How to Hack Happiness (Build Habits to Contentedness)

The essentials that make for a happy life.

Don’t take yourself so seriously. You’re just a monkey with a plan. — Naval Ravikant

Happiness isn’t something you find. Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop. The other choice is misery. You choose to be happy, and you work on it through habits. It’s like building a writing muscle, or any muscle. You decide what is important to you and then prioritize it.

Life is complicated. But does it have to be? We make it complicated. A lot of unhappiness comes from comparing things from the past to the present. Instead, we can live in the now and strip things down to the essentials, the things we’re sure bring contentedness, and find ways to implement habits to increase long-term happiness.

The things that make me truly “happy” (content is a better word) and not searching for future happiness or reminising over past experiences are simple, yet so many of us prioritize the easy choices that make our lives hard. When we ask ourselves what is most important to us, people say the same things, health, relationships, and what we spend time doing to make a living.

If these three things are going smoothly and in alignment with your values, you are the richest person in the world.

Especially, if you are having fun finding the things you enjoy that make you the healthiest person. If you are having fun hanging with the people in your inner circle and if you’re having fun doing the work you get paid for, finding the business, project, or people that need you most, then you’re winning at life.

This is what I call the trifecta of a happy life. Having fun while in,

• Your relationships
• Your nutrition and health
• Your work

When I’m healthy and fit in mind and body, I’m enjoying the people I spend time with, and my work is fulfilling my purpose while making me an income, I’m winning.

You can increase your happiness over time with the right skills. Nutrition is a skill, physical exercise is a skill, making money is a skill. Developing your purpose is a skill. Creating is a skill. These are all skills that lead to contentedness in life, it just starts with a belief that you can increase happiness in all these essential areas.

That is the secret to a happy life. Happiness is built on habits.

Most of us know this, but we put obstacles in the way of achieving it — we self-sabotage for whatever reason. The reason doesn’t really matter, and is usually found in the past anyway.

We give time to people who are negative and suck the life energy from us, we stay in relationships that we know are not good and are holding us back both spiritually and emotionally, we stay in jobs that don’t feed our souls and we eat preservatives out of bags and binge Netflix instead of going for a walk and eating whole foods.

I’m not saying you have to be a monk, that would be boring. I have my hedonistic days just like most, those days feed my soul as well but don’t give long-term gains. Nor am I saying you have to make the best choices every single day — every single time — just make the best choices most of the time.

Win most of the time following good habits you make every day to keep balance and up your contentedness.

No one cares about you more than yourself. Putting yourself first and practicing self-care isn’t selfish. Your relationship with yourself comes before all others, it dictates how you treat the ones closest to you. If you don’t respect yourself, your physical health, your mental health, how will you know what it takes to treat others well? Self-love and care is where it starts.

Take time to devote to these essentials.

Health and physical fitness.

When we think of health and physical fitness, they may have a negative connotation. Maybe you don’t like to go to the gym, maybe you had a bad experience with sports in high school. Hack it. Good hacks make things easier. Maybe the gym isn’t your thing, perhaps a dance class would be better and more fun.

The point is to find something every day that gets your heart pumping, it doesn’t matter what it is. It can be anything, yoga, pilates, running, dancing, gardening.

The best workout for you is the one you’re excited to do every day.

Diet.

Apply a similar hack to diet. There is some food that is healthy you enjoy eating. You can think of at least five foods you like the taste of, which are also good for you — healthy for your insides.

My father made me sit at the table until I ate all my vegetables and it turned me off of vegetables for years. I didn’t find one vegetable I liked until I went to a Farmer’s Market in San Francisco and the veg looked so beautiful I couldn’t resist trying them again.

When we form negative associations with good things for us, it prevents us from finding something that works. The important thing is to find a few healthy foods you do enjoy eating.

Don’t think of a healthy diet as deprivation. Since I had to sit at the table and eat all my broccoli, I can’t eat overcooked broccoli. I now blend raw veggies into a smoothie and have created a positive association with healthy foods. I actually crave my smoothie each morning. I eat more vegetables by 10 am than most eat in one week. Don’t give too much thought to food. You don’t want to obsess and make yourself miserable every time you open the fridge. Michael Pollan’s advice is the best. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

The right diet is probably one that includes a lot of greens, a small amount of protein, and fruit for dessert or breakfast. That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate eating.

Build good habits for nutrition:

• Don’t eat out of a bag (unless you are buying those pre-washed bags of lettuce. Most foods that come in a bag or box are full of fillers and preservatives. Your body wants real food in its most nutrient-dense form — whole fruits and veg.
• Stay away from sugar. Having no sugar will make your mood more stable.
• Sugar creates cravings for more carbs and sugar.
• The worst diet is one of sugar, fat, and carbs combined. Eaten at the same time. This trifecta leads to more cravings.
• Eliminating alcohol will keep your mood more stable.
• Dropping caffeine will keep your mood more stable.

All these mood stabilizers make you happier. Working out every day and eating well makes you happier. Maybe not the first time you do it, but the more you do it. Repetition creates the habit.

Think about trading the habits that give you short-term gains for habits that give you long-term rewards. The donut might taste really good right this second, but what are you sacrificing in the long-term?

Health and happiness.

Your tribe.

When building your tribe — your people, your family, your friends, surround yourself with people who are happier than you.

Even love is a skill. Skills can be learned. When you put your attention and focus on the skills that build a better life, your world becomes a better place.

How do you become a better partner, a better friend? All the answers have to do with being present and having a modicum of self-awareness.

To be a better partner, but down the book, computer, drink, phone and look up at your partner, look them in the eye and ask, “how was your day?” Ask with the intention of really wanting to hear the answer. Don’t just listen. Hear it. This single hack, if done often, will increase the quality of your relationship ten-fold.

The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life, as Esther Perel often remarks in her talks about relationships and love and desire.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Make sure they are quality people. They are self-aware and not negative.

At the end of the day, you’re a combination of your habits and the people you spend the most time with.

Choose wisely.

Your work.

Choose a job you love the most and feels like play while doing it.

How do you become successful at what you do all day? Surround yourself with people more successful than you.

You have one life. That is it. That we know of. Why do something for eight hours a day that doesn’t make you feel good? If you are waiting all week until Friday, you’re not in the right line of work. The goal of work is to make working feel like there are no Mondays in your life. Every day feels like Friday — even Monday — because you love what you’re doing.

Find something you love to do, even if it comes after your “day job” until you can monetize it and quit your day job.

Everyone is creative. Because of the internet, everyone can make money in the creator economy. The way to stand out and separate yourself from the competition is to be authentic and find that thing you know how to do better than anybody else. You know how to do it because you love it. If you can make money off the thing you love to do, that’s contentedness.

We are going into an age where more and more people can work for themselves. The new generation’s fortunes will be made through code or media — create something from what you love, then distribute it. It can come in many forms, writing, videos, podcasts, courses, paid subscriptions, newsletters.

Think of a product or service in your areas of expertise that society wants but does not yet know how to get, and they distribute that product or service online.

There are so many ways to build a brand or a name for yourself online, so many social media channels giving us so-so content. Create something that stands out with your authenticity, differentiate by being yourself. The world is craving authenticity right now.

Your goal is to find the thing you can go all-in on that you love to do.

In summary

A happy person isn’t someone who is happy all the time. “It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace,” as Naval Ravikant once said in a podcast. You can hack happiness with habits and focus on what is really important to you that makes you happy, both now and later.

The best overall hack is to optimize for the long-term rather than the short-term through the good habits you nurture. You make a happy life, by choosing healthy habits.