Your happiness, like the level of the ocean, is caused by a superposition of waves of different frequencies. Each operates on a distinct scale – they sum up to determine your well-being at any given point in life. Each wave tends to oscillate around its mean or neutral point (except for the slowest waves, which take your whole life to unfold). One useful way to think about becoming happier is to take care of your life at the level of each of these waves.

Your Waves From Highest to Lowest Frequency

(1) Your Reactions [~a few seconds]: the fastest, highest frequency waves are your emotional shifts based on what just happened a moment ago. If you just had a sip of a delicious beverage, you’ll feel better than if you just knocked your beverage over.

(2) The Setting [~1 minute]: the next fastest wave is based on what’s around you right now and what activity you’re engaged in. Are you walking outside enjoying nature, shopping in a grocery store, talking to a friend, or reviewing your taxes? Your emotional state depends on what you’re doing and where you’re doing it.

(3) Your Body [~10 minutes]: how do you feel in your body? Are you hungry? Do you have to go to the bathroom? Does your back hurt? Are you overheated? These states tend to persist until something changes and more often make us feel bad than good – though you can, of course, have positive body states too (e.g., the feeling of taking a warm bath, getting a massage, or experiencing a post-workout high).

(4) Your Mood [~a few hours]: some days, you may wake up in a funk. Sometimes, after a few hours, your mood might change due to something good or bad happening, or perhaps due to nothing at all that you can put your finger on. Your mood may well shift a few times throughout the day.

(5) Your Circadian Rhythm [~1 day]: you likely have a time of day when you tend to feel your best. You might be a morning person or a night owl. Additionally, once enough hours go by without sleeping (especially after it gets dark), you’ll start to feel sleepy. If you slept badly during the previous night or your circadian rhythm is disrupted, that is very likely to impact how you feel the next day.

(6) An Acute Illness [~1 week]: do you have an acute viral or bacterial infection? Typically these reduce our functioning and make us feel bad for a few days to a few weeks. Of course, some illnesses are much worse than this, and some end up as a chronic health problem operating on a longer scale.

(7) Hormones & Nutrition [~1 month]: the most obvious cycle of this type is the change in female hormones during the menstrual cycle. Some scientists claim male hormones also have periodic (though not necessary monthly) fluctuations, but this is more controversial. Some nutritional deficits also operate on this time scale.

(8) Loss & Gain [~4 months]: if you lose something you care a lot about (e.g., you break up with the person you love, or your house burns down), it will typically take at least a few months to start feeling mostly normal again. And of course, sometimes it takes far longer than that if the loss is especially severe or if it’s something that is extremely important to you that you believe can never be replaced. On the positive side, a big gain can cause months or more of substantially boosted happiness. The obvious example is the “new relationship energy” of falling in love. But a new job you love, getting your dream home, a baby, a sudden windfall of cash, etc. may also cause months of elevated happiness before the hedonic treadmill starts to kick in to bring you closer to baseline. Of course, these positives can have long-lasting benefits, but usually they give us a burst of delight when they are new to us, and that burst fades.

(9) Satisfaction & Health [~ a year]: are you making progress towards your goals? Are you happy with your city, the people you hang out with, and your job? Do you have a romantic relationship, and if so, does it make you happy? Is your body fit or out of shape? Do you have chronic health issues? This yearly scale is often about our overall satisfaction with life, which involves an evaluation of how things are going overall compared to how we want them to be going.

(10) Identity [years]: Are you the person you want to be? Do you love (or like) yourself? Do you have lifelong friends? Is your life path one you feel good about? Do you feel positive about your past? This time scale is often about how you feel about yourself as a person, which usually shifts over multiple years (though it can occasionally undergo a rapid shift in the face of big life changes).

(11) Aging [decades]: as we age, our bodies and minds obviously change. Our aging bodies can feel worse and become less reliable. Yet there is at least some evidence of U-shaped happiness curves, with more happiness on average for the young and old (until very old age) – though it may be culturally dependent. Aging is the longest wave of them all. Good habits such as exercise and healthy eating can slow the negative impacts that come with age.

Your well-being is the sum of many waves operating at many scales. It’s easy to get lost in this sea of complexity and over-focus on just a few waves at the expense of the others. Here are questions for you to help you evaluate how each wave is going:

(1) Did your emotion just shift?

