PDF Summary:The Happiness Equation, by Neil Pasricha

Happiness has many benefits—it positively impacts your attitude, your chances of success, and the circumstances that play out in your life. Despite knowing this, many people find it difficult to feel consistently happy. In The Happiness Equation, best-selling author Neil Pasricha claims you can overcome this difficulty by training yourself to feel happier. He explores common obstacles to happiness and provides solutions that help boost your enthusiasm for life.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Pasricha’s key advice for becoming happier, four common obstacles to happiness, and his solutions to overcome them. Additionally, we’ll supplement his ideas with psychological research and actionable methods from other self-improvement authors and practitioners.

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Instead of chasing validation, focus on feeling happiness. Free yourself from the need for validation by accepting who you are and what you need to feel happy. Pasricha argues that this shift in thinking encourages a cycle of happiness: Self-acceptance inspires you to align your behaviors and decisions with what makes you happy. This alignment encourages positive self-judgment and influences you to make decisions that further increase your happiness.

(Shortform note: Another way to think about this is to consider what’s motivating you. Some experts believe that all behavior is driven by the need to fulfill one of two motivation types: intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from your internal self: You engage in an activity because it makes you happy. You accept your needs and feel comfortable expressing them (for example, you listen to a particular song because you enjoy it and aren’t worried about how others will judge you). Extrinsic motivation comes from your environment: You engage in an activity because you receive an external reward for doing it and it’s what others want from you. You ignore your needs in favor of seeking acceptance from others (for example, you pretend to like a particular song because you’re afraid of feeling left out of your social group).)

Furthermore, the more you encourage positive self-judgment and engage in things that make you happy, the less time you waste thinking about how others perceive you. This helps you accept yourself exactly as you are and frees you from the pressure of adapting to please or impress others.

According to Pasricha, this increases your happiness in two ways: First, placing less weight on what others think of you decreases insecurity and self-consciousness and increases self-confidence. Second, because you’re not projecting a false image of yourself or hiding behind achievements, you feel comfortable knowing that people appreciate you for who you are, not who you’re pretending to be. This naturally improves your self-judgment, allows you to relax and enjoy being yourself, and encourages you to make decisions that continue to fuel your happiness.

How Self-Acceptance Improves Self-Judgment and Happiness

Psychologists expand on Pasricha’s definition of self-acceptance and offer additional insights into how it improves your interactions and overall happiness.

Self-acceptance means embracing all parts of yourself unconditionally, even the things you wish you could change. Unconditional self-acceptance improves your self-judgment and boosts happiness in two ways: First, when you accept yourself as you are, you’re less inclined to seek acceptance or validation from others by masking unwanted aspects of yourself. Second, it allows you to separate individual achievements and mistakes from your overall self-opinion—meaning that your self-judgment (and resulting happiness) doesn’t fluctuate according to individual experiences.

Unconditional self-acceptance is important because partial self-acceptance magnifies the importance of unwanted flaws, increases self-consciousness and self-judgment based on individual experiences, and makes it difficult to feel happy with yourself as you are.

For example, you might wish that you felt more confident interacting with others. Not accepting this part of yourself makes you feel more self-conscious about how confident you appear—you judge yourself according to how well you perform in individual interactions. After confident interactions, you feel good about yourself and you feel happy. After unconfident interactions, you feel bad about yourself, uncomfortable about this part of yourself, and unhappy. This leads you to conclude that your unconfidence is the cause of your unhappiness and it impels you to reject this aspect of yourself—for example, by projecting a false image of confidence.

On the other hand, unconditional self-acceptance keeps your self-judgment consistent regardless of how confident you feel in each interaction. You’ve already accepted yourself, so you don’t look to others to decide how you should feel about yourself. As a result, you don’t feel impelled to mask any aspects of yourself and find it easier to maintain a feeling of happiness regardless of your “faults” or what others might think of you.

Pursue Enjoyable Activities to Practice Self-Acceptance

Pasricha suggests practicing self-acceptance and figuring out what makes you happy by considering what activities you do purely for enjoyment. From there, increase your happiness by brainstorming additional ways to pursue these activities in different contexts or with different people. For example, if you enjoy writing, start a blog or join a writing group to create more opportunities to experience happiness.

(Shortform note: Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project) offers an interesting way to expand upon Pasricha’s method. After pinpointing experiences that you most enjoy, set an ambitious goal that requires you to actively focus on these activities to succeed. Having a clear goal will help you prioritize the way you spend your time and create more opportunities for similar uplifting experiences. For example, Rubin’s love of writing inspired her to set the ambitious goal of completing a 50,000-word novel in one month. Her work on this goal led to a number of opportunities that now allow her to pursue writing as a full-time career.)

