So Much Happier Blog
Elevating the Quality of Your Leisure Time
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
Photo by Orlova Maria
To be honest, lately I’ve been focused on several activities that have required discipline, and I’ve been feeling less creative personally, and times like this are not my favorite. As a way to add compensatory interest and inspiration during this time, I’ve found myself thinking about bringing some highly concentrated creative beauty into my life courtesy of some wonderful artists whose works I’ve admired over time, or who have been more recently highly recommended.
I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed diving into these works of stunning beauty when the day is done and it’s time to stop thinking and acting. I’ve been reminded how much different it is to have contact with something sublime and masterful rather than just mildly interesting and easily accessible. Some works are merely light and fun (which of course is fine, and these have their place, particularly when we’re exhausted and need some mindless time). But some works are more satisfying to each of us, depending on our tastes. Finding and reveling in these can make a huge difference in how inspired we feel, and how much energy and enthusiasm we have at the ready to pursue our own lives on the other side. Don’t you find that when you take in an especially great book, movie, painting, song, etc., you think about it for weeks, months, sometimes years afterward and still feel the joy of the experience? Doesn’t that add to your life in ways that are hard to quantify?
Making a habit of this corresponds to the “Do Something Awe-Inspiring” section of this article on secrets to happiness that I thought I’d share. I actually found this after I’d been working on locating these compressed missives of joy for myself, and it was a good reminder about why this and other key strategies work to improve our moods. Feeling awe, inspiration, and connection to others is essential to creating great happiness. And we’re all living through times when we’re more challenged in these areas, and it’s hard to know when we’ll catch a collective break. That means we need to work harder right now to wring more satisfaction out of things that can sustain us through challenge.
In the week ahead, take just a few extra moments here and there to consider the kinds of creative works you have found most fulfilling. If you don’t have a library card, it’s usually not hard to get one, and that will open up a world of books and other media to your enjoyment. Maybe you have access to services that offer home entertainment that you can mine for experiences that fall within your favorite genres. Lots of museums are offering online tours and other content right now. There’s a lot of content online, some free of charge right now. What have been some of your most beloved works? Where can you find more of those? Friends with similar tastes can be a great source of ideas, so don’t forget to ask around for items you might not have found on your own. Maybe with just a little extra consideration you’ll find some new personal favorites as I have recently done—books you’ll read again and again because they really are that good. Movies you’ll replay in your mind and giggle about every time you think of that favorite scene. Music that will become part of your most passionate shower karaoke sessions. Visual art you might hang on your walls or just revisit when you can.
I wish you an inspiring week. Feel free to share any of your favorites you’d like to pass along in the Comments section!
Transforming to Succeed
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
Last week we talked about being able to look at ourselves and notice what we have the power to change that would improve our prospects in moving toward our goals. This is definitely not the easiest thing to do! We’re likely to struggle with various emotions in the process, because no one likes confronting their own limitations. Also, the idea of change, of tackling what we may have found and working toward new skills, can be challenging and scary. And yet this is exactly what we need to be doing all the time if we want to grow into the kind of people who can succeed in a changing landscape—which is what life will always present, whether you’re a hermit or a big-city dweller.
Once you know what you need to change, I recommend first setting your focus on what you really want and why, and find ways to think about this often. Every day you will need to refresh your motivation, particularly when your endeavors require struggle and persistence—and in the process of change, this may be nearly every day! You might want to make yourself little notes or display pictures that you find inspiring. Maybe you’ll make a playlist of music that buoys you and reminds you what all your work is for. Change takes focus and grit, but you’re allowed to have fun while you’re working at it! Make sure you’re finding ways to keep your purpose alive and remind yourself what it’s all about.
