So Much Happier Blog
Dancing with the Gods of Mischief
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
Hello, dear readers, and welcome to 2018! In the first week of this new year, many of us will be thinking with renewed fervor of the creation of our most cherished goals. This week may bring you a fresh, more hopeful perspective on what's possible for you and for the world, which feels great. But you know how some years you decide to work toward new things and become quickly derailed from your forward motion? And then that kills your buzz and your motivation to keep at it until you actually get what you wanted? In the interests of helping you to preserve your happy sense of possibility, which is the motivational equivalent of perpetual motion, I offer you these thoughts this week.
We feel the sense of hopefulness about a new year in part because we can look ahead at a familiar unit of time with an intrinsic structure that has become familiar to us—seasons we've come to know, with their attached holidays and weather, clothing and habits, and it's fun to fill that container with an ideal vision. Creating something beautiful, something that sparkles with promise and expresses who we are at our very core, reminds us of the very best we carry within us. Of course that feels great! (Research has shown that the vast majority of people are far more efficiently motivated by positive feedback than by negative experiences, so this makes perfect sense.) At this particular time of year, we allow ourselves to get swept up in the the optimistic moment. Yet, as the year progresses, and our perfectly imagined plans start to go off track (which is inevitable), the structural integrity of our confidence begins to break down along with the structure of our idealized vision of the year.
Instead of taking developments in stride and using them as an impetus to make course corrections, we may decide that we're falling behind, there's not enough time left to make the year into something satisfying! We succumb to the mounting pressure to rectify the differences between vision and uncertain reality on a tight timeline. Sometimes we don't even notice how much we're measuring our intrinsic value against how much of what we want is unfolding according to the schedule we imagined for the current year. Just as age is only a number to which we attach conditioned meanings, often, without thinking, we may decide that not having accomplished something by a certain time of year must MEAN something about us or about our ability to accomplish it at all. If we allow this measurement to remain unconscious, we're far more likely to grind into the end of the year frustrated, grouchy, and not in the mood to celebrate the numerous holidays we might otherwise enjoy with gusto.
Even for those whose lives look easy from the outside, it's very rare that any longer-term plan ever goes as expected. The nature of being human includes navigating constant surprise. The scope certainly varies, but unless you're a hermit, the constancy of the need to confront this dynamic does not. Since this is a common denominator, it doesn't actually "mean" anything about you except that you're human. Success is not keeping every variable in your projects an inescapable chokehold—it's created by a willingness to confront every day's surprise with a willingness to put together pieces of a constantly morphing puzzle in the most constructive pattern you can engineer in that moment. The more you try to cement the pieces to the game board, the more likely it is that the whole thing will rupture under unsustainable pressure and blow up in your face.
Here's what I recommend you do in order to keep up with the pace of natural and inevitable change that will permeate all your projects while constantly feeding your enthusiasm:
- Plan to actually write down what you would most like to have happen this year and read this every day. The point of this is NEVER to make you feel anxious about what's not happening, but to remind you what's important to you, keep you focused on it, and galvanize your creativity around what you can do today to make some progress toward goals that excite you. Not because you really should, or you must, or you're a mess if you don't, but because this helps you to feel that you're really alive.
- Plan to take stock of where you are in relation to where you'd like to be at least once per month, perhaps on the first of the month so it's hard to forget. If you're disappointed about your progress, first of all, admit it! Then do something to address the situation. In light of the current factors in play, decide on a new timetable that seems challenging but possible. If you're stuck somewhere, do some research. Talk to someone you know who has applicable skills. Talk to an expert. Get help brainstorming from a group with diverse viewpoints. In short, reset and keep moving.
- Do something to address the emotions that have come up around what's happening or not happening. If you just let them sit there and fester, pressure will build and you'll be careening toward that grumpy-end-of-year situation, and worse, an unwillingness to persist for as long as it takes. What helps you to feel better? Do it!
- Hint: Exercise. Talk or write out your feelings. Allow yourself to mourn anything that's truly lost. Use Tapping/EFT to help you move through your emotions more comfortably, and regain balance and perspective.
- Not everything can be solved with more or harder work. We need to balance out our effort with play and restoration, which primes the pump of creativity and keeps us healthy. We need to breathe, laugh, and connect with others sometimes before we can solve intractable problems. We need sleep and nutritious food and plenty of water to be at our best. It's a lot to balance, to be sure. That's why improving your ability to greet each day with calm observation of what's happening before diving in is so important to constructing a productive response.
- Even if they're not what you envisioned, find ways to keep enjoying the seasons and their particular rewards. There's something deeply satisfying about marking the passage of time that affects us all if you allow yourself to appreciate them.