How to Practice Self-Acceptance

In The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown expands on Pasricha’s ideas about self-acceptance by suggesting three ways to focus more on what makes you happy and less on what others think of you.

Let go of other people’s expectations: Be willing to say no to things you don’t want to do without considering what others think of you. For example, say no to social invitations without worrying that your friends will feel hurt or upset by your absence.

Choose to focus on self-compassion instead of perfectionism: Make the conscious effort to be kind to yourself more often, particularly when you judge yourself for making mistakes or acting inappropriately. For example, if you routinely obsess over conversations you’ve had with others, stop this self-analysis and instead do something that enhances your sense of well-being, like reading a good book.

Detach yourself from self-doubt by focusing on what you care about: Think about what’s important to you and invest more time in it. The more you focus on what’s satisfying to you, the less attention you’ll give to thoughts that undermine your sense of self-worth.

Obstacle #3: Working for the Weekend

Thinking of work as something you have to do erodes happiness. According to Pasricha, Western society conditions you to value work only in terms of how it financially supports what you do in your free time—weekends, vacations, and eventual retirement. This attitude promotes two problematic ideas: First, happiness only comes from having free time. Second, work earns your free time and happiness. These ideas fuel the belief that work is simply a means to an end that you must endure.

This line of thinking has a massive impact on your overall happiness—assuming you spend about a third of your life working, the belief that work is something to endure means you spend a third of your life feeling resentful and dissatisfied. What’s worse, these negative feelings drain your energy and bleed over into the free time you work so hard to earn. You either feel too tired or frustrated about work to enjoy your free time, or you spend a large part of that time dreading your return to work.

Since retirement removes the need to work for free time, it’s easy to assume that it breaks this cycle of dissatisfaction. However, Pasricha argues that retirement makes you unhappy, both during your working life and after you retire:

• During your working life, planning to retire impels you to make sacrifices for the promise of a leisurely future. You follow the “work and save” formula and seek out well-paid jobs to fund your retirement account. But, well-paid jobs often require longer hours—so you end up with little free time to enjoy your life.
• Once you hit retirement, you risk feeling bored, useless, and dissatisfied. Pasricha explains that work provides a productive way to apply skills and knowledge, opportunities to take on challenges or make a contribution, and social stimulation. Without this structure, your free time feels like a void and no longer makes you happy.

(Shortform note: In addition to fueling feelings of dissatisfaction, the loneliness and inactivity caused by losing the structure of work also harm your mental and physical health. A recent study revealed that retirement increases the chances of suffering from clinical depression by 40%, and of being diagnosed with a physical illness by 60%.)

Pursuing the American Dream Impedes Happiness

The authors of Minimalism mirror Pasricha’s view that Western society is conditioned to view work as a “means to an end.” They clarify how pursuing the “American Dream”—which involves working hard for reliable pay and benefits just to buy free time and pleasure—creates four obstacles that impede happiness and keep you trapped in unsatisfying work:

Identity: You believe that your career defines who you are. Mixing up your persona with your career makes it difficult to change occupations that no longer make you happy—because you fear abandoning who you are.

Reputation: Each time you move up in your career, you increase your social standing. The higher your standing, the more you have to lose. Your fear of loss impels you to stick to a career you don’t enjoy and work harder and longer hours to maintain and improve your status.

Reliability: You’re comfortable in your career and know what you’re doing. Attempting to pursue a different, more satisfying career takes you out of your comfort zone and feels risky—so you opt to stay comfortably unhappy.

Finances: The longer you stay in your career, the more you increase your financial security and the benefits it offers, such as a retirement plan, stock options, and health insurance. These financial benefits justify staying in a job you hate.

While these four aspects contribute to an unsatisfying career, retirement instantly removes them from your life. However, this only creates further obstacles to happiness. If you’re overly reliant on your work to define who you are, bolster your reputation, and provide reliability and financial security, you may struggle to figure out who you are and hows to fulfill these needs without your work.

Becoming aware of how these four factors may be influencing your career choices is the first step to moving toward more satisfying work and planning how to spend your post-work years.

Solution: Focus on Work That Satisfies You

Think of work not as a means to an end but as a means to satisfaction. Pasricha argues that work should be as enjoyable as free time. When you choose work that aligns with your interests and passions, you feel more engaged, motivated, and productive—and therefore happy—in that third of your life.

Make work more enjoyable by choosing a job you’d happily do in your free time. Integrate your list of enjoyable activities from Solution #2 with your knowledge and skills to come up with potential ideas for satisfying work.

