How to Tackle 80% of Your Stress and Unhappiness

When I was about ten, my mom tucked a piece of stationery into the corner of my bedroom mirror. It was a beautiful slip of cream colored paper, laser cut so the edges looked like Art Deco lace. At the top she wrote:

Jamie’s Best Qualities & My Favorite Things About Her

When she first posted it she had only written a couple things, but every once in a while I would come home from school to find something new added to the list and my heart would swell with a warm, golden happiness.

That list is filed away now, but its contents have been a sort compass for me. One I’ve really needed as I shifted my life from single to married to full-time at-home mothering.

One of the things that made my mom’s list was that I was sunshiney and usually in a good mood. And I realized last year that after five years of motherhood, I didn’t really feel like that anymore. I felt productive and needed, exhausted and overworked, full of love and beloved by my little family. But I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel sunshiney.

What I didn’t realize was that the sources of a good portion of the monotony and unhappiness of my day-to-day were right within my reach–and I could actually do a lot to change them.

The 80/20 Rule

Around that time I started reading The 4-Hour Workweek. In it I discovered a business principle called 80/20 Rule (also called “Pareto’s Principle” if you want to sound fancy when you explain it to your friends) and a lightbulb went on. I could totally apply this to my life!

The 80/20 Rule is basically this: In any given situation, 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes.

If that sounds like total gibberish to you, don’t worry. You’re in good company. It’s much easier to understand if you choose a specific situation to apply it to, and since we want to learn how to get rid of stress and unhappiness, today we’re going to apply it to that.

Where Does Your Unhappiness Come From?

So, for our purposes, 80% of your unhappiness comes from 20% of sources in your day-to-day life.

Seems kind of incredible, right? And obviously it isn’t a strict percentage, but it really helped me get a perspective on what smallish changes could make a big impact.

Think about your life right now. It is tempting to generalize and say we’re unhappy because we’re stuck at home, because we don’t have the money to travel, or because we just don’t feel appreciated. But when you pull out your microscope, you might find it is a little simpler than that.

So let’s figure out what 20% of your life is making you the most unhappy. Print out this free 80/20 worksheet (or use a note-taking app, the back of a receipt, or the comments right here!) and make a list to answer to this question:

• What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

Be specific. Think about the things you dread doing, the to-dos you regularly put off, and the responsibilities that make you feel sick to your stomach.

Here’s the actual list I made when I first started thinking this over:

• Messes / clutter
• Meal planning & execution (I like eating, not cooking) & picky eating
• Laundry
• Concern for kids’ physical & emotional safety and growth
• Facebook / information overload
• Guilt over “shoulds” (what I thought I “should” be doing)
• The budget

Some of these things were big, but others were small. I hate doing the laundry, and there was always SO MUCH. I sometimes felt like I spent all my time doing laundry or cooking food that my family of picky eaters then complained about.

I also felt a lot of guilt about what I thought I “should” be doing, and I worried a lot about my kids. Those things were big, but once I named them they felt a little easier to deal with.

How Can You Fix It?

Now that you’ve got your list, use the next page of the worksheet to brainstorm and write down ideas that can help you tame each item in that 20%. These don’t have to be long term solutions, just some small changes you can implement to get the ball rolling on change. Can you delegate, eliminate, or simplify any of them?

For example, my personal solutions to the “Meal Planning & Picky Eaters” item included:

1. Create a 1-week rotation of seasonal dinners that 3 out of 5 of us like.
2. Create a 1-week rotation of lunches.
3. Teach & expect kids (ages 3½+) to prepare their own breakfasts.

Some of these may be harder than others. My “Concern for kids” solutions mostly included things like focusing on my children’s already-established strength and responsibility, and relying on my faith. Those are hard things to do. But once I’d written them down, I had a plan to fall back on when those worrisome thoughts came into my mind.

Once you’ve got solutions written down, put a star next to the easiest one and start there. Post your solutions to that problem somewhere you will see them, and start implementing them little by little. Add a reminder to your calendar to check in on your progress in a weeks. Do you need to make any changes? Are you ready to tackle the next problem spot on your list?

While we’re all still going to have some things that stress us out or hurt our hearts, making changes to my twenty percent list has been really life-changing for me. I’m spending a lot less time doing the things that bring me down. I’m starting to feel more like that sunshiney, happy ten-year-old my mom wrote that note to.

What about you? What made your 20% list? What lightbulbs went on as you brainstormed how to change them? I’d love to hear how this goes for you!