It's great to use a new year as inspiration for new projects, but keep in mind that rigidity around deadlines you have chosen out of preference will demoralize you. Letting yourself become rigid is the one mistake that causes more people to quit positive new habits than anything else. The most successful people build confidence through constant interaction with changing circumstances. The more you challenge yourself to keep coming back to the table with constant effort despite confusion and setbacks, the more capacity you build for solving problems and racking up accomplishments. No worthy goal comes into being without the completion of many actions and small milestones along the way. Most goals take much longer to finish than we'd like them to, and must adjust to disruptions that feel like attacks on our free will and our happiness. Life isn't easy, but we persist because refusing to try to improve our lives is no fun. It's sad, boring, and feels like a waste of time to live without direction, and who needs that? Whatever you are able to accomplish this week, this month, this year, celebrate it, and all you've learned and become as you brought it forth. This learning is just as important to your happiness and future success as the product you were able to create, and as you keep at it, you grow more skilled and efficient and creative, and life grows ever more fulfilling.
Your "Get Up and Go"
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
We all have chores and tasks we avoid until they’re absolutely necessary. These are usually either the ones we’re not good at, or the ones that for whatever reason are just the least fun to tackle. It can be agonizing to try to scrape together the motivation to confront them head on, and I was staring down the barrel of one of these recently, so I thought I’d share a few ideas for handling such things. Here are my suggestions:
· Remind yourself of why you’re going to do this task. How will you and others benefit from the results of it?
· Remember where it fits into the big picture of your larger goals. Will it make other tasks easier, or even make new things possible?
· Imagine having the results now. How will that feel? Will you be relieved? Excited about what comes next? Grateful to yourself for getting it done? Proud of yourself for your achievement and contribution? Euphoric that you don’t have to dread it anymore?
· Here’s a little secret for you: One of the most effective ways to motivate yourself is to learn to enjoy results before you’ve actually created them. This may seem impractical, but it’s actually just the opposite; indulging in this creates happy, enthusiastic feelings that you can use to go about your daily tasks with a better attitude, more enjoyment, and less resistance. It’s an invaluable skill that you will understand better the more you practice it
· Take note of which result, of the ones you imagined, most motivates you. Is it that your task will make things better for someone else? Is it your own future relief that makes you feel the best? Is it having others see and acknowledge your success that excites you? Knowing what tends to motivate you most reliably is truly empowering, because once you know, you can automatically prime yourself for action by imagining how great it will be to have that result whenever it's time to take action
· When you know you’ll be taking on something you resist, promise yourself a reward of some sort, if that helps you. It can be something as simple as allowing yourself some guilt-free time to enjoy what might normally be a guilty pleasure, like an embarrassingly terrible T.V. show. How about a nice long catch-up with a friend who you haven’t found time for lately? Whatever you can look forward to so that you keep your task moving ahead will fit the bill
Re-engaging your sense of purpose regarding your task is a powerful beginning. You deserve to have those happy results, so take a few minutes to connect with what’s important about getting this done. It’s so much more helpful to motivate yourself through anticipation than through attempting to guilt or bully yourself into action. Give it a try and see how it goes. You may have to repeat this a few times in order to really get yourself on board for something really difficult, but making this a daily habit is a good thing. I think you’ll find that the minutes you spend here will buoy your willingness to take on those more dreaded tasks in surprising and enjoyable ways.
Walking the High Wire
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
With an estimated 7.4 billion people on the planet in 2016, it can seem as though there can be nothing new under the sun, and yet new discoveries are made every day. New songs are written, paintings made, books completed, gizmos prototyped, with every passing day. Humans are a busy lot! This is possible because genetically, there has never been anyone identical to you in history. We’re all intrinsically unique, and with so many moving parts, both concrete and intangible—hopes and desires, likes and dislikes, talents and challenges; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual progress and happenings. Every day is a kaleidoscope of your interacting elements, which never cease to run through their individual cycles; yet those cycles are all timed differently, and rarely align in the same way because of the complexity of the model. To a certain extent, in trying to maintain our balance with all of our parts, we’re all trying to slog our way across a high wire bucking in a high wind.
One of the great challenges in life is that, because of our uniqueness, no one can create a formula for living that is perfect for more than one person. We can share our wins and losses with each other, and we can offer the wisdom we feel we’ve acquired, but sometimes others won’t even be able to hear the messages we’re sending let alone duplicate our successes and failures. We must all tinker with the models that have been passed down to us if our greatest possible success and happiness is what we’re after. And there’s a sort of catch-22 at play, in that we have to be in a reasonably balanced state in order to make good decisions for ourselves, but without making “good” decisions that suit our needs, it’s hard to find balance. We start by making decisions that others have told us are good, but whether they will suit our uniqueness and get us where we want to go is always the question.
