Book SummaryThe Master Guides: Living Your Best Life, by Shortform

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Master Guides: Living Your Best Life

Do you feel like you’re stuck in the wrong life wasting your time on things that don’t satisfy you…but don’t know how to make positive changes, move forward, and feel happier?

Many authors have tackled this subject. While they all take different approaches, they seem to agree on one thing: **Knowing your values and living in alignment with them is key to feeling satisfied and happy...

The Master Guides: Living Your Best Life Summary Part 1: Why Aren’t You Living Your Best Life?

First, let’s explore why you might struggle to feel satisfied with your life. According to multiple authors, many people feel unsatisfied with the direction their lives are moving in because they’re not clear about their values.

According to former Vedic monk Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk), your values are the core beliefs that you choose to live by—they determine who you want to be and how you treat yourself and others. They shape how you think, color your perceptions, motivate your behavior, and guide your decisions. In sum, your values determine who you are and what you need to feel happy.

How Values Impact Happiness

Shetty claims that values allow you to understand the meaning underlying everything you do—the degree to which you live in alignment with your values determines how meaningful your life experiences feel to you.

In Designing Your Life, Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans put it...

The Master Guides: Living Your Best Life Summary Part 2: Clarify What You Want Out of Life

Now that you understand how living out of alignment with your values holds you back from living your best life, let's explore the first step toward feeling happier: Determining what your values are. To achieve this, accept yourself as you are, assess how your current beliefs and values make you feel, and explore various approaches to identify what types of experiences make you feel happy and satisfied.

1) Accept Yourself

The first step toward clarifying what you want out of life is to let go of your need to seek external validation. Pasricha suggests that you can free yourself from the need for validation by accepting who you are and what you need to feel happy. This shift in thinking encourages a cycle of happiness and satisfaction: Self-acceptance inspires you to align your behaviors and decisions with what makes you happy. This alignment encourages positive self-judgment and influences you to make decisions that further increase your happiness.

Furthermore, the more you encourage positive self-judgment, the less time you waste thinking...

The Master Guides: Living Your Best Life Summary Part 3: Commit to Living Your Values

Now that you’ve identified your values and what you want out of life, let’s explore different ways to start living in alignment with your values and make changes to your life.

1) Set Life Rules

Wiest says you must create life rules that will help you live in alignment with your values. These rules should represent personal commitments that you believe in and that will shape your life in the long term. For example, if you have a life rule to cut ties with people who regularly make you feel bad, you’ll live a life surrounded by positive people who encourage you to be your best self.

Life rules will encourage you to continually live in alignment with your values, and help you overcome barriers that may cause you to stray from your intended path. Living by your rules will ensure that you’re happy and always progressing toward the best version of yourself.

Making rules around all your values might be overwhelming, and having too many values may restrict your ability to commit to the things that are most important. Try [choosing the two most important...

The Master Guides: Living Your Best Life Summary Shortform Resources

For more advice about living your best life, see the following Shortform guides:

• 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think, Brianna Wiest
• Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins
• Dare to Lead, Brené Brown
• Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
• _[How...

Shortform Exercise: Assess Your Opinions and Beliefs

An important part of clarifying what you want out of life is assessing whether your current opinions and beliefs align with who you really are.

Write down one opinion or belief you have about yourself. For example, you might believe that you’re not talented enough to succeed in your career.

Shortform Exercise: Define Your Values

Defining the values you want to live by is a vital first step to experiencing satisfaction and living your best life.

Consider moments during which you feel joyful, engaged, and energized, and write down the values these experiences may point toward. For example, if completing a challenging workout feels good to you, you may value cultivating self-discipline and pushing your physical limits.