I thought I needed to earn more to be happy—these 8 simple living principles proved me wrong

by Lachlan Brown | May 4, 2026, 5:21 pm

For most of my twenties and early thirties, I was obsessed with growth — business growth, income growth, even personal-development growth.

Every time I hit a new financial goal, I’d feel a brief high — then the bar would move again.

I convinced myself happiness was just a few more steps away:

  • A few more projects.

  • A few more zeroes in the bank.

  • A few more “successful” years.

But no matter how far I went, that quiet dissatisfaction followed me.

It wasn’t until life slowed down — when I stepped back from the constant hustle, settled into married life, and started re-evaluating what I really wanted — that I realized something profound: I didn’t need more money to be happy. I needed less noise.

These are the 8 simple living principles that shifted everything for me.

1. Spend less time maximizing — more time enjoying

For years, I optimized everything — my schedule, my workouts, my spending, even my “leisure.”

Every decision became a cost-benefit analysis. Should I buy this? Should I upgrade that? Could I get a higher ROI somewhere else?

But psychology calls this the “maximizer’s trap.”
Maximizers constantly search for the “best” option and end up less satisfied than people who simply choose what’s good enough.

When I stopped trying to make every decision perfect and started allowing things to just be, life became lighter.

Now, when I buy a coffee, I don’t think about whether I could’ve found a better one down the street.
I just sit there, take a sip, and enjoy the moment.

Because joy doesn’t come from optimizing — it comes from experiencing.

2. Stop upgrading things that already work

I used to have this unconscious belief that newer = better.
A slightly faster laptop. A more spacious apartment. A new phone with features I’d never use.

But every upgrade came with hidden costs — not just money, but attention.
Each new thing required learning, setup, maintenance, or comparison.

Then one day, I looked around my apartment and realized: I wasn’t surrounded by possessions — I was surrounded by decisions.

So I started asking myself one simple question:

“Does this thing I already have do its job?”

If the answer was yes, I stopped upgrading.

That shift alone made me feel richer — because instead of chasing improvements, I started noticing how well things already worked.

And funny enough, that feeling of “enough” spilled into every part of my life.

3. Don’t fill every moment — leave space for stillness

When I first discovered mindfulness years ago, I thought it meant meditating 30 minutes a day.
But over time, I realized true mindfulness isn’t a practice — it’s a way of existing.

Simple living is built on the same idea: space creates awareness.

Some people call it “downtime.” Buddhists call it “non-doing.”
Whatever you call it, it’s the space where your mind decompresses and your creativity returns.

I used to pack every hour of my day with tasks, thinking productivity equaled success.
Now, I let myself sit on the balcony and do absolutely nothing.

And you know what? Those moments — the ones that don’t look productive — are the ones that make me feel most alive.

4. Don’t compare lifestyle — compare peace of mind

I used to look at other entrepreneurs and feel like I was behind.
They had bigger houses, flashier cars, fancier holidays.

But over time, I realized I didn’t envy their stuff — I envied their calm.

Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill — no matter how much we get, we adapt, and want more.

But there’s another path: the eudaimonic path, which focuses on purpose, authenticity, and peace.

When I started asking not “who’s doing better than me” but “who seems genuinely peaceful?”, my whole metric system changed.

Because here’s the truth:
The richest person in the world can still feel poor if they never feel enough.

5. The fewer decisions you make, the freer you feel

This one surprised me.

I used to think freedom meant endless choice — being able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
But the paradox is: too much choice leads to paralysis.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls it the Paradox of Choice — when you have too many options, you become less satisfied with any of them.

So I simplified everything:

  • I eat roughly the same breakfast every morning.

  • I wear similar clothes each day.

  • I set boundaries around when I check messages and when I don’t.

These small routines aren’t limiting — they’re liberating.

Because real freedom isn’t having a million options.
It’s having clarity.

6. Replace ambition with alignment

For most of my career, I was driven by ambition — and it worked.
But ambition without alignment leads to burnout.

There’s a difference between chasing what looks impressive and pursuing what genuinely matters to you. Research in positive psychology shows that people who align their daily actions with their core values report significantly higher well-being than those chasing external markers of success.

When I started building my work around what I actually cared about — writing, exploring ideas in psychology, connecting with readers — instead of what would look good on paper, everything shifted.

The drive was still there. But it stopped feeling like a race and started feeling like a calling.

7. Invest in experiences that cost little but mean a lot

Some of my favourite memories from the past few years cost almost nothing:

  • Long walks around Melbourne with my wife and daughter.

  • Cooking a slow dinner on a Sunday evening.

  • Reading a book in a quiet corner of the house.

Research consistently backs this up. A well-known study from Cornell University found that experiences bring more lasting happiness than material purchases — and notably, the cost of the experience doesn’t determine its emotional impact.

Simple living isn’t about deprivation. It’s about redirecting your attention toward the things that actually fill you up.

8. Redefine “enough” — and protect it fiercely

This is the principle that ties everything together.

Most of us never define what “enough” actually looks like. So we keep moving the goalpost — more income, more recognition, more stuff — without ever arriving.

But when you sit down and honestly ask yourself, “What do I actually need to feel content?” the answer is usually simpler than you expect.

For me, it came down to a short list: meaningful work, time with my family, good health, and space to think.

Everything beyond that is a bonus — not a requirement.

And once I defined that line, I stopped feeling like I was falling behind. Because I wasn’t measuring myself against anyone else’s definition of success anymore.

I was measuring against my own.

The bottom line

Simple living isn’t a trend or a minimalist aesthetic. It’s a psychological shift — from “more will make me happy” to “what I have is already enough.”

It doesn’t mean giving up ambition. It means making sure your ambition is pointed at the right things.

And in my experience, the moment you stop chasing more and start noticing what’s already here, something unexpected happens:

You realize you were already rich. You just weren’t paying attention.

Lachlan Brown

Lachlan Brown is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Brown Brothers Media, a digital publishing network reaching tens of millions of readers monthly. He holds a Graduate Diploma of Psychological Studies from Deakin University, though his real education came afterward: a warehouse job shifting TVs, a stretch of anxiety in his mid-twenties, and the slow discovery that studying the mind is not the same as learning how to live well. He started experimenting with Buddhist principles during breaks at the warehouse and eventually began writing about what he was learning. That writing became Hack Spirit, a widely read personal development site, and his book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism became a bestseller. His work breaks down complex ideas into frameworks people can apply immediately, whether they are navigating a career change, a difficult relationship, or the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Lachlan splits his time between Singapore and Saigon. He writes about high-performance routines, decision-making under pressure, digital innovation, and the intersection of Eastern philosophy with modern life. His perspective comes from having built things from scratch, failed at some of them, and learned that clarity comes from practice, not theory.