Originally aired in 2024, this conversation explores what decades of happiness research can teach us about getting happier.
Brooks offers frameworks for finding greater satisfaction and purpose, managing difficult emotions, and reconsidering the assumption that happiness comes from continually acquiring more.
Key takeaways include:
- The three macronutrients of happiness: Brooks identifies enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose as three essential components of a happier life and explains why happiness is better understood as a direction than a final destination.
- Want less to gain satisfaction: His satisfaction equation, “haves ÷ wants,” shifts attention from continually increasing what we have toward examining and reducing what we want.
- Manage rather than eliminate emotions: Brooks argues that feelings aren’t inherently bad and discusses metacognition as a way to create space between an emotional reaction and how we respond to it.
Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris offers practical tools and expert conversations for a calmer, more mindful life. New Episodes air every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
