What's the secret to be happier? Seek what's painful first. As ironic as this may sound, there's scientific research behind this. Behavioral scientists have discovered that one of the most effective ways to create an enjoyable experience is to stack the painful parts of the experience early in the process.Here are a few real-life examples:

• If you're working with clients (i.e. lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.), it's better to provide bad news first, then finish with the good news. Clients will recount an experience as more satisfying when you start poorly then end on a strong note, versus starting well and ending poorly.
• If you're traveling, it's usually better to feel sick at the beginning of the trip, and have an awesome time for the rest of the time than to feel sick at the end of your travels.
• If you're learning a language, it feels like positive progress when you struggle in the beginning, and start picking up the skill faster by the end. But it feels discouraging if a skill only gets harder.

So how can we apply this method to be happier in our life?

Prioritize Pain First In Your Day

There's a couple of important reasons why we want to do the painful things first.Assuming that the most painful activities or tasks are also the most difficult, all of us have a limited amount of willpower during our day. By completing what's the most difficult first, you'll exert less energy for the rest of the day for less difficult activities.As we've previously written in our daily routine article, science also shows that the moments upon waking up is when the prefrontal cortex (creative part of our brain) is most active, while the analytical parts of the brain (the editing and proofreading parts) become more active as the day goes on.

Another reason to do the most important work first is your environment. In the early morning, there's not as many people in the office, and you haven't been pulled in dozens of different directions from our co-workers, smartphone, or social media.It's a great opportunity to figure out what your most important task is, and get it done.

Eat the frog

Brian Tracy has another term for prioritizing pain first: eat the frog.His point is that the activities or tasks that we avoid doing (i.e. the most difficult ones), are usually the most important ones to complete. When you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it'll jump out right away. But if you were to put the same frog into a pot of warm water, and slowly heat it up, it'll be awhile until it realizes how hot the water is.When we think about our own situation, this statement is shockingly true for us. Whenever we've delayed or postponed a decision for something in our company, it has usually come back to bite us.

Think about your own life. Is there a decision, task, or activity that you're postponing? If so, eat the frog!

Simplify, simplify, simplify

One of the easiest ways to 'eat the frog' in your daily life is -- simplify.Based on data from a productivity app, iDoneThis, they discovered that:

In other words, they discovered that:

• you’ll always have unfinished tasks;
• tasks that do get completed are done quickly; and
• what you get done often doesn't correlate with what you set out to do.

One of the biggest reasons explaining this incompletion of our to-do lists was:

1. Too many tasks: Social psychologist Roy Baumeister and journalist John Tierney, authors of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, report in their book that one person typically has at least 150 different tasks at a time, causing overwhelm.
2. Interruptions, unknowns, and change: In a reported LinkedIn survey, the most common reason for failure to get through a to-do list was unplanned tasks such as unscheduled calls, emails, and meetings.

To overcome these issues, we should simplify:

• the quantity of tasks we decide to pursue
• the quality of tasks we decide to pursue

The first point is fairly straightforward. We recommend choosing 3-5 tasks that you complete for the day. You can use free mobile applications like "One Big Thing" to record your most vital tasks for the day.

The second point is where it becomes difficult. Since you're limited to 3-5 tasks you can complete per day, it forces you to choose the most impactful ones to work on.As a rule of thumb: you want to select the 20% of time/resources spent on what will drive 80% of results.

This will vary from person to person, and even on a day to day basis. But to give you some examples:

• if you want to get better sleep, you can just focus on restricting yourself from using electronics devices 2 hours before you sleep.
• if you want to build muscle, you can just focus on doing multifunctional exercises like squats, deadlifts, and bench press.
• if you want to learn a language, you can just focus on speaking with a native speaking professional teacher.

These tasks may seem more 'painful' at first, but when you look back at your day, you'll find yourself achieving more tasks that impact your end result.

Stack more pain for long-term success

What if we took the concept of prioritizing pain first during our daily activities to our long-term success?Most of the top performers have applied this rule to achieve astounding results in their respective fields, like business, athletics, social causes, and more.Things like:

• building a new business
• losing weight
• learning a new skill

require pain and work in the beginning to get momentum. But after some persistence, you can look back at these experiences fondly, because your results have likely improved since you first began your journey.This is a better route to be happier and to achieve success in the long-run, versus pursuing a route that promises fast, and sometimes inflated results like:

• trying to beat the stock market
• getting a 6-pack in 30 days
• becoming a professional gambler

It may appear easy (and even magical) on the surface, but is likely to provide inconsistent results, making you less happy over the long-run.

How to apply this in your life

Given what we know about behavioral psychology, we're more likely to lead happier lives if we're making improvements over time.

"If you're not growing, you're dying." -Anthony Robbins

This is where persistence comes in. In the beginning, it's going to be frustrating to learn a new skill or start a new business. But when you're sacrificing the short-term pleasure for a future payoff, you get to enjoy the long-term benefits over a sustained period of time.

If you want long-term happiness, stop avoiding what's hard, and embrace it now.