When how we operate, or what we want, is sufficiently different from those around us, whether in one way or in many, we may feel particularly bewildered about what to do. Maintaining some semblance of balance is a lifelong endeavor, and there is no “done,” but it’s even harder when you’re young or when you’re striking out in new directions. Luckily, in this age of information, we have access to guidance from sources well outside our own communities, and that can be incredibly helpful in broadening our horizons. You still have to put advice into practice and try it out for yourself, and you need the patience to do this over time, as every day is different. For instance, sometimes your first attempt at something will be disastrous, but with practice you realize its merit. I once watched a fellow participant in a meditation class, a first-timer, have a full-on meltdown because she was so frightened by the prospect of confronting her internal world in silence. As soon as she tried to do it, she panicked and essentially ran screaming from the exercise. In this case, I don’t know whether she ever tried again, but I do know that many people who initially find meditation to be extremely challenging learn to love some form of it with experimentation and practice. And when I first tried EFT/Tapping, I was not even sure that I felt anything at all, but after several practice sessions, I became more and more astonished with its efficacy and usefulness. I just had to put it into practice and experiment with it for myself.
I wish I had all the answers and could make everything easier for everyone, but that’s a tall order! I’ll just have to offer some ideas here for constructing your own tool kit for navigating your own personal high wire:
· Start simply. Address your physical needs first: Eat the highest-quality food you can get your hands on, including plenty of vegetables and fruits grown with the fewest and least possible pesticides (poison to you and me); avoid refined sugars and other empty calories, in other words those foods lacking in nutrition; aim for 7+ hours of sleep per night, and try adjusting up and down to see what works best for you; get some form of exercise on a regular basis—find a way to move your body and sweat at least a little. These items form the basis of any life lived in some semblance of balance. You can’t skip them, nor can anyone who wants to remain alive in a physical body, so when you’re out of sorts, come back to these first, always.
· Ask yourself what your mental and emotional states are generally like, and spend some time noticing. Find daily practices that support healthy attitudes and emotional expression. I’ve written other blogs on these issues that you may want to check out, but in short, meditate, do affirmations about your values and your intentions, talk to supportive friends and family, write in a journal, read books about people who inspire you, use EFT or hypnosis recordings, attend meetings of like-minded others; adding a spiritual component to any of these is even better, whatever your tradition of choice might be.
· Take a look at the overall shape of your life. Are you doing work you like, are you making enough money to meet your needs, are your relationships supportive and satisfying, are there activities you look forward to experiencing when you wake up in the morning? When you answer no, think about baby steps you could take to move toward situations you’d like better. If you’re stuck, ask for help or find it in a library or online. Choose a small step to make and put your plan in motion. It’s ok if you can’t see the whole path to your destination. Just do something. Every time you make an attempt, you learn and grow.
· Do you feel a sense of purpose in life? If not, it will be hard to stay engaged in life, let alone feel inspired; look for clues in the things you loved to do as a child, in the achievements you feel best about as you think back over your life, and in the kinds of things that move you deeply in movies and books. If you suddenly had all the money in the world, and you had a year off to rest and travel and regroup, what do you think you could do all day and not get tired of? (This can take some serious imagination if you’re someone who has lived with a lot of obligations or who is chronically exhausted, but it can also be a lot of fun, and is worth trying.) You can start with a very basic idea like wanting to “help people,” “motivate others,” or “clean up messes,” and then think about your favorite skills to use to see what might be up your alley. If you love to cook, you might find that helping others could combine with that so that you envision starting a catering company that donates a percentage of meals to those in need. If you feel satisfied by cleaning up messes, and your favorite skills are in information technology, you might be able to work as a consultant to people and companies who need to get organized in the digital space. This can take effort to think through, but having a purpose that feels important and expressive of who you are is an essential component in maintaining your energy levels and your commitment to persisting in the face of difficulty, which we all face every day!
Creating and maintaining good functional balance is never going to be easy, especially in today’s fast-paced world, but if you yearn for a better life, this is unavoidable work. If you can become fascinated with the process of learning about what you need and what is key for you, that is the best solution. If you make some noticeable progress in your overall balance, your success stories will likely drive you as you continue learning and experimenting with new ideas. No one knows you as well as you know you, so trust your hunches, and try not to freak out if something you try goes badly. After all, every day is different. If you try the same thing on a different day, you might find that you get a different result. Keep reminding yourself that this is work that feeds everything you’re able to do and become, and it’s worth a great deal of effort. Over time, your ability to maintain balance will build naturally if you keep at it. Confused? Go back to basics, and as you do this repeatedly, you’ll build helpful habits that make greater flexibility and creativity possible. Celebrate your successes, learn from both success and failure, and just keep inching along that wire.
