Happiness is something we all want, yet most of us struggle to truly understand how to achieve it. We often chase after the wrong things—more money, more success, more recognition—only to find that they don’t bring the lasting happiness we expected. The truth is, happiness isn’t about external achievements, but about internal habits and mindsets. Here are five simple but often overlooked rules for happiness.
RULE 1. TAKE THE LONG VIEW
Happiness is notoriously hard to define. That's why so many philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to modern psychologists, have attempted to understand and define happiness.
Over the years, they have come to the conclusion that most people seek happiness in two ways:
- Hedonic Happiness. Where it's all about having a good time and avoiding the bad stuff.
- Eudaimonic Happiness. Where it's more about living by your values and doing things that make life feel worthwhile.
Obviously, aiming for constant pleasure isn't realistic. If you were excited all the time, life would simply be boring and you would take it for granted.
The same goes for just chasing pleasure and avoiding pain.
While it might bring short-term happiness, it can harm our long-term wellbeing as we often seek pleasure in things like alcohol, money, or work. This can hold us back from becoming who we want to be as it can lead to addiction and burnout.
On the other hand, taking the long view is key to sustained wellbeing and happiness. This means that you look at your life as a whole and ask yourself whether you are happy in general - rather than asking yourself whether or not you are happy today.
In this perspective, even if today feels gloomy, zooming out allows you to grasp the broader picture and acknowledge that overall, you're probably quite content with your life.
RULE 2. DO SOMETHING YOU LOVE
It's easy to assume that doing what you love is straightforward. But when you look around, you realise many people aren't actually doing it. This is because of two things: either they can't or they're afraid to change direction.
For most people, work is like climbing a mountain. You simply pick a mountain, thinking you've found the prize you're after, but then halfway up you realise it's the wrong mountain.
You look up and think "That's not what I want." But turning back and going down to find another mountain is daunting.
That's why so many people end up stuck halfway, not making any progress, and stick with jobs they don't like.
But the truth is that most people don't discover what they truly enjoy doing until they try different things.
You need to climb different mountains to find the prize you want, and the only way to do so is by turning back and find a new mountain. And if you really can't change your situation, you can still do your best and take ownership of the process.
For example, you can make your job more enjoyable by 1) connecting with your colleagues, 2) asking for more flexibility, or 3) finding opportunities for growth.
RULE 3. LOOK FROM THE OTHER DIRECTION
In athletic competitions there are clear winners and losers. The winner wins a gold medal, the runner up a silver medal, and the third person a bronze medal.
Because there's this hierarchy, you may expect that this also reflects in the medalists' happiness, with the gold medalist being happiest, followed by the silver medalists, and then the bronze.
However, this is not true due to something called: Counterfactual Thinking.
This is a concept in psychology where the brain imagines ways in which an event may have turned out differently.
For example, what we often see with silver medalists is that they are the least happy because they have the counterfactual thought that they could have won gold, but may have made a mistake that prevented them from winning.
Whereas the bronze medalist, might focus their counterfactual thoughts downward towards fourth place. Their thoughts would be happier as they could have not won a medal at all.
It's actually interesting when you look at photos from Olympic medalists. There are some photos where you can clearly see that the silver medalist is the least happy and the bronze medalist the happiest.
Now, what we can take from this is that a person’s achievements matter less than how that person subjectively perceives those achievements.
So if we train our brain to look from multiple directions, by comparing the situation from different angles, we actually have a choice as to how we respond to the situation.
This is a great example of how habit-forming happiness is. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. And the more you can recognise that other angle, the easier it gets to adopt it yourself.
RULE 4. HAVE A VARIETY OF LIFELINES
There are three broad buckets in life: 1) work, 2) health, and 3) relationships. Now, I personally also like to add a fourth, which is play, because we all need activities or hobbies in our lives that bring joy and happiness. And you can even add more if you like.
But no matter how many buckets you divide your life into, we all have moments when one of these aspects or buckets is dominating - it's just consuming your thoughts and emotions for a certain amount of time.
For instance, maybe you're having some relationship issues that you need to work through or maybe something happened at work that is stressing you out.
Now, there are two ways you can react to this situation:
- You can either put your trouble neatly into a box and go about your life even when one important aspect of it is crumbling.
- You can catastrophize and let one problem bleed over all other aspects of your life.
As you can imagine, catastrophising one aspect of your life and letting it bleed over everything else, may not be the solution to your problem.
Your issue at work has nothing to do with your partner, so lashing because you feel stressed and tired will only compound the problem and strain your relationship.
Instead, you should use the other buckets as your lifeline so that if you find yourself in a difficult situation, such as feeling stressed from work, you can get strength and support from the other buckets or areas in your life.
RULE 5. KNOW WHO YOU VALUE
This is one of the most important rules for happiness.
If you want to be happy, the absolute basics is security, and not just physical security, also emotional security. You need to have a good support system, so when things get tough, there's someone to help you out and catch you if you fall.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development - one of the world's longest studies of adult life - found found that our relationship and how happy we are in our relationships are directly linked to our health.
These ties literally protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.
Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains. And those good relationships, they don’t have to be smooth all the time. Some of our octogenarian couples could bicker with each other day in and day out, but as long as they felt that they could really count on the other when the going got tough, those arguments didn’t take a toll on their memories. - Robert Waldinger
If you think about your own life, you might think of different people for different areas of your life:
- Colleagues at work you can trust
- Mentors whose wisdom you can call on
- Friends who you can count on to be there for you
- Family who would do anything for you
- Parents who will always support you
When you know who these people are - the people you feel secure with - you will always have someone to fall back on.
And if you don’t feel confident that you can rely on the support you have in some areas, work on building relationships that will give you what you need.
Because if you know who to value, you will be able to get through even the worst trauma, and according to the Harvard Study, will live longer than those who feel lonely.
If you are alone and feel stressed and lonely, that’s part of what breaks down your health. That’s why we think loneliness is as dangerous to your health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or being obese. - Robert Waldinger