You’ll then need a roadmap that shows you your path to your goal so you can see what you need to do, and in what order. Important: Right from the start, accept that this will be a living document, and you will add to and edit it as circumstances change and as you learn experientially. If you add time-related goals to your map, know that those can and sometimes must change. They’re meant to challenge and draw us forward, not tyrannize us. Too many of us have become demoralized by the idea of setting goals at all because not meeting a deadline can feel like failure, and that’s a very hot button for many of us. Overreactions to our perceptions of failure are common, and yet destructive to our learning and growth in profound ways. The truth is that when things don’t go as planned, there’s almost always something to learn that will help you as you continue toward your destination, and if we lose sight of this, me may quit. If you really want that goal and you keep managing your energy and your outlook, you will return over and over to the plan with a willingness to evolve it and yourself as you go. No one is ever perfect, even those who succeed wildly! We’re all human, and trying to hold yourself to impossible standards that include never making mistakes is not helpful.
The last part of this process I want to mention is attention to your physical and emotional well being. If you don’t eat enough nutrient-rich food, move and stretch your body, and get enough sleep to help your body regenerate, you’ll most likely burn yourself out before you can accomplish anything meaningful, and never be able to sustain the prolonged activity that the pursuit of most goals requires. If you don’t manage your emotions, you will be fighting the chaos of bad moods and demotivating thoughts, which will seriously cut into your productivity. You’ll also be missing out on the priceless information that your emotions are trying to convey about how you may be getting off track from your own values and truest desires, as well as about parts of you that may need attention before your subconscious mind will get on board with your success. And trust me, your subconscious is powerful! If it’s not on board with your plan, it will find ways to sabotage that will be both highly effective and most likely invisible to you so that you have little chance of countering them. Sure, you can vilify and stuff down your emotions because it’s what you know, and learning new skills takes time and effort, but if you take a little time to learn an alternative method of operating, you’ll be able to benefit from much smoother sailing for a lifetime. Doesn’t that sound better? I have found that learning some powerful emotional management tools can revolutionize our experience of day-to-day life for the better.
As you probably know already, I recommend Tapping as one of the most highly effective and useful tools for emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical transformation. It’s incredibly supportive in working through road blocks all along the way, whatever it is you may struggle with. If you’ve forgotten how to use Tapping, you can find a couple of quick videos on the subject here. It doesn’t take long to start getting the benefits, so get going or brush up, and I think you’ll find that it really helps!
Who's Your Inspiration?
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Who or what would you change for if the stakes were high? Motivation, which is the willingness to confront challenge and surge toward a specific purpose in the face of uncertainty, can be a tricky beast to harness. If you're struggling with motivation, there are causes you'll need to handle at the root. At the same time, until that work is finished and beyond, there are some hacks that may help you to get through tougher times.
When you're languishing in the "blahs" and you can't seem to want to do anything, the biggest culprits to look toward in today's world are 1) physical needs that aren't being met, which cause a constant energy drain (such as proper nutrition and adequate sleep) and 2) a lack of clarity about what stirs your passion and enthusiasm, or a failure to leverage your passion effectively. Both of these should be thoroughly addressed if you want to reach maximum performance, but here's a shortcut that can act as a booster in the meantime: Figure out who you're drawn to serving and enlist their help in goading yourself into targeted action.
It's amazing how many of us will take action all day long if someone we love needs us, but never take action for ourselves! This is often because of unfortunate beliefs that were instilled in us (such as "To be a good person, I have to put my own desires and needs last") by family or other cultural elements. It can then become sheer habit for you to live out these beliefs, and they may run in the background virtually invisible to you, seemingly a core part of your identity, hard to clearly recognize let alone consciously change. Finding the beliefs that keep you feeling stuck under a mountain of reasons why your life is the way it is, and why you can't have what you want, can be a complicated process, but if you become comfortable with Tapping, it becomes a lot easier! Suddenly you don't have to figure out how to untangle this hopeless ball of string with just your logical mind. Your far-more-powerful subconscious mind starts to get on board when you Tap, and can lead you through a non-linear, but still amazingly effective, process of discovery and release from limited perspectives. If we have a solution to all the overwhelm that keeps us frozen in place, it's much easier to take action in the name of our own goals.
When you want to effect change, first setting up underlying support structures that will create a stable platform on which to anchor your work is a smart strategy. Having healthy exercise routines and mental, emotional, and spiritual practices in place can really help us to be in it for the long run. In addition, finding crafty ways to build your overall motivation and focus is well worth your time so that you have a variety of options on call whenever you just want to lie down and quit! No matter how positive you are, there will be times when you're running up against an obstacle that feels like it might be the last straw. For me, that's usually technology! I do appreciate all the incredible inventions that we have access to in modern life, but when my computer is refusing to talk to my printer for reasons unknown, the thought of spending the afternoon trying to mediate an argument between virtual entities with inscrutable motivations can make me want to climb the curtains. People I get. High-tech machines, not so much.
