasing cancer-killing cells, improving heart health, and reducing anxiety and stress by breathing in phytoncides, which lower cortisol levels.

11. Schedule Untouchable Time

Schedule one ‘untouchable day’ per week where you cannot be reached, blocking it 16 weeks in advance. If a full day isn’t possible, try blocking 12-1 p.m. for lunch, leaving your phone on your desk and getting outside.

12. Disable Phone Distractions

Delete all social media apps and the email app from your phone, and disable all text alerts and news headline notifications. This transforms your phone from a ‘push device’ into a ‘pull device,’ reducing constant interruptions and reclaiming focus.

13. Do Hardest Task First

When tackling your daily tasks, primarily try to do the hardest thing first. Your ability to do difficult tasks decreases later in the day (e.g., writing at 3 p.m. stinks), so tackling it early ensures it gets done.

14. Prioritize 3 Daily Tasks

Before bed, grab a cue card and a marker, and force yourself to make a prioritized list of three things you’re going to do the next day. This practice helps relieve some anxiety the night before.

15. Focus on ‘Thorn in Side’

When deciding what to focus on for the day, prioritize the ’thorn in your side’ – the most subtly aggravating thing that will sit subconsciously in your head if not done, even if it’s small (e.g., booking a dentist appointment, calling a loved one). This helps get something off your brain that would otherwise consume subconscious mental energy.

16. Avoid Screens Before Bed

Do not expose your brain to bright screens within two hours of bedtime. Bright screens inhibit melatonin production, leading to less deep, restful sleep and potentially an hour-long ‘jolt of extra energy’ that makes it hard to fall asleep.

17. Create Digital Friction

Make it inconvenient to access distracting apps or content (e.g., requiring a password, logging in through a clunky browser). Increasing friction makes it harder to violate discipline, especially when tired, lazy, or bored, thus supporting intentional behavior.

18. Place Charger Away from Bed

Plug your phone charger in the dimmest, most cobwebby room of your house, away from your bed. This adds a frictional step (e.g., 20 seconds) to accessing your phone when resilience and decision-making energy are low, preventing impulsive actions and promoting better sleep.

19. Acknowledge Past Difficulties

Remind yourself and others (especially kids) that you have successfully navigated difficult experiences (e.g., the pandemic). Resilience partly comes from knowing you’ve done difficult things in the past, which can build confidence for future challenges.

20. Return to Fun After Success

After achieving commercial success, consciously return to chasing ‘fun’ and intrinsic motivation in your next projects. The initial success was likely rooted in the joy of the work itself, and chasing further commercial success can destroy the art or reduce its impact, while returning to fun is paradoxically more likely to cause future success.

21. Push Comfort Zone

Intentionally do something outside your comfort zone, even if it’s in your hometown (e.g., visiting a new place, trying a new activity). Pushing yourself outside your comfort zone creates memorable experiences, similar to how memorable vacations often involve novel challenges.

22. Water Your Relationships

Actively invest in your close relationships (e.g., date nights with a partner, connecting with friends) and don’t take them for granted. Relationships require work and investment to stay strong; otherwise, they can dry out and become susceptible to friction.

23. Create a ‘Rock Clock’

Collect 10 smooth stones, representing 10 decades of life. Keep four at the front of your dresser (representing current decades) and six inches back (future decades), moving one rock forward every 10 years. This visual clock helps put daily worries into perspective, reminding you of the long arc of life and what truly matters.

24. Turn Phone Screen Black/White

Turn your phone screen to black and white to make the device less appealing and reduce compulsive checking, as vibrant colors are designed to hook attention.

25. Mix Up App Layout

Mix up the arrangement of apps on your phone screen to disrupt compulsive checking habits that rely on muscle memory for app locations.

26. Unsubscribe from Emails

Make a habit of unsubscribing from unnecessary emails and newsletters. This helps reduce digital clutter and distractions, allowing you to design your life around intentional choices.

27. Read ‘Bodies Are Cool’

Read the picture book ‘Bodies Are Cool’ by Tyler Feder. It is a wonderful book for all ages that helps address body image issues and promotes a positive view of diverse bodies.

28. Use a Landline for Emergencies

If you feel the need to be reachable for emergencies at night, get a landline and give that number only to your five emergency contacts. This allows you to keep your cell phone away from your bed, which can disrupt sleep and lead to constant checking.