The Quickest Way to Improve Your Life

110 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?

Two things for you to think about

A few pursuits will generate most of your happiness. A few people will meet most of your needs. A few projects will result in most of your success.

What if the answer to improving your life isn’t to do more? What if the answer is to focus on less?

One thing for you to ask yourself

What can you cut out of your life that will immediately improve it?

One thing for you to try this week

Cut one thing out of your life that dramatically improves it. Let me know how it goes.

New This Week

It’s Never Too Late to Turn Your Life Around (ft. Brandon Novak) – Brandon Novak showed all the signs of becoming a highly successful, rebellious young man. A professional skateboarder in his early teens and by his twenties, a regular on world-famous TV shows. But drugs and alcohol were always lurking in the shadows, and he soon fell head-first into the dark trap of his addictions. He endured bouts of homelessness, committed every petty crime imaginable, and even resorted to sex work to feed his addictions.

Not only is Brandon still alive right now, he’s 9 years sober and has found a deep and meaningful life purpose, running his own rehab centers and taking care of his elderly mother. In this latest podcast episode: the hilarious and heartening story of how he turned it all around. And trust me, if he can do it, so can anyone else.

Big Announcement: Australia and New Zealand Tour

I’m excited to announce that after five years, I’m returning to Australia and New Zealand for a live event tour this November. It will be a fun evening of humor, insights, and a few surprises. There will be chances for Q&A and meet and greets as well.

If you are, or will be, in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, or Auckland in November, I’d love to see you there. Click below to learn more.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to lean into the willingness to be disliked for something and notice the freedom it gives you. For Meghan, doing this paradoxically made her new friends:

For most of my life, I have struggled with social anxiety. This issue is especially bad at work, where the (self-imposed) pressure to have a good relationship with colleagues has made work far more uncomfortable and draining than it should be.

Recently, I realized that my colleagues’ opinion of me absolutely should not matter, and not being friends with any of them has zero impact on my life. The worst case scenario is that they see me as ‘weird’ and limit their interactions with me to professional matters, which honestly suits me just fine.

Amazingly, since deciding that I don’t care what they think, my anxiety has improved dramatically. I suddenly feel more comfortable joining in conversations about matters unrelated to work and fumble over my words far less. Now that I have relaxed, they seem to be more at ease around me as well. I’ve even started to enjoy getting to know some of them as we all open up a bit more.

This is a perfect example of the Backwards Law in action. The only way you can get what you truly want in life—happiness, love, respect, trust, and so on—is by letting go of your desire for it.

Another reader Vanessa let herself be disliked for walking away from a marriage and was surprised by the support that poured in:

I am a 37-year-old female who has very recently split from my husband. I had been disengaged in our marriage for some time and knew it wasn’t the right relationship. I know I should have left sooner—finances, elderly and unwell pets and a very real fear of his emotional response kept me there.

Then the dogs passed and when I was speaking to a close friend about ‘how’ you leave a relationship when you have history and entwined finances, their very basic and honest response of ‘you just leave’ is what finally made it click—ridiculous, I know.

This week’s suggestion of being willing to be disliked has reminded me how pleased I am to have made the decision at last, and that despite some people hating me for it, I made the right choice for me and I believe for both of us long term. Things are still very ‘messy’ but the sense of freedom and strength in myself is immense.

Just going to add that this sort of thing really brings out the people in your life who support you and wow, I have such an incredible support system in my friends, family and workmates that I have never truly appreciated—I get teary thinking about it!

Most major life problems are what I call “simple, but difficult.” That is, they are actually simple to solve—you just leave—but they are extremely difficult to do. Because they are emotionally difficult, we imagine that they must also be complicated—that there must be rules, procedures, and details that we’re not understanding. But no, it’s usually quite simple—painfully simple.

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
My Website — My Books — My YouTube Channel