(2) How do you feel about the activity you’re doing right now and about the setting you’re doing it in?

(3) How does your body feel right now? Are you hungry, thirsty, in pain, etc.?

(4) How has your mood been for the past few hours?

(5) How sleepy or tired are you, and did you sleep well last night?

(6) Are you sick right now?

(7) Have you been eating healthy and nutritious foods lately, and are you being affected by your hormone levels?

(8) Are you processing some form of loss right now?

(9) How satisfied are you with your life?

(10) How satisfied are you with who you are?

(11) Are you taking care of your body for the very long term?

This piece was first written on October 17, 2020, and first appeared on this site on April 1, 2022.

If one of your goals in life is to run a triathlon, and it is the day before the big race, you probably will feel excited. The day after the race is over, you will likely feel proud with a highly elevated mood. Months, and perhaps even years later, you will still probably feel good when you reflect on the fact that you completed the race. And yet, the fact that you ran that triathlon is very unlikely to impact your day-to-day mood long after the event. Most of us spend only a small percentage of our time reflecting on past memories and achievements, and even in moments of reflection the triathlon would represent just one of a great many possible things to reflect on. If you are lucky, the triathlon experience might have positive effects on your personality, increasing your confidence or perseverance, and give you a sense of accomplishment. All of these things are great. But you should also not expect the fact that you ran one two years ago to be determining how you feel on a day-to-day basis today, or to be making up for a life that currently lacks fulfillment. In other words, accomplishments are great, and you should strive for them. But you also shouldn’t expect them to benefit you that much on your typical days. But typical days are the content of most of your existence. Typical days matter most in terms of your average happiness because they are so abundant.

So in addition to thinking about the things you’d like to accomplish in your life, it can be helpful to also ask yourself:

• What would my ideal, ordinary week be like?

Ideal, in the sense that it would reflect a life that would make you happy (both helping you maintain a significantly positive average mood, keeping you feeling fulfilled, and including meaningful connections). Ordinary, in the sense that it is the sort of thing that you could actually repeat week after week for years. So base jumping is out, unless you don’t plan on surviving for very long. Eating $200 tasting menus every night is out, unless you plan on making a large sum of money first (and anyway, they would quickly become boring). And going on a roller coaster every week is out, because after six months of that most of the thrill would be gone (unless you are truly a roller coaster aficionado). To construct your ideal ordinary week, it may help to ask yourself questions like:

• What living situation would help keep me in a good mood?
• What activities give me a sense of fulfillment or purpose?
• What excites me that would still excite me if I did it weekly for years?
• What job would fit into this ideal week, providing the income to support this lifestyle while simultaneously adding to my positive mood and good feeling about life?

Don’t think in terms of achieving certain milestones, but rather in terms of how the hours in the week are spent. You can fill in these details about your ideal ordinary week with questions like:

• How much time would you spend watching TV per day? It may not be zero minutes, but your happiness is probably not maximized by watching more than an hour either.
• How much time would you spend reading or learning per day? What would you learn about and how would you go about learning it?
• How much time would you spend socializing? What sorts of people would you socialize with?
• How much time would you spend on hobbies? What might these hobbies be (making sure to choose things that wouldn’t grow boring over the years)?
• How much time would you spend doing altruistic things (keeping in mind that altruism increases both our sense of fulfillment and raises our mood, in addition to its direct benefits on the world)? Who would you be helping in this time?
• How many hours would you spend at work (keeping in mind that this job must support the lifestyle of your ideal week plus give you sufficient savings)? What would you want your hours spent at work to be like (being realistic about what you could get paid to do)? What sort of tasks would you be doing and what sort of people would you be working with that would be good for you, week to week?
• What would your romantic life be like? How would time with a romantic partner be spent?

Once you have determined what your ideal ordinary week would be like, consider how you can nudge your current life in that direction. What are you doing more of than would be your ideal, and what are you doing less of? Can you cut back on the former and increase the latter?

Milestones are important and worthwhile. But rather than thinking just in terms of what milestones you want to achieve in your life, think also about what you want your daily existence to consist of. Based on what you know about yourself, think about how you can fill your hours so that you regularly have a positive mood and a feeling of real satisfaction. Figure out what your ideal ordinary week would be like, and then ask yourself what you can change today to make your life more like that ideal.

Influences: Kenneth Chen (A Practical Guide to Defining Your Supergoals)