(Shortform note: According to research in the area of positive psychology, Pasricha’s advice to align your work with your interests and passions also improves your chances of achieving career success. You’re more likely to feel motivated and experience increased feelings of happiness and satisfaction when you pursue career goals that genuinely interest you. This positive mental state allows you to access the best parts of yourself—your unique strengths and talents—and apply them to successfully achieve your goals.)

For your long-term strategy, Pasricha recommends substituting your goal to retire with an ongoing goal to look for challenging opportunities that keep you active and engaged. For example, you may continue to work, set learning goals, or volunteer for causes you care about.

(Shortform note: Following through with your goal to retire doesn’t guarantee unhappiness. Experts suggest, in addition to keeping yourself challenged, you can enjoy a happy retirement by engaging in meaningful activities, looking after your health, and making the effort to socialize with friends and family.)

Obstacle #4: Wasting Mental Energy

Overdoing coupled with overthinking leads to mental exhaustion and dissatisfaction. It’s easy to fall into the trap of always being too busy with a neverending to-do list, both at work and at home. Though you’re constantly multi-tasking and running to catch up with all of your chores and obligations, you never feel like you’ve done enough. In the midst of all this multitasking, you’re making hundreds of unimportant decisions, such as choosing whether to start an email with “Hi” or “Hey.” According to Pasricha, all of this doing and thinking wastes a vast amount of energy and prevents you from relaxing and feeling happy.

(Shortform note: Pasricha’s claim that you waste a vast amount of time on unnecessary decisions isn’t an exaggeration. Research suggests that the average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day. That equates to over 2,000 decisions each waking hour, or 34 decisions each minute.)

Pasricha argues that much of what you spend your time doing or thinking about is trivial, and that trivial tasks don’t make you feel happier or help you achieve your goals. Instead, they contribute to feelings of stress and overwhelm because they waste your time, deplete your energy, and gnaw away at your focus and progress on your goals.

• For example, deliberating over how to start an email uses up time and energy, distracts you from productive tasks, and eats into your relaxation time. But the result doesn’t matter and offers no benefits.

(Shortform note: Why is it that, no matter how much you do, you never feel like you’ve done enough? According to Brian Tracy (Eat That Frog!), it’s because you’re multitasking. Your brain can only focus on one thing at a time—though it appears like you’re simultaneously focused on multiple tasks, you’re only switching your attention between individual tasks. This negatively impacts your ability to focus: Each time you switch your attention, it takes 17 minutes to totally focus on your new task. The more you switch your attention between tasks, the more time and energy you waste. As a result, you get less done but feel like you’ve been busy.)

Solution: Minimize Trivial Tasks and Decisions

Reserve your energy for things that matter to you. Pasricha claims that removing the burden of trivial tasks and decisions reduces feelings of stress and fatigue and increases physical and mental energy. This additional energy improves your ability to focus on what you want to achieve, your motivation, and your levels of productivity and creativity. As a result, you make progress on your goals and have energy to spare.

Prioritizing Tasks Focuses Your Energy

Like Pasricha, Tracy (Eat That Frog!) argues that the only way to increase productivity while remaining stress-free is to ignore trivial matters. He suggests a practical way to determine which tasks and decisions are trivial, and which are important: Prioritize your to-do list using the ABCDE labeling method. List all of your tasks and label each as follows:

A—must do: Not doing these critical tasks will create serious negative consequences. For example, not paying your utilities.

B—should do: Not doing these necessary tasks may create negative consequences. For example, not responding to texts from your mother.

C—would be nice to do: These tasks don’t impact your goals and don’t matter. For example, baking cookies for a coffee morning with friends—buying cookies would take less time and would be equally appreciated.

D—to delegate: These tasks don’t need your personal input. For example, household chores can be split among your family members or housemates to lessen your responsibilities.

E—to eliminate: These tasks are unnecessary distractions. For example, checking your phone for messages every fifteen minutes.

Pasricha suggests five methods to reduce the toll of trivial tasks and decisions and increase mental energy:

Method #1: Establish Routines for Regular Tasks

Pasricha suggests restricting time spent on regular tasks by automating as much as possible and creating routines and tight schedules for everything else. For example, if you currently check your blog stats multiple times a day, automate this task by opting to receive a single notification once a day. Alternatively, check your blog stats at a specific time each week instead of multiple times each day.

How to Restrict Time Spent on Regular Tasks

Productivity experts expand on Pasricha’s advice by offering a step-by-step approach to apply automation to your regular tasks.

