Efficiency does not necessarily guarantee effectiveness. Getting more done is not an accurate barometer for measuring your impact. Consider whether you’re being effective in achieving what you actually want. 

Think about what it is you’re really seeking and what might be the most direct path to get it. Then realize that sometimes doing less can actually pave the path to experiencing more—more satisfaction, more ease, and even more effectiveness.

Research suggests that happiness leads to success, not the other way around. It would benefit us to shift our focus from achieving future happiness to accessing that joy right now.

When we wrap our days around things we have to do we leave very little time for the things we want to do. Happiness requires balance.

Traits we will not tolerate within ourselves, we will not tolerate in others. It is a choice we make. We should make those choices consciously and not without thinking.

It’s why corrupt officials choose to be corrupt: because they assume everyone else is as corrupt as they are. It’s why cheaters choose to cheat. It’s why those who can’t trust are the ones who can’t be trusted.

Recognize how you measure yourself and consciously choose your metric. Also, realize that everyone has their own criteria that will not be the same as yours. 

The last person you should ever have to censor yourself with is the person you love.

It’s important to make something more important in your relationship than merely making each other feel good all of the time. The feel-good stuff happens when you get the other stuff right.

Romantic sacrifice is idealized in our culture. 

Sometimes the only thing that can make a relationship successful is ending it at the appropriate time, before it becomes too damaging. And the willingness to do that allows us to establish the necessary boundaries to help ourselves and our partner grow together.

There will never be a perfect time to pursue your dreams and goals.

You’re growing every day. You just have to find a way of living with uncertainty and learn to feel your way through life, letting your intuition guide you.

Sometimes life gets so hard that you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. But sometimes life is beautiful.

Realize that fear is the worst of it; fear is your real enemy. So get up, get out in the stormy weather of the real world, and kick fear as hard as you can.

Why don't smart decisions always lead to good results? Because we don't have complete control over our lives — and we don't have all of the information. 

You can opt not to drink on New Year's Eve, for instance, but still get blindsided by somebody who did to drink and drive. You made a quality decision, but happenstance hit you upside the head anyhow.

Becoming comfortable with uncertainty and not knowing is a vital step to becoming a better decision-maker.

What makes a decision great is not that it has a great outcome. A great decision is the result of a good process, and that process must include an attempt to accurately represent our own state of knowledge.

Blame is a defense mechanism. What we’re defending ourselves from is our own responsibility for dealing with the unpleasant experience we’ve been given.

The benefit in blame is that it allows us to avoid feeling like we’re failing ourselves, that we lack the strength and maturity to come to terms with the reality of unfairness or bad luck.

We can feel safe in pretending that our distress is not evidence of inadequacy in ourselves, but of one in someone else.

A culture created in a two-way relationship or a small group is positive and open because it allows for differences to exist, which are not allowed by large groups in which cultures are attached to your identity.

Creating the right kind of culture organically is the magic of a strong relationship, something that is difficult in large groups with a shared ideology.

The idea of a complete and fulfilling life is always related to personal relationships. Happiness, in a way, is the other person. Happiness is our connections, and the relationships we foster, which create and shape us.

It's a lost art to cultivate personal relationships without agenda or motive, just connecting and trying to understand and relate to different people.