- Gratitude as a key to happiness: Leo Gura underscores the importance of being grateful as it creates sustained happiness. He recommends maintaining a journal to document aspects of one's life that one is grateful for. This could be life-changing events or simple everyday things. Regularly noting down these aspects helps counteract the human tendency of hedonic adaptation, which makes sustaining happiness from external changes challenging.
- Optimism for future happiness: Gura suggests regular reflective journaling about future activities or goals that one is excited about, to cultivate optimism. This practice, he claims, can lead to increased happiness as it sets positive expectations for the future. Goal setting, along with optimism, can contribute significantly to overall happiness.
- Reduction of overthinking: Overthinking, especially negative thoughts, often lead to unhappiness. Gura advises techniques like journaling, therapy, meditation, and visualizations to curb overthinking and enhance happiness. He emphasizes the importance of staying present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
- Elimination of addictions for lasting happiness: Gura defines addictions broadly to include behaviors such as compulsive shopping, overuse of the internet, negative thinking, and more traditional addictions like drugs, alcohol, and smoking. He asserts that such behaviors act as brief band-aids to cover unhappiness but ultimately leave one feeling hollow and guilty. He advocates for recognizing and gradually reducing addictions while replacing them with healthy habits, which can lead to genuine and lasting happiness. To successfully combat addiction, a strong personal reason is recommended.
- Quality relationships and happiness: Gura believes that deep, meaningful relationships significantly contribute to individual happiness. He emphasizes investing time and energy in nurturing these relationships rather than focusing on quantity.
- Savoring, meditation, and flow for increased happiness: Savoring life's simple joys, practicing meditation for at least 20 minutes daily, and engaging in tasks that engender a state of flow, are three practices suggested by Gura to boost happiness. Each of these helps increase mindfulness, reduces worry and negative thoughts, and enhances creativity.
- Focus technique for more flow experiences: According to Gura, to create more experiences of flow, two approaches are helpful. Firstly, abstain from multitasking and create a distraction-free environment to focus fully on a task. Secondly, master a skill or domain to easily generate a state of flow.
- Aligning career with life purpose and setting goals: Gura underscores the importance of having clear, well-aligned career and life goals. Continually revising these goals and aligning them with a meaningful and impactful cause can greatly enhance feelings of happiness and fulfillment.
- Detriment of Addictions: Addictions, including to drugs, smoking, television, shopping, and negative thinking, among others, provide only fleeting pleasure and often leave individuals feeling empty and guilty. They are destructive behaviors that inhibit sustainable happiness and fulfillment.
- Eliminating Addictions: Recognizing, acknowledging, and gradually eliminating addictions can pave the way for true happiness. In lieu of addictions, Leo Gura suggests fostering positive habits for healthier, more productive behaviors.
- Building Quality Relationships: Depth and quality are more important than quantity in terms of relationships. Investing time and energy into nurturing deep, meaningful relationships, as opposed to having many shallow ones, can greatly contribute to ones happiness.
- Incorporating Savory Moments: Slowing down to appreciate and savor life's everyday pleasures, like a meal or natural beauty around you, can provide daily moments of happiness that cumulatively enhance overall joy.
- Importance of Meditation: Regular meditation, preferably for at least 20 minutes per day, helps to calm the mind, temper negative thoughts, and foster a peaceful mindset, subsequently enhancing one's holistic well-being.
- Achieving a State of Flow: The state of flow, or total absorption in an activity that is just the right level of challenging, facilitates increased creativity and happiness. It can be achieved by dedicating uninterrupted time periods for focus and by attaining high levels of proficiency in a certain skill.
- Setting Goals and Identifying Life Purpose: Setting and revising goals, and aligning ones career with a broader life purpose, can provide a sense of focus and joy. Humans are naturally goal-oriented and having specific objectives to aim for contributes to happiness and fulfillment.