You = Habits + People Around You
Pay attention to your environment
If you are unhappy, you’re being lazy. This is an extreme way to put it, but it’s not totally untrue. Naval argues that happiness is a skill, just like programming or speaking Spanish. The first time I read that, I didn’t know what to think. Nobody has “Happiness” in the skills section of their resume.
How does one get “better at happiness,” then? As I kept reading, I realized. It’s about experimenting and reflecting and building good habits. Many of the stereotypical habits (waking up early, reading, writing, etc.) have been very helpful to me, but this may be different for you. You might have to modify or ignore some of them. That’s okay; it’s a sign that you’re being a critical thinker.
So, It’s about trying many different things and seeing what makes YOU happier. This doesn’t mean giving in to immediate gratification but adopting habits that will pay off in the long run.
As we have seen in other posts, long-term > short-term. The visual below can be of great help to explain why. The graph on the left showcases short-term thinking. Decisions that make us slightly happier for a bit but that take us back to square one shortly after. On the right, we see the effects of long-term thinking, where growth is consistent and exponential.
However, building good habits is a hard task if you’re not surrounded by the right people. Have you ever heard the quote ”We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with”? Well, I don’t fully agree with it, but it’s obvious that your environment has an influence on you.
Imagine you’re a college student focused on improving your habits, and you live in an apartment with 5 of your college student friends. In which of these two situations would it be easier for you to become healthier and more productive?
a. Your roommates spend the day playing video games, scrolling through their phones, eating fast food, and, when the weekend comes, drinking and smoking.
b. Your roommates work out regularly, they prepare healthy meals, they read, and you can have good conversations with them.
Of course, the right answer is B. It is impossible to build good habits if your situation is closer to A? No, but it involves much more mental strength, and you would probably want to leave that place ASAP anyway.
It’s not always easy to break free from these negative environments, though. It takes courage to suddenly cut ties with those “friends” that are holding you back, especially if you don’t feel like you have many more.
Whether you are in the right habitat or not, building better habits is not a piece of cake. It can feel overwhelming, and it can be hard to sustain the willingness to put in the effort. If you’re struggling with this process, slow down and focus on one habit at a time. Once that habit is a part of you, pick a new one. It’s easy to want to fix all of your bad routines simultaneously once you realize how harmful they are, but radical change isn’t sustainable for long enough.
Changing your life overnight isn’t possible, so focus on constant growth and small steps. Acknowledge that you will have to deal with some practices you don’t like for some time, and accept that. The graph below exemplifies this. If you take a small step in the right direction every day, you’ll be much better off in 1 year. Be patient. Trust and enjoy the process.
Do you think happiness is a skill? What do you think about the impact of our environment on our behavior? I’m curious to know! If you liked what you read, consider subscribing! Please leave a comment or message me on X, Instagram, or Facebook, and we can chat! Thanks for reading!
See you later!