Red-Letter Days
“The way to stay inspired and motivated is by doing what you like, doing what you love.”
Sometimes, you just have a naturally amazing day. You wake up feeling rested and enthusiastic, the skies are sunny and blue, you make all the green lights without driving like a maniac, people return your smiles, and you have time to get everything done. Everything seems to hum along easily. It’s so lovely when this happens. But for all the days when it doesn’t, how to stay sane? In a crowded world, we cross paths with so many others, all on their own private missions, all the time. Sometimes there are crashes, whether physical or philosophical. We have to deal with numerous institutions, from governments to schools to businesses, that bring order to our world, but which we didn’t create and may not agree with. There are important people whose happiness we’re trying to contribute to every day. And there are just so many distractions competing for our attention!
I’ve come to think of the happy phenomenon described above as the result of the alignment of numerous factors, some of which are hard or impossible to predict. While you can’t force this experience of ease into being, there are certainly things you can do to make this experience more common. If you’re serious about creating more instances of it, here are some areas to check in on:
· With what foods and liquids are you fueling your body? If your nutrition is not good, and if you’re not properly hydrated, you will start to crumble, both physically and mentally. You can’t be productive if you’re crashing throughout the day because your body is missing essential elements that it needs to function. You need high-quality protein, healthy fats, and lots of fruits and vegetables. You also need more water than you think you do.
· How much sleep are you getting, and is it deep and restful? So many important things are meant to happen when you sleep. If you’re consistently getting less than seven hours per night of high-quality sleep, you’re running on empty. You will have a much harder time with mental focus, and you’re far more likely to be emotionally volatile; your body will feel less coordinated and heavier. Some people need more than seven hours, so if you feel the need to sleep late on days off, try bumping up your sleep time routinely and see how many hours it takes per night before you stop needing that “catch up” time. In addition to sleep, we also need some rest time when we’re not running, doing, or worrying. Hobbies and creative pursuits, reading, time with friends, and other fun, relaxing activities can fall into this category. If you don’t allow yourself any of this kind of time, you’ll have a hard time enjoying your life at all.
· How much exercise are you getting? Moving your physical body both strengthens your fitness and creates happiness chemicals known as endorphins (which can enhance mood for many people just as well as the most powerful pharmaceuticals tailored for this purpose). Exercise has so many benefits for your body and your outlook that it must be considered an essential element in your daily routine. Be smart and check with your medical professional before you make any substantial changes in your health regimen, but do find an activity you can do and work it into your life. Not immediately, but with continued application, you will create more energy than you use this way.
· What gives your life meaning and purpose? Are there things that get you out of bed in the morning because you genuinely want to do them on a deep level? These can be anything really as long as you feel like you’ve chosen to give them an important place in your life and they’re important to you—learning to play an instrument whose sound you’ve always loved, caring for an aging relative, writing a book, climbing a mountain, solving a problem in your community—just something that fires you up when you think about it or makes you feel satisfied when you do it. If you don’t have anything like this drawing you forward, you’re leaving a major source of energy and joy on the table.
· What really inspires you? A particular style of music or a particular composer or recording artist? Movies with heroic themes, well-written novels, beautifully performed theatre, Olympic or other professional sports, the beauty of the natural world, your pet, etc.? When you figure out answers to this, do your best to bring these things into your experience on a regular basis. These things will also create more energy and enthusiasm for you.
· What just annoys the heck out of you? And how can you minimize the impact of these things on your life? Maybe you need to be careful not to spend too much time around the more negative people you know. Maybe you need to wear earplugs when you have to be somewhere really loud. Maybe you can brainstorm about how to spend less time commuting. You get my drift. Sometimes small adjustments can yield a lot of relief.
· What are you doing as a calming daily practice for your mind, emotions and spirit? If you want to have more days when you sail through life with joy and ease, you can’t skip this one, even though it can be hard to carve out the time for it. Find one thing or several things that can occupy this function for you, and prioritize doing one of them every day. Write in a journal, meditate, pray, use EFT/Tapping, spend a few minutes every day thinking about what you’re grateful for, walk mindfully, breathe deeply, or do something else that is calming, relaxing, and that helps you to feel centered and reassured. When you’re attending to your own needs, it’s far easier to be generous and understanding with others.
If some of these suggestions seem annoyingly familiar, as though they’ve come directly from the desk of Captain Obvious, that is most likely because these are some of the most important things we can do as humans to increase the likelihood that we will function well and happily as we go about the business of being alive, and they don’t change over time. When you’re handling these basics, you’re helping yourself to have a far better daily experience, and you’re also far more able to contribute positively to the world around you. It’s a life’s work to become a pro at balancing all this, but you’re probably already good at some of them. Pick one where you know you could do better and start trying new things, and then rinse and repeat!