• Track what you do: Log each task you perform, how often you perform it, and how much time you’re spending on it.

• Separate your tasks: Isolate low-value tasks—these are regular actions that don’t advance your goals and don’t require intense focus. For example, transferring information across applications or scheduling meetings.

• Research scheduling and automation tools: Consider what apps and tools you can use to reduce time spent on your low-value tasks. Ensure that they’re easy to set up and manage, or else they’ll end up wasting more time.

• Evaluate your productivity: Track your tasks again once you’ve comfortably adopted your chosen tools and assess their impact on your productivity. Regularly repeat steps 1-3 to refine your approach and free up more time.

Method #2: Cut Unnecessary Decisions

Write down all of the decisions you make in a day and consider which ones are insignificant wastes of time and energy. According to Pasricha, a decision is “insignificant” if the outcome doesn’t increase your happiness or contribute to your goals. Then, come up with ways to remove the necessity of these decisions. For example, deciding to eat the same breakfast every day saves time and energy each morning and every time you go to the store.

(Shortform note: In addition to eliminating unnecessary decisions, reduce mental clutter by making necessary decisions as soon as possible. Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living) explains that mulling over decisions at length clutters your mind with a waiting list of concerns and makes you feel busier and more stressed. On the other hand, immediately resolving questions and problems prevents them from taking up space in your mind. If you can’t immediately resolve them, decide on a time to deal with them to prevent them from distracting you.)

Method #3: Avoid Multitasking and Limit Distractions

Your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. Switching between tasks or giving in to distractions uses up mental energy and slows down productivity. Therefore, Pasricha suggests focusing on one thing at a time and limiting potential distractions to get more done in less time. For example, switch off your phone and email alerts until you complete your task.

(Shortform note: James Clear (Atomic Habits) provides a practical way to eliminate distractions and stay focused on what you want to achieve: Shape your environment to train your focus only on what you want. He suggests removing all visual reminders related to what you don’t want to waste time on, and adding visual reminders of what you intend to accomplish. Visual cues instigate action because they trick your brain into thinking that it’s convenient to act on them. For example, email pop-ups trigger you to automatically check emails. Without them, opening emails requires a conscious decision. Likewise, clearing your desk of all distractions and leaving just one project on your desk makes it convenient to focus your full attention on that single task.)

Method #4: Set Early Deadlines

Pasricha argues that giving yourself more time to accomplish a task only gives you more time to waste—you feel no sense of urgency, so you procrastinate. In contrast, giving yourself less time to complete something increases your motivation and encourages you to prioritize what you need to do to achieve your goal efficiently.

(Shortform note: In addition to setting tight deadlines, Grant Cardone (The 10X Rule) suggests setting overly ambitious goals within these tight deadlines to discourage procrastination and increase motivation and productivity. If you set goals you’re sure you can achieve by the deadline, you’ll be tempted to procrastinate up until the cut-off time. On the other hand, setting goals that you’re not sure you can achieve forces you to focus all your energy and resources to succeed. Even if you fail to achieve your goal before your deadline, your focused actions create better and faster results than if you aim low and fill your time doing work that’s easily achievable.)

Method #5: Build Momentum on Tasks You’re Avoiding

There are always going to be things you have to do but don’t want to do due to a lack of confidence or motivation. Avoiding these tasks doesn’t make them go away. Rather, your procrastination incites feelings of fear or guilt because you’re constantly thinking of what you should be doing. These negative feelings then make the tasks seem more difficult than they are.

(Shortform note: Brendon Burchard (High Performance Habits), clarifies why you lack the confidence or motivation to complete certain tasks. You’re more likely to focus on obstacles and fears when you don’t have a clear purpose for your actions. This negative focus makes tasks appear more difficult and prevents you from taking constructive action to complete them. Focusing on the end result—the benefit you’ll gain from completing the task—helps you see beyond these imaginary obstacles and motivates you to take constructive action.)

According to Pasricha, forcing yourself to start these tasks reduces their mental toll and improves your confidence and motivation. While starting a task initially requires overcoming reluctance, taking action leads to progress that affirms your ability to get the task done. Building momentum on the task feels so good that it makes you want to complete it.

(Shortform note: How can you overcome your reluctance to start tasks that you don’t want to do? In The Kaizen Way, psychologist Rober Maurer claims that you’re more likely to succeed if you begin by taking a very small step toward the large goal you intend to achieve. This is because small actions are more likely to bypass your brain’s instinctive reaction to resist unwanted tasks. Therefore, consider what small achievable steps you can easily take to make a start on the task.)