How to Live Adequately < the Adequate Life: guides to attain a completely satisfactory lifestyle

I’m Dave Stucky. You might like other things I made. Follow my updates here. My terms and conditions here.

This world tends to reward greatness with more great things. But, with a bad hand in life, the world is often unfairly cruel, and punishes you for things you couldn’t have known.

If you want persuasive explanations or many examples, there are 10 best-selling books on just about anything. This is for people who simply want the plain facts, and links to everything I’ve gathered related to self-help:

YouTube videos and TED talks
Advice columns and blog articles
Discussions with professionals
Book and executive summaries
Social media feeds
Forum discussions

Essays

How to Make Habits Stick

How to Fix Things

A. Sleeping Well

We spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, so sleep is essential for balancing the rest of our lives.

Not getting enough sleep is very, very unhealthy.

Sleep typically transitions through four stages that cycle for approximately 2 hours.

Everyone has a general sleep pattern unique to them, which requires disciplining habits to change.

There are many varieties of perfectly healthy sleep cycles you can adapt.

Additional reading

B. Self-Awareness

We must be aware of ourselves before we can perform any self-improvement.

Awareness isn’t particularly easy because we’re in constant conflict with the world around us, and self-reflection is lonely.

Meditation is merely a simple, necessary mechanism to slow down our thoughts.

Once you’re familiar with meditation, try advanced reflection by focusing on various perspectives and thoughts.

However, meditation only helps to find problems, and it typically doesn’t give any solutions.

Additional reading

C. Happiness

Happiness, or satisfaction, is simply the absence of desire:

Happiness is critical for wellness, and we’re morally responsible for it.
Happiness is a choice, largely driven by what we focus on.
However, stressors can interfere with our ability to find happiness.

Unhappiness comes from stress, caused by a mix-and-match of several factors:

Unmet needs
Unchangeable things
Unresolved trauma
Unmet expectations
Substance abuse

Without finding a permanent mental place of happiness, we’ll fall back into cynicism.

We find our optimism by shifting our perspective:

Getting rid of low self-esteem
Living in the present
Learning gratitude
Finding control of ourselves
Releasing things that give us stress
Avoiding things that make us unhappy
Interacting with others

We need a loving and dynamic place where everyone is free to live and grow together, also known as a healing environment.

Additional reading

D. Success

Success is difficult to define and highly relative, but always involves accomplishing worthwhile purposes:

However, measuring our success by outward measurements is usually a bad idea.
The best measure of our success comes from how well we are inwardly changing.

An attitude is a general outlook or state of mind, and determines the limits of our success:

The right attitude for success requires dozens of various beliefs and approaches.

Successfully changing has multiple components, so setting goals gives us the means to accomplish them:

Start with what you want to see happen.
Don’t worry too much about long-term goals, since they won’t be that useful.
Instead, focus on the short-term reality laid out in front of you.
Merge all your goals into one system, simplify them, then divide them out into small tasks.
Plan out your days and weeks as they happen.
You can mix-and-match many existing systems to make your own.
Learn to boldly say “no” to things that interfere with your goals.
Focus more closely on well-managed time and energy than achieving results.
To actually accomplish anything, do not discuss your goals.
Periodically re-examine your goals to make sure they’re still worth your time.

We build momentum through small, daily decisions:

Make your work a stream of triggers that flow from one to the next.
- If you’re stuck starting, create incentive triggers that provoke you to get going.
- Optimize everything possible to cut down on time or reduce distractions.
Avoid procrastinating as much as possible.
- Use “forcing functions” to break your procrastination.
Stay perpetually focused on improving the present moment.
Pace yourself according to your body’s natural rhythm, and take meaningful breaks.
Eat and drink the right things to keep your system running optimally.
Manage your stress so it doesn’t interfere with your tasks.
Distractions utterly destroy productivity, so learn to avoid them.
Don’t overdo it: “productivity porn” gets more obsessed with optimizing time than the time

We must persevere to succeed because failure is typical before success:

Failing well requires failing as fast as possible, learning as much as possible from it, and quickly adapting to the lessons.
Stay persistent through all your setbacks.
Keep pushing the limits of both your “soft” and “hard” skills.
Expect failure, and give yourself recovery time.
Surround yourself with supportive and influential coaches and mentors.
If you keep failing, you likely need to change your strategy.
Celebrate small wins.
Persevering nearly guarantees success.

