How to Create Enduring Happiness

This is going to be a conversation about overall life happiness, not just like in the moment, you know, happiness. Because in the moment of happiness, I mean, we can all kind of get that bottle of wine, bag of chips, maybe just me, but I think, you know, finding pleasure or joy or in the moment happiness, we can get there. We'll talk about that a little bit. But I want to talk about the big picture. How do we know what will give you enduring happiness? Happiness that you'll self report throughout your lifespan that, yeah, I have a happy life. It's different than sometimes just in the moment happiness. It has to last longer. And so what psychologists have done is basically broken it up and said, you know, people who are happy over the long term, they tend to look at their lives in very specific ways. And here's how they tend to do it. They tend to break up their life. They look at their past, they're happy with their past, they're happy with their present, and they're happy with where they're going. So they kind of break it up into time zones, right? Past, present and future. And here's what we found in each of those areas. If you look at your past in this specific way, you'll be more happy. If you look at your present in this specific way, you'll be happier. And if you look at your future in this specific way, you'll be happier over the long term. So let's start with your past. Okay? Most people who are unhappy over the quality of their life over the long term, it's because something in the past, they're really hung up on it. They consistently battle it, blame it, are angry about it, are bitter against it. And those who are happy, they don't have that negative emotional range about their entire past. It's not to say that there might not be some things in the past that you can't be unhappy about or some things that happened that you were upset about because you know what happened to all of us. But those who make it out and have a joyful life, here's what they tend to do. When they look to the past, the first thing they tend to do is accept it. They're like, the past is the past, it did pass, and here we are today. They don't make everything okay. They don't try to validate it. They don't try to say, well, that was supposed to happen. They just go, I got it. The past happened. I have to accept what happened because I can't change it now. I can change how I perceive it, but Things happened. I'm going to accept that the past happened for some type of reason, or if anything, maybe I don't ascribe a higher reason to it, but I'm going to say in general, I'm good with the past. It happened. Today's a new day. And they accept the reality that that time period, that situation, that person, that thing that they didn't like, it's not here anymore. So they can't keep living there. They have to accept that today is today. All of that is gone. Today they can choose a different life, as we'll talk about. So they accept the past. But here's the thing. They go beyond just acceptance. And this is really important because I think people forget this all the time. It's not just about, like, accepting the past. Okay, that's fine. No, happy people, they generate memories of fondness on a continual basis. They relive the past. Not the negative things, but the positive memories. They think about it, honey, you remember that one vacation we took? And they talk about it today. Hey, do you remember when you were a kid and that funny thing happened? And they relive the positive. They have. Happy people have a sense of nostalgia about the positive things of the past. And they remember that, and their connection to that is more than towards the negative things. And so here's a question to see if you're happy with your family, with your friends, those around you, are you often reliving positive memories? They tell positive, nostalgic stories about the past without apology. They're not living there. They're not trying to go back and relive the glory days. They're just honoring and appreciating that those days even happened for them. They have a deep sense of fondness and, yes, gratitude to the beautiful moments and memories and people and experiences they got to have. And so I know that might sound almost too easy to say because maybe in the past you went through some traumatic stuff, some very difficult moments happened, but by and large, if you can finally get to a point where today you go, okay, I don't have to be cool with everything that happened, but I accept the past. I'm cool. It's over. I am cool today. And I like these little moments. And I'm going to choose to focus and remember those and bring them up to people, talk about those things, then I'll feel better about the past. And if you feel better about the past, you have a more solid foundation and a much easier time finding happiness today. Today. If you want to feel happy today, there's two things we know without question will get you to higher levels of happiness. Number one, connection. Connection, that is you deciding to connect the moment. That means being present and connecting to other people. You know, they've done a lot of those end of life studies to see what makes people happy. And you see over and over and over again it's the quality of their relationships. And so if you want to be happy today, put more emotional connection into your relationships. And I say that not philosophically. I mean, like, have that intention. Like, I'm going to put good energy into this relationship today. I'm gonna put good energy in my kid today. Even if they were a jerk yesterday, I accept it. Kind of cute today. I'm gonna just put good energy, good vibes into this relationship today. Because if I do that, I'll feel better. If you're doing work and you don't even like the work, but at least you'll engage with it. You'll connect to the work. Like, you'll force yourself to be there, be present, be in it. You'll feel happier. The second thing today that you can do is so easy. Increase your appreciation. Almost in every psychological study ever done, those who had more gratitude reported greater happiness. The way that you get gratitude is you appreciate things. So let's just jump right to that. Start appreciating things better. Appreciate your house today, you know, appreciate that maybe you got a car. Appreciate that you had somebody in the house with you today who loved you. Or appreciate the fact that, that you have opportunities that all around the world people would just beg for that billions of people don't have the opportunities that you do. I know we're all in a big rush. I'm guilty sometimes too of going through things as fast as I can because I got one thing I got to go on another thing, another thing. But you know what I found? I'm most unhappy in life when that's what I'm doing. I'm just going on one thing. To the next thing, to the next thing, to next thing and the next thing and not feeling what I'm doing, not really connecting it and not appreciating it. Like right now. I shared with you earlier, as I'm filming this course, I'm writing a book. And there's days when I'm miserable about the book. And those days I'm miserable about the book are those days that I forget to connect with the material. And worse, I forget to appreciate the fact that I have the blessing to get to work on a book. I forget to Appreciate how far I've come as a writer. I forget to appreciate the time that my team has set up to protect my ability to write. I forget to appreciate that God has given me a voice and I get to share that. And so I share with you that the most important thing you can do today, like, stop thinking that stuff will give you happiness. Stop thinking that you'll achieve something today that will give you happiness. The only thing that's going to give you happiness today, connection, appreciation. So connect to the moment, connect to other people by putting positive energy. Remember, bring the joy. And then appreciate the little things, all the little goofy things throughout the day. Appreciate the opportunities that you have. You'll start to feel much happier. I promise you. Those are easy, quick wins in the moment. And then what we know for people who have the highest ranking of happiness, they look to the future in a unique way. And there's two elements there that they're usually looking towards. One, they're enthusiastic about something in the future. They're not optimistic. Optimistic would mean, you know, I believe stuff in general from today will turn out well. I believe that tomorrow is going to be good. Happy people are enthusiastic about something specific tomorrow or in the future. Very specific. They like. They're enthusiastic about getting to do that project or complete that project. They're enthusiastic about that wedding coming up. They're enthusiastic about that thing going to come out. There's something they look for. It's very specific. It's not a general optimism, though, that also has been shown very, very high in correlation to happiness, one of the highest rankings, being optimistic, thinking things will turn out well. But really happy people, when they talk about the future, there's something specific they're excited about. So I ask you, what could you be excited about for tomorrow? What's hanging out there that you haven't allowed yourself to believe in and get stirred up about? Because, you know, we're so scared of being disappointed that we destroy our happiness. We say, I don't want to get enthusiastic because it might not go well. And so we cage ourselves in into an unsatisfying life. If you want to be happy again, you have to open yourself again to the idea that things can be great. You got to open yourself again to that hope, that optimism. You got to open up yourself again to the possibility, yeah, you might be disappointed. But here's the thing I always tell people. What would you rather experience a life