Shift your focus from expecting life to work out perfectly to adopting better habits and behaviors, as true joy stems from these actions rather than flawless circumstances.
Understand the power of your psychological immune system and your innate ability to rationalize and adapt to adversity. This knowledge can make you braver, helping you realize that making mistakes is okay and you will be resilient.
Recognize and trust your ‘psychological immune system,’ which automatically deploys mental defenses like rationalization when you experience distress, helping you adapt and recover from bad events more effectively than you predict.
Recognize that happiness is not a permanent state or a destination where you can live forever. Instead, it’s a ‘vacation destination’ you can visit more often and stay longer by doing the right things, but you will always return to a baseline.
Understand that your mind’s predictions about future emotional states are often wrong; good events won’t bring as much happiness as expected, and bad events won’t be as devastating or long-lasting as feared.
Understand that your mind will adapt to negative experiences, causing them to distress you less over time. This means even very bad situations won’t feel as awful or last as long as you initially predict.
Even after experiencing the most profound and tragic events, recognize that it’s possible to find more good than bad outcomes over time, a testament to human resilience.
Understand that the happiness derived from rationalizing a bad event is just as real and valid as happiness from objectively good circumstances, and can sometimes be more long-lasting. Do not dismiss this form of happiness as inferior.
Understand that while increased income can reduce stress and increase happiness at lower levels (e.g., up to $75,000 annually), earning more beyond this point does not significantly improve well-being. This challenges the common belief that more money always leads to more happiness.
Recognize that nearly every amazing thing in life, from wealth to perfect grades, won’t make you as happy as you predict. Your mental simulations of the future are often flawed and miss important details.
Make a conscious effort to worry less by remembering your ’emotional superpower’ – the psychological immune system – which enables you to get through even the worst circumstances.
View challenging or negative life events as a ’litmus test’ to identify true friends and partners who will support you unconditionally, helping you discern fair-weather relationships from genuine ones.
Use personal challenges or stigmatized conditions as a filter in your dating life to quickly identify partners who are accepting and understanding, saving time and emotional effort on those who are not.
If you have a visible difference or perceived negative that draws initial curiosity, actively engage with that curiosity to transform it into meaningful, educated dialogue and deeper connection with others.