You must stay humble to continue succeeding:

Your failures will be public, so be prepared to openly communicate when you fail.
Never stop growing.
You will need to stop at some point, so have a plan for how you’ll stop.

Additional reading

E. Money

Money is a necessary part of living, and poorly managing it will destroy your life:

Money has no inherent morality, and everyone must have at least some money management skills.
Contrary to public perception, most wealthy people save, invest, and build their careers to get there.

Debt is “renting” money from other people, using the terms of a loan to specify how much the rent will cost:

Debt companies lie constantly to make people believe that debt can be good, credit points systems can be gamed, and that investing requires a good credit score.
The only way to legitimately escape debt is to overpay every month.

Budgeting is a household effort that takes patience and practice to properly discuss money:

Getting your money situation on track goes through some rough stages:
1. Build up an emergency fund.
2. Pay off debt.
3. Save up 3–8 months of regular living expenses.
4. Invest at least 15% of your income into a retirement fund.
5. Save for your children (if you have any).
6. Pay off your house.
7. Devote most of your extra income toward giving.
8. Near the end of your career, make retirement plans.
Make short-term goals that feed into your larger goals.
Building a budget is relatively straightforward:
1. Add all your incomes together.
2. Assign all the fixed or near-fixed amounts.
3. Assign all the expenses that fluctuate up and down.
4. Put the remainder into large expenses you want to save for.
5. “Tweak” the budget to save or earn more.
6. As you become familiar, break out other reports to analyze your spending from different angles.
Precise budgeting isn’t always possible, but it’s not difficult if you give yourself fudge room.
Use multiple accounts to track your money as it’s used.
You will sometimes fail, but treat it as a teachable moment for yourself and move on.

While there are many specific ways to save money, it’s good to at least have a smaller list of principles:

Separate wants from needs.
Be cautious when you’re about to spend money.
Distrust companies, since they’re constantly trying to erode your ability to say “no”.
Look everywhere for tricks that can save money.

Additional reading

F. People Skills

No matter how antisocial our disposition, we desperately require other people to find meaning and purpose:

Being around other people requires understanding social power dynamics to help us get what we want.
True success in life requires other people as well, since communication is the most powerful force on earth.
Socializing is a host of various skills rolled together into an intuitive whole, not a single skill in itself.

People closely observe hygiene and appearance, so it’s critically important:

Wash yourself consistently and thoroughly.
Keep your teeth clean.
Always groom yourself, though avoid over-grooming as a male if you would prefer to appear heterosexual.
People will closely observe your face, so pay extra attention to maintaining it.
Honor the dress code wherever you go, and make sure to never be the least well-dressed.

A good reputation is maintained by honoring and setting healthy boundaries:

Your reputation is critical because people talk about you in your absence.
Good boundaries are tactful (i.e., behaving inoffensively).
Tactfulness is the art of honoring many, many, *many* small social rules.

Friendships are invaluable and necessary to live well:

Friendships build on shared contexts.
For many reasons, not everyone can be your friend.
Making friends requires prior experience in friendship-making.
Good friends are difficult to find.
To make friends, be a likeable friend and make people important.
Look all over for friends, especially in places you hadn’t looked before, and find creative ways to attract people.
Watch for warning signs of toxic friendships, and cut them off before they destroy your chances of making other friends elsewhere.
If you find good friends, work unceasingly to keep them.

Conflicts are inevitable, and always come from a perceived need:

Many casual conflicts in polite company require tactfully sidestepping the problem.
Directly manage rumors before they become gossip.
Mix your confrontations with frequent praise.
Direct the flow of information to safely handle communication issues.
Say “no” politely with your actions.
There are various conflict attitudes, which all have their time and place.
Disagree carefully with others.
Note others’ subversive tactics and try to avoid using them.
Detect when a conflict has become crucial, and note the power dynamics.
Expertly handle negotiations:
1. Only attack the issue, never the person.
2. Agree on a date.
3. Clarify expectations first.
4. Insist on objective criteria.
5. Brainstorm a mutually beneficial solution.
6. Sell the best decision.
7. Later, check back on the solution.
Only make conflicts for the right purposes.