We're all different, so finding what motivates you will take observation. With some focus over even a week or two, you should be able to isolate a few ideas or activities that really get you excited about life. To find them, ask yourself questions like, "If I could stop time and do absolutely anything I wanted with no consequences for weeks at a time, what would that be?" If you answered "Sleep," then that gives you a clue about what you need in your life to recharge! Imagine that you've had 6 months to a year to just laze about and do nothing, and then try this question again. You'll probably come up with a thing or two that you'd love to do or explore.
Chances are, though, if you're not already adept at motivating yourself with passion, there will be someone else in your life for whom you would get out of bed no matter what. Knowing this is gold! If it's true for you, guess what? You can now enlist that person's help in any number of ways in your efforts toward a goal or a making a new habit stick. Sometimes all it takes is reminding yourself that you're exercising, for example, so you can be healthy for major events in your loved one's life that are still years away. You can also ask them to act as a cheerleader, and give them frequent updates on your progress so they can encourage you regularly. For some people, the idea that their actions affect their pets is a super-potent driver. Those who work with energy in healing practices know that your health, both physical and mental, affects the health of those around you, including that of your companion animals, in both subtle and more overt ways. Helping oneself in order to help a pet can be a very motivating way to commit to change. This is one of those hacks that can boost your motivation when nothing else is working because love is an incredibly powerful force that can be harnessed to impel us into action. As an added bonus, doing things for those you love makes you feel great, as long as you're doing them out an authentic loving spirit and not out of an attempt to control other people or events.
No matter where you are in your journey toward utilizing consistently effective self-motivation skills, you can build toward mastery in this area little bits at a time. Gaining the ability to motivate yourself no matter what's going on takes work over time for sure, but any effort toward building these skills will leave you more empowered and self-aware than before. Waking up to what works for you, and putting what you've noticed to work for you, will help you to build strong habits that will serve you well in the pursuit of all your goals. Pick a suggestion from above and get started! You deserve to feel excited about getting up in the morning, and these will help you get there.
How about Some Good News?
“I am in the world feeling my way to light ‘amid the encircling gloom.’”
There are always so many voices trying to tell us that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Some people are addicted to external drama that can prevent them from noticing and dealing with their own back yards. Business interests recognize that fear is a powerful motivator that can increase their profits when it's leveraged to make them seem absolutely necessary. Some people just want to be seen as a savior, someone who has the answers so that others will follow and validate him/her. Whatever the motivations behind them, dealing with all the messages we encounter daily that are filled with bad news can be a real bummer. One of the ways you can regain some of your vitality and enthusiasm is by dialing down or tuning out the volume of those doom-and-gloom messages and finding opportunities to be aware of the ways in which life is good.
Life will always be a mix of dark and light, happy and sad. It's smart to take prudent, practical steps to make ourselves safer and to think ahead about what will be needed in the future, but excessive worrying and stress destroys our happiness. Eventually, it erodes our health too. How about finding a few sources of news stories that make you feel good about your fellow humans and being alive in general? Here's one, for instance, but there are many others. There are also many people out there filling social media feeds with posts that will inspire and energize you. Why not spend a few moments this week searching out a few sources of small joys that you can add to your every day? This week's blog is short. I suggest that you use the extra minutes you might normally have spent reading a longer one to go find some inspiration!
The Nefariousness of Boredom
“When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.”
As you work on projects that are important to you over time, sometimes one of the hardest things to do is to resist overthinking things. Once you've determined your overall path and you've gotten down to applying yourself to your next steps, there are phases of a project in which you're working away, but not yet seeing results. Depending on the scope and complexity of your project, these can last quite a while. Since humans tend to prefer instant gratification, staying focused and energized throughout can be a challenge! The mind will tend to kick into high gear at some point and try to convince us that we must be doing something wrong. It shouldn't be taking this long! We should change something up, because this clearly isn't working!
