{"id":38023,"date":"2021-06-12T16:36:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T20:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=38023"},"modified":"2021-06-14T10:20:18","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T14:20:18","slug":"how-to-improve-quality-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-improve-quality-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Improve Your Quality of Life: Best Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you want to know how to improve your quality of life? Why is knowing the difference between pleasure and enjoyment so important?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow, <\/em>the two best ways to improve your quality of life are to adjust your environment to align with your goals and to adjust your experience. And in order to adjust your experiences in life, it\u2019s important to keep in mind the difference between pleasure and enjoyment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn how to improve your quality of life with advice from Flow.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

2 Strategies to Improve Your Quality of Life<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you want to know how to improve your quality of life, here are the two best strategies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Adjust your environment to align with your goals.<\/strong> This might involve looking to external benchmarks, such as power or material goods, for success.<\/li>
  2. Adjust your experience <\/strong>of your environment to fit your goals.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Most people are conditioned to adjust their environment to align with their goals and achieve success. For example, when you see people with power, status, or wealth, you might assume they\u2019re happy and that you\u2019d be happier if you had those things, too. If you go on to acquire these symbols, you might feel happier initially, but true happiness<\/a> doesn\u2019t come from what you own or what other people think of you; it comes from how you think about your experiences. In a survey of people in the U.S., the wealthiest participants reported being happy 77 percent of the time, while people with average wealth reported being happy 62 percent of the time. This isn\u2019t a large gap, especially given that the wealthiest participants were selected from a list of the 400 most wealthy people in the U.S. So, to improve your quality of life, focus less on changing your environment (such as increasing your wealth) and more on changing your perception of your experiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Example<\/strong>: Learning to feel secure is part of a healthy life. There are different ways to achieve this. One strategy is buying stronger locks for your home, or persuading your city council to increase policing in certain neighborhoods. A second strategy is changing your mindset about the safety in your neighborhood. For example, you might realize that some risks are inevitable and therefore feel less on edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The key is to use both strategies together. If you just adjust your environment by buying locks, you haven\u2019t done anything to address your tendency to be fearful of your surroundings, and you\u2019ll likely experience new fears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Pleasure vs. Enjoyment<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    To adjust your experience of life, it\u2019s important to keep in mind the difference between pleasure and enjoyment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You experience pleasure when your biological needs or needs you\u2019ve developed through social conditioning are met. When you experience psychic entropy<\/a>, or a disruption of your consciousness by something inconsistent with your goals, you may seek pleasure to restore your body\u2019s equilibrium.<\/strong> Some common ways people seek pleasure are through buying things that provide comfort, eating, and having sex. For example, watching television and having a drink to relax from a hectic workday can be pleasurable. Traveling can be pleasurable because it\u2019s a departure from your routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But pleasure alone can\u2019t provide happiness. Pleasurable activities like eating restore the body\u2019s sense of balance, but they don\u2019t help you grow as a person<\/a> or make you more complex. In other words, pleasure helps order your consciousness, but it can\u2019t create new<\/em> order. Plus, pleasure is often passive: As long as the right parts of your brain are stimulated by an activity, or by drugs, you can feel pleasure without any effort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In contrast, enjoyment can create new order in consciousness because it requires effort. Enjoyable experiences occur when you satisfy a need or desire, and you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n