If someone asked you what you could do

to enjoy your life more, to get more

pleasure, what would you think of? Well,

maybe you'll think about going to your

favorite concert or going traveling or

maybe eating at expensive restaurants.

But the crazy thing is that we can get

so much more enjoyment out of what we

already have. This doesn't mean you

shouldn't seek out novelty and new

experiences. You can do that, too. But

you can also get far more enjoyment out

of the things you're already doing.

Perhaps enjoying them twice as much as

you do now. So today, I'm going to show

you how to get even more enjoyment out

of the things that you already enjoy

without always needing to find external

new sources of enjoyment. You may have

heard of the hydonic treadmill. It's the

idea that when positive or negative life

events happen to us, they change how we

feel for a while, but eventually we go

back to our baseline. Now, while this

isn't always the case, it is often true

that we tend to get used to things,

whether good or bad. Suppose, for

instance, that you renovated your living

room. At first, you're really excited

about the way it looks. Every time

you're in that room, you feel especially

good. But after a little while, you get

used to it. You stop even noticing it.

And eventually, you're no happier with

that living room than you were with your

old one. After a number of years, you

might even be eyeing a new design for

your living room. A funny thing about

the Hyonic treadmill, though, is that it

doesn't always happen. Take for instance

eating at your favorite restaurant once

every 3 months. While the first time you

go there might be the most exciting, you

could still get lots of pleasure going

there every 3 months and never have it

lose its novelty. On the other hand, if

you were to eat there every night, then

yeah, it would become less enjoyable.

So, what's the difference between the

renovated living room that you get a lot

of enjoyment from at first, but then you

get used to and it stops giving you

benefits and the dinner at your favorite

restaurant every 3 months where you get

a similar amount of enjoyment every

single time you go. Well, there's two

big differences. The first is framing.

If you think about that routine of going

to your favorite restaurant every 3

months, before that day, you're going to

be looking forward to it. And when you

go, you're going to know I'm not going

to be here again for three months. So,

it's special every time. Additionally,

three months is a long enough gap that

it can still feel somewhat novel. If we

were eating the same food every day, we

would get used to it, and our desire for

novelty and our body's need for

diversification of nutrition would start

to win out. Compare this to the

renovated living room. At first, it's

new and different. We're framing it as

something exciting. But after a little

while, it's no longer the new living

room. It's just our living room. We're

used to being there and we stop thinking

of it as an exciting thing. The second

big difference is attention. When you're

going to that favorite restaurant every

3 months, you're going to be really

focused on the experience, reviewing the

menu, thinking about what you want to

eat, and when the food finally arrives,

you're going to be savoring those first

bites and really enjoying them. In other

words, you're going to be paying a great

deal of attention to that pleasurable

experience. But what about the living

room renovation? Yes, at first you're

going to be paying tremendous attention

to it. You're going to be noticing

numerous ways that it differs from your

previous living room. But as time goes

on, you're very likely to pay it less

and less attention. And as your

attention fades, you're going to enjoy

it less and less. This is one reason why

people often don't get as much benefit

as they thought from purchases they

make. Yes, as soon as they bought that

new pair of shoes, they felt really

good, but then they stopped paying

attention to those shoes and they no

longer got the benefit. Then they're on

to buy the next thing. Unfortunately,

all of this can happen with the people

we love as well. When you first start

dating your partner, you're going to pay

a lot of attention to them. You're going

to frame it as this new exciting thing.