In today's frenetic world, it does seem as though everything happens quickly, and that's what we should expect from the world and from ourselves. And yet, even those who seem to have attained easy success have tales to tell about preparation they've done in the background, usually over the course of many years. The current technological climate wants to convince us that every shiny new toy just pops into being as soon as a good idea is established. We're shown quick and glamorous paths to glory, but again, these are never the whole story. It's easy to measure ourselves against all these flashy examples and decide that there's something wrong with us when nothing is so easy in our day to day. It's easy to become frantic as we feel the passage of time and to decide that we need to pick up the pace, even when there's a well-considered plan in place and it's unfolding accordingly.
Drawing up a realistic plan takes work. Educating yourself on what steps will be needed in order to accomplish new goals and setting out time lines that are challenging, but still possible, takes boldness and vision. Most of us don't do this enough, nor maintain a rhythm of checking in often to adjust and rework that vision. But even if we do, it still takes discipline not to freak out when the process is boring and throw it all out the window. Sometimes it's easier to deal with adversity than it is to deal with boredom—at least with adversity comes a certain amount of drama, which can bring a sense of zest to life even if it's unpleasant. The periods in which the plan requires constant application but little reward can be the most treacherous, the times when our continuance is most precarious.
Since any big project has these periods, we need to find ways not to work up frustration or ennui so thick that it cancels out our momentum. One of my recommendations here may sound a little silly, but it works, so I'll offer it anyway: Be willing to be a little stupid. Refuse to ruminate at length on your state and just keep going, even when it feels like a slog; when you overthink, you'll just annoy yourself and have a tendency to talk yourself out of both good moods and your commitment to the long haul. Try distracting yourself from the boredom with some planned rewards. These don't have to be anything grand or expensive—just playing some inspiring music every day can help buoy your spirits when it feels like you're going nowhere. Planning some time with friends you always have fun with is key. Taking a little time to move your body every day helps bust stress, and I'm not talking about running marathons (unless that's something you love). You might just want to move and groove to some music when you take breaks from your project, because it feels good and gets some healthy blood flow going. Take a walk around the block or to do an errand here and there. Do some light reading or watch a movie to give your mind a break from your efforts. Whatever it is, just keep in mind that when you're working on the more thankless parts of your project, you'll need some extra support to keep yourself going, and plan for it.
No matter what you're working toward in the long term, there will be times when the slowness of your progress will become demoralizing. It happens to the best of us, and it is completely normal to become somewhat annoyed at these times. If you can't seem to enjoy the work you have to do, then find other things to appreciate and enjoy. Usually these dips will automatically correct themselves before too long if you're giving yourself support to get yourself through the difficulty. Know that you're not alone, and remind yourself what's at the end of all this effort, and why you wanted it in the first place. Above all, keep going. When you stretch yourself and refuse to give up, you do eventually get somewhere worth being, and that's what it's all about.
A Case of the Blahs
“I love to listen to the music that first inspired me - I get that fresh feeling back.”
There are times in which, even when things are going well, and despite all our best efforts, we are going to feel just…uninspired. There are so many factors that go into creating our experience of each day that we can often be surprised by how things seem to display, at any given moment, a natural tendency to come together—or not. It’s impossible to predict the daily outcome of the interaction of all things that affect us; that is just how things are on planet Earth, and it certainly keeps life interesting! It can also be pretty frustrating, say when you’ve got a certain amount of time allotted for something and then the unexpected happens and gets in the way. If this happens several times in a row, it can really disrupt your momentum. Or if you’ve been down with a cold, sometimes it takes longer than you want it to for you to get back up to speed and feel your enthusiasm for life returning. For whatever reason, there are those days when you just don’t feel like doing anything at all.
What to do when you feel this way? Depending on what your day looks like, you may have more or less latitude to change up your plans on the fly. Here are some thoughts on what to try the next time you get blindsided by a case of the “I don’t wanna, you can’t make me’s.”
