There are many aspects to life. When you let one of these aspects dominate the rest—say, a job, a relationship, a professional goal, or a vocation—you also tie your happiness to it. Whenever it inevitably fluctuates, so will your sense of well-being.

A reliable way to create a life is to shrink the influence of one dominating area and introduce new aspects. Signing up for a recreational team sport is a common way to do this. Or learning something completely random (e.g., New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick playing guitar as an amateur). Or getting a pet. 

In other words, create and maintain a portfolio of things that can make you happy. That way, when one part gets difficult, you can find refuge in the others. They will keep you buoyant and help stabilize things.

You can zoom in on this as much as you like. For example, if you derive a lot of satisfaction from writing, find diverse sources of happiness there as well. Writing something you’re interested in is, obviously, is a big one. So is landing a pitch at a publication. So is getting paid. Meeting readers can be one. Calling a bookstore to land your book is another. And organizing a speech or event is one too. The list goes on!

Maintaining an ecosystem of activities where you can derive fulfillment, energy, and excitement, are good ways to create the conditions for happiness. 

Thanks James Q for the reminder.