After 20 years of marriage, it's easy to

just get used to having them around, to

pay much less attention to them and

their positive qualities, not reminding

yourself that you have this wonderful

person in your life because you're

simply so used to it. It's just normal

for you now. So, let's get into it. How

concretely can we get a lot more

enjoyment from the things in our life

that are already good? Now, I'm not

talking here about making the best of

bad situations in your life or getting

more from neutral things. I'm talking

about getting a lot more enjoyment out

of the things in your life that are

already good, even if they're very

simple, easy things like the enjoyment

of walking outside or the enjoyment of

your morning cup of coffee. Remember

that we said the framing for an

experience matters a lot for our

enjoyment. At first, you frame your

living room as new and exciting and then

you just frame it as that's just my

living room. We can use this idea to our

advantage with the first technique,

which is gratitude. We can take the

thing that we're enjoying and we can

think about it differently so that we

appreciate it more. One way to do this

is to play a simple game. Imagine you're

experiencing the thing for the first

time again. So, for instance, if you're

drinking your morning cup of tea, you

can approach it with new eyes, thinking,

"What would it be like if I've never had

tea before?" With those new eyes, you

can notice the spiral of steam coming

off of it. You can notice the floral

scent that you hadn't really paid

attention to. Seeing the experience as

though it's the first time lets you see

it through new eyes and appreciate it

all over again. The second trick is to

imagine that you're never going to have

that experience again. Suppose this was

your last time ever having your morning

cup of tea. You're going to try to

memorize that experience, catch every

little detail, and you're going to enjoy

it so much more because of that. And

this is not such a crazy idea because as

mortals, we all will have a last time

doing everything that we enjoy. There

will be our last time drinking a cup of

tea. And for many of us, we won't know

when that last time is. The final

gratitude technique is to imagine that

you didn't have this thing. Think about

the fact that not everyone can have this

experience. Or think about the fact that

hundreds of years ago, people would have

had to travel huge distances to have

this experience. Once you keep in mind

the possibility of not having the thing,

then having the thing becomes so much

greater. So, we've covered the first

technique, gratitude. Let's go on to the

next one, presence. Suppose you do have

a routine of going to your favorite

restaurant every 3 months. Chances are

you'll really enjoy those first few

bites of the meal, but by the 10th bite

or the 20th bite or the 30th bite, you

might actually be thinking about

something else. Maybe you'll be thinking

about what you have to do at work

tomorrow, or maybe you'll be distracted

by something else in the restaurant. We

can boost our enjoyment substantially by

simply having more presence, trying to

bring our complete interested attention

towards whatever it is we're doing.

Concretely, this might mean putting your

phone away in your pocket, focusing on

your food, not thinking about work, and

when you do become distracted, which is

pretty likely to happen, no problem.

Just note that you're distracted and

return your complete focus to whatever

it is you're doing. This brings us to

our third technique, which is focus.

Assuming you now have your full

attention on what you're doing, you can

now focus on the most enjoyable aspects

of the experience. So, for instance, at

the restaurant, instead of focusing on

the entire table and what's around you

and all of the food at once, you can

focus specifically on the delicious

flavor in your mouth. You can even go

further and say, "Is there a part of my

mouth where the experience is even more

delicious, and can I focus on that?"

Very often, even within a pleasurable

experience, there'll be little parts of

it that are even better than the rest,

and you can keep narrowing your focus to

get at the better and better parts.

Slowing down can help, too. If you're

rushing through the experience or eating

quickly in this case, you're much less

likely to be able to focus on the very

best parts. This brings us to the final

technique, acceptance. This one is very

powerful, but it's also subtle and hard

to explain, so bear with me. The idea is

to stop resisting everything that's

imperfect about the present moment. Let

the present moment be exactly as it is

without wanting anything to be different

about it. What do I mean by that,

though? Well, if you're having a

pleasurable experience or any

experience, there's ways in which it

will feel imperfect. If you pay really

close attention to exactly what you want

in this moment and what you don't like

about it, you'll probably notice some

things. Maybe there's a little too much

pressure in your shoe right now. Maybe

you have an itch on your face. Maybe the

food isn't quite salty enough. Even if

you're not focusing on these

imperfections, they can still interfere

with your enjoyment. The fact that you

want things to be different makes the

experience slightly worse than it

otherwise could be. So the idea of the

acceptance technique is to try to let go

to remove all resistance to anything

about the present moment to have no

resistance even to the imperfections and

to actually want the imperfections to be

exactly the way they are. So this moment

can be precisely what it is. A little

game I use that helps me get in the

right mindset is I think of myself as

trying to capture these moments from my

experience exactly as they are. as

though I'm making a collection of

memories and I want to capture them

exactly as they are in that second, not

alter them to be something different.

Suppose I wanted to practice these

techniques with voodoo here to get even

more enjoyment out of my experience with

her. First, I lean into gratitude. I

could think back to the time when I met

Voodoo when a woman who had way too many

cats said that we could come over and

see if there's one there that was a good

fit for us. And as soon as I came in,

Voodoo came up to me, immediately

demanded pets, and I simply petted her

for 20 minutes. And I think about that

moment because that could have never

happened. We could have ended up without

voodoo and that makes me appreciate her

all that much more. Then there's the

second technique, presence. When I'm

with her, it's so easy to be doing

something else. I could be listening to

an audio book. I could be scrolling on

my phone. But I enjoy the time with her

so much more if I try to maintain

presence and really be there with her at

that moment. And then there's the third

technique, focus. I cannot just pay

attention to the experience as a whole,

but focus on particularly enjoyable

aspects of it. I can focus on the

feeling of her silky coat as I stroke

her. I can focus on her cute

panther-like face and nose by focusing

on the particularly enjoyable details.

It makes experience even better. And

finally, there's technique four,

acceptance. Trying to remove any

resistance I have to the present moment.

Maybe she's lying on me and I'm getting

uncomfortable in that position. Or maybe

she's trying to bite my phone and

getting slobber on it. By accepting

these imperfections, not as

imperfections, but just as what this

moment is. So, what's the point of all

this? is that you can get a lot more

enjoyment out of the things that you're

already experiencing in your life. It

doesn't mean that you shouldn't seek out

novelty and new experiences. You can do

that, too. But you can also enhance your

everyday experiences, the good things

you already have, perhaps getting twice

as much pleasure from them than you do

now. If you want to learn more about how

to enjoy the things in your life, check

out our free saber your life tool at

clearthinking.org. We'll put the link in

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