· Allow yourself a moment to take a couple of breaths and acknowledge what’s happening. Most of us have been taught to just push through any emotion or preference that arises unexpectedly, but over time, this habit gets us into trouble. The more we repress what’s really going on internally, the more we resent the responsibilities, and sometimes the people, in our lives. We also add a potent risk factor for actual physical illness and disease. If you just get into the habit of letting yourself be aware of how you feel, you can take it into account in some way that you decide is appropriate. Sometimes just acknowledging it and the validity of your right to feel normal human emotions is enough to improve your outlook. Sometimes taking action of some sort will also be well advised
· Think for a moment about what you absolutely need to get done today. There are commitments that are not optional—for instance, the kids and the dog need to be fed. But other items on the list might be nice to have, but not really necessary, if you’re being totally honest with yourself
· If you decide that some task(s) can move to a different day, what would you like to do instead? Sometimes what you need is a break, some breathing room to do not much of anything, some time to regroup. But maybe there’s something that needs doing that would be more fun for you than what you had originally planned. One excellent secret of greater productivity is being able to swap tasks around to harness your enthusiasm at any given time. Sure, there are some tasks you’re probably never going to want to do, and sometimes you’ll have to just do them anyway. But there are days when cleaning and organizing/filing, for instance, might seem kind of fun, and there are times when it’s going to seem like cruel and unusual punishment. How can you roll with that?
· Sometimes the best thing to “do” is something that will boost you overall state of inspiration. What are your very favorite things to do, things you would do nearly every day if you had all the time in the world? Watch movies? Go to concerts? Play silly games with family members? Have a three-hour lunch with a close friend you could talk to forever? Go play a sport that makes you forget everything else for a while? Read a book by your favorite author? Whatever it is, it can be amazing how rejuvenated you can feel after a little time spent in this pursuit. Allowing yourself this time can energize your entire week
· What signals are you getting from your body? Does it need care that you’ve been procrastinating on? If you haven’t been drinking water, moving your body, or getting decent nutrition lately, ending up in a funk of some sort is a pretty likely outcome. Sometimes we pretend we can ignore the body’s needs. Zoolander-esque news flash: We can’t.
· Change your perspective by thinking about what’s going well in your life and what you’re grateful for. This can be as simple as the sun rising each day, or the fact that you’re still alive! Celebrate what you have accomplished, whether recently or in your finest moments. Sometimes feeling better just requires that you allow yourself some time to consciously feel good about yourself. Self-acceptance and self-congratulation can really prime the pump of your enthusiasm for life. It’s not arrogant to admit that some things about you are pretty awesome, and most of us don’t do this enough
· Ask for help. Most of don’t do this enough either. It might surprise you how often others are willing to help if you explain your situation and ask whether they can pitch in. As long as you’re not ordering them around, a lot of people actually like to feel like they’re helpful and being supportive of others
· Hug someone you love and tell them that you love them. When you don’t know what else to do, you can’t go wrong with this one, and sometimes it can very quickly change your state of mind
· What has worked for you before in the past in similar situations? Is there something you’ve been wanting to do that you could allow yourself time for?
· Be creative. If you like to paint, or write, or sing, or play an instrument, spend a little time doing that just for fun, or make yourself laugh by thinking up captions for the frowny cat picture above
· Even if it seems like nothing is boosting your mood, know that tomorrow will be different. Sometimes a night of decent sleep can change everything. Sometimes you’ll come out of a funk just as mysteriously as you went in
Feeling resistant to life’s requirements sometimes is completely normal. If you allow yourself some flexibility in how you approach your task list and your daily experience, you may find that the quality of your life actually improves as a result of these times. Any experience can be an opportunity to know yourself better and to find better ways of expressing the best of yourself in life. I hope that the next time you find yourself feeling less than enthused, you’ll be able to change something up without feeling bad about having to confront this part of the human experience.
Onward and Upward
“The longer you hang in there, the greater the chance that something will happen in your favor. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist, the more likely your success.”
Just keep going. This is one of the most important principles I know of in the grand scheme of creating a successful life. You don’t have to always be running—you can walk, skip, hop or dance—and it’s ok to take a breather now and then when you need it. But if you can build the habit of just doing what you can to move forward a little bit every day, your progress toward what you want will be much faster than if you tend to exhaust yourself and drop out, or reconsider everything when you don’t get immediate results.
