Hey there!
Hard to believe, but we are in the last couple weeks of summer. Time just seems to pass quicker and quicker with each passing year. I hope that you’ve enjoyed some joys that the season offers.
While my focus is very much on helping people design and build a career that suits what their goals are, it’s also important to pay attention to life outside of work. After all, work is just one aspect of life, even if it is an important aspect.
Take some time this week, even a few minutes, to enjoy something specific to summer. It will be gone before you know it!
As always, please reach out to me directly at tim@timparkins.com if you have any topics that you’d like my thoughts on.
Get Ripped: 8 Powerful Practices For Flexing Your Happiness Muscles
I have a challenging question for you. Ready?
If you don’t know how to be happy with the life you have right now, what makes you think you’ll be able to be happy in some future, imagined life?
The truth: you won’t be. Unless you do something different.
Hopefully, I can convince you to change your approach before it is too late.
Most people make a fundamental mistake in trying to live an amazing life; they chase happiness. But happiness is not something that you can hunt down and capture. The more time and energy you spend pursuing it, the more elusive it becomes.
Happiness is a skill you need to develop, rather than something that you seek.
The Dangerous Illusion of “I will be happy when…”
I have made this mistake myself countless times, but over time, realized that happiness is something that you need to practice.
I set goals for myself, using all the common approaches that are preached in the world of self-development. Ambitious goals that scared me. More realistic goals that were achievable. And pretty much everything in between. I achieved many of these goals, only to realize that I wasn’t happier. There was still something missing. So onto the next goal!
I thought to myself that I must need bigger goals, or maybe more of them. Or maybe I just needed to get better at picking goals, to ensure that I picked “the right one”. Because obviously, I would be happy once I achieved it! I would feel whole. I would have won the game and could then sit back and enjoy my happy life that I’d built.
I poured myself into challenging projects at work, and was getting recognition for it. So I doubled down on that. All of my time and energy went towards hitting my goals, to achieving, to becoming more. I knew that if I just pushed myself hard enough, if I sucked it up and delivered big things, and I became my “ideal self”, I could then be happy. I’d have earned it.
But as I learned the hard way, that is not how it works.
I crashed. And I crashed hard.
I crashed so hard that I needed to be hospitalized in a mental institution to recover.
But I’m one of the lucky ones; I came out of that experience for the better. I had a relatively strong support system around me. My amazing wife was by my side and was “all-in” on helping me get better, providing me with everything I could need. I could take the time off work that I needed to recover without being financially crippled. So many people don’t have these advantages. Even with these factors on my side, recovery was tough. Which is why I feel the need to help you see the wall before you run smack into it. Let me save you from the pain!
How to Develop the Skill of Happiness
Developing or expanding any skill requires patience and practice, and happiness is no different. It is like learning to play the guitar or piano, or getting better at a sport. You need to keep attempting to improve, and consistency is key. You won’t be perfect at it, and that is okay; when you fall short, notice it and start again. Take a moment to reflect on what went wrong and how you might alter your approach to do better next time. Then try again.
There are many practices or approaches you can try to flex your happiness muscles. Test them out and see which of them work for you;
- Play. This is at the top of the list for a reason! In Western culture, we obsess over work and being productive, and have mostly lost the ability to have fun. Bringing play back into your life is one of the best ways to increase your level of happiness. Stop taking yourself so seriously! Have a bit of fun and do something that has no defined goal or aim, something that is not about making money or somehow improving yourself. Something that you can just enjoy doing. More time spent playing leads to happiness.
- Mindfulness. Experiment with meditation. Training the mind to focus on the present moment has proven to have massive impacts on well-being. It alters your body’s physiology, allowing you to get clarity, insight, and understanding of how you are feeling and what your body needs at that moment. This awareness leads to an improved mood.
- Practicing gratitude. Take a few minutes to note a few things you’re grateful for. As long as you are on the right side of the grass, there are things you should appreciate. We get caught up in thinking about all the ways our life isn’t going according to our plan. We focus on what we don’t have and obsess about getting it. Instead of worrying about what you lack, appreciate what you have. Both views may be technically correct, but being grateful for what you have is much more beneficial than lamenting that which you lack. Choose gratitude.
