How to Free Your Happiness from Compromise

Life is loaded with trade-offs. We’re constantly making sacrifices in some areas to get rewards in others. And it’s getting increasingly uncertain whether the most common sacrifices are worth it.

This week’s article presents some good news: There are ways to eliminate this need to compromise. We can design our lives to overflow with meaning and fulfillment without the need for continuous sacrifice.

Here are the four best zero-compromise lifestyle design strategies I know:

1. True creative freedom. The classic sacrifice involves suffering through work to earn money for building a good life. Here, I recommend the Freedom in Transition (FiT) strategy to gradually shape your work into something you’d happily do for free, eliminating compromise.
2. Healthy pleasure. Most modern pleasures do serious damage to our long-term health and happiness. Luckily, there are plenty of wholesome alternatives. Once healthy pleasure becomes a habit, this self-destructive trade-off will vanish from your life.
3. A few quality relationships. Nourishing relationships are vital for our health and happiness. But relationships easily become laced with compromise. That’s why it’s so important to focus on those precious few relationships that don’t feel like a continuous trade-off.
4. Unconditional contribution to society. Living a sustainable life and building up society without the expectation of reward are often portrayed as sacrifices we make for the greater good. Luckily, smart lifestyle design can draw loads of zero-compromise happiness from these socially beneficial sources.

Our badly outdated consumerist culture makes it hard to set up such an ideal lifestyle, but believe me: It’s so worth the effort! Once these strategies are up and running, you’ll discover what life is supposed to feel like.

Have an HHWPS weekend!

Schalk