In such a fast-paced world, one in which we’ve been shown that everyone can become an “overnight” success by just getting on a reality T.V. show, our expectations may have become a bit unrealistic. For most people, success is the result of years of effort, which invariable include lots of ups and downs. Even those who seem to have gotten a big, lucky break have usually spent plenty of unglamorous time preparing and wondering at times if they’d ever get anywhere. Just like the rest of us!
I would suggest that this time of uncertainty and constant application yields precious abilities, even when it seems like nothing is happening. When we keep going despite resistance, worry, boredom, and annoyance, we’re building a habit of focus and healthy stubbornness that can serve us throughout life. Of course, I’m not implying that we should be so stubborn that we never consider our results and adjust course, or listen to the constructive feedback of others. I am in favor or each person dancing to their own drummer, though; you must ultimately be the one who decides what is right for you, and sometimes even the most well-intentioned advice must be ignored if it doesn’t seem right to you and for you. Some of the people who have invented the most astonishing things throughout history have been told over and over that creating what they saw in their mind’s eye was impossible. They kept going and perfected those things anyway. Healthy stubbornness in action!
There are many ways to keep yourself going when it’s difficult and uncomfortable to do so. I suggest broadening your tool set so that you have a better chance of staying in the game when the going gets frustrating. For example:
· Figure out what motivates you and roll with it. Are you someone whose abilities wake up when you’re moving toward something good, or working to outrun something you fear? Most of us respond somewhat to both, but you may find that one or the other is more effective for you. If you like to imagine moving toward something you want, remind yourself at least once a day what you’re working toward by imagining it vividly—preferably numerous times per day. This will bring you little surges of energy and the ability to recommit to your task every time you do it. You can also give yourself a little pep talk here and there and remind yourself of the progress you’ve made. If you get fired up when you imagine moving away from something bad, you can imagine something like that instead—see, hear, and feel people talking about how you failed and they knew you’d never amount to anything, etc. For most people, far more repetitions of the positive style of motivation is best, but throwing in a vision of what you definitely don’t want can sometimes add some spice to the mix.
· Take care of your physical needs without fail. Don’t skip meals, but keep them healthy. Get regular exercise, which builds energy and helps manage stress and lift your moods, and stretch your muscles to stay limber. Get at least seven hours of sleep per night. Brush and floss. You get the picture.
· Tell only the people you know you can trust to be supportive about your big goals. The last thing you need is a lot of negativity from people who think small, or are threatened by your unique vision.
· Commit to being a lifelong learner. No one starts off as an expert. We all build expertise in the areas we choose over time, and it never happens overnight. You don’t have to keep up with all information all the time, but you do need to keep up with your chosen field of interest, and again, it’s a fast-paced world out there. This will take some time and attention always if you want to be good at what you do, but it will also keep exposing you to the brilliance of others, which is inspiring.
· Find ways to blow off steam when you hit road blocks. Do or watch something that makes you laugh yourself silly. Spend time with friends. Volunteer for a worthy cause and get your mind off your own troubles. Spend some time on a hobby that just makes you feel good. Read biographies of successful people, who I guarantee went through hard times before they became famous and respected for their contributions. Write out your woes in a journal. Go outside and enjoy the natural world.
· Be willing to rethink your strategy as you try things and learn from your experiences. Consult others who have done something similar for advice and a change of perspective.
· If you crash and burn or fall off the wagon in some way, know that everyone experiences failure sometimes, and we often learn far more from these episodes than from we do from smooth sailing. Failures and mistakes may feel terrible when they’re happening, but they are not the end unless we decide they are. If you’re still alive, there’s still more left within you.
· Remind yourself that what you have to give is unique and important. Even if it’s not yet ready or not yet connecting with an audience or customers, someone out there needs and is waiting for what you have to offer.
For some people, succeeding to a level that feels satisfying takes far longer than they ever hoped or imagined. If this is you, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong—this is a very common human experience. We can’t always know beforehand exactly what will get us to our destination. Just keep taking a step forward every time you can, keep learning, and above all, just keep going.