- Reframing challenges. There will be challenges in your life. We often plan things out, expecting that everything will work out the way we want it to. Life laughs at us when we do that! If you are doing anything of substance, if you are trying to step outside your comfort zone at all, you are inevitably going to fail. Rather than getting down on yourself when you fail, look at it differently; you are now a step closer to your aim. Failing is learning, and you just got a great lesson.
- Follow your curiosity. The world is endlessly fascinating! There are so many ideas to explore, so many things to see, so much to learn. But of course, you only have so much time and energy to invest. Ensure that you are directing as much of your precious life as possible into the things that interest you. Explore! You’ll find that when follow the things that make you curious, it is hard to be unhappy.
- Socialize. Humans are social animals, and while some alone time is required, we can’t live happy lives in isolation. Prioritize quality time with loved ones. Develop and nurture deep and meaningful relationships with people. Strong connections with others can increase happiness, as backed by research.
- Exercise. Obviously, exercise has many positive health benefits, so is an important part of self-care. But it also improves your mood; physical activity releases endorphins, which are natural mood-boosters. It doesn’t require that you go to the gym and lift giant weights or anything. You can play a sport, do some yoga and stretching, or even take a walk. Anytime I am feeling low on energy, I force myself to take a walk in nature or to do some yoga; instant mood and energy boost! Every single time.
- Limit negativity. The above practices focus on practices that you “add” on to your already busy life; you can also approach it from the other end. By reducing the amount of negativity in your life, you will naturally increase your happiness. You plug your “happiness leaks”, reducing your exposure to things that bring you down. This has been a game changer for me. I used to be very interested in politics and followed the news closely. Choosing to mostly ignore these led to much-improved moods. If you aren’t careful about who and what you let into your life, you will find negativity seeping in and limiting your ability to be happy.
Conclusion
Stop seeking happiness externally, chasing it endlessly. You won’t find it that way. Instead, recognize that happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop. It comes from within yourself, not from external events or people. You cannot control those, so outsourcing your happiness to others is a fool’s errand.
You deserve to be happy and have everything you need to be so. You just need to choose happiness and implement practices that will allow you to experience it.
Own your happiness and claim it.
Quotation that I have been pondering
This quote from famous writer Ernest Hemingway is so relevant to the theme of this week’s article;
“When you stop doing things for fun, you might as well be dead.”
We are here to enjoy life; to live, to laugh, to love, and to have meaningful experiences. You can’t do that if you take everything too seriously. Fun is an essential ingredient of a life well-lived.
Journal Prompt
Like millions of others, I listen regularly to the Tim Ferriss podcast. He often asks guests a question towards the end of his interviews that I love;
“If you could have a billboard that millions of people would see, what would you want it to say?”
That is such a useful question to reflect and journal on. It forces you to consider what your most significant belief is, and how you would summarize it concisely.
I urge you to reflect on how you would answer this question. It can provide great insight into how you should strive to live.
PS – if you’re interested, my “billboard” would read:
“Be kind. To everyone, and especially yourself.”
Take Action!
Are you happy with your career? If not, how long has it been since you’ve felt great about it?
Work is an important part of your life and likely occupies a large percentage of your waking time. That means that it is too important to ignore.
If you’ve been unhappy with your career for any length of time, why aren’t you taking steps to make it better?
I help people do just that.
Is it uncomfortable to take ownership of your career and make the changes that need to be made? Damn straight it is! Will it require you to go outside your comfort zone? Yep! And it will even cost you a few hundred bucks to work with me.
But – this is your life! Surely you can make those trade-offs to progress on becoming who you could become, if you would just get started. Don’t keep waiting and kicking the can down the road. Life has a funny way of throwing curveballs at you, and it will never be the right time.
Except for now. Now is the right time to design and build a career you can be proud of – and love.
Learn how I can help: https://timparkins.com/coaching
Or book me for a complimentary session.
Whatever you choose to do, don’t just keep plugging along and resenting the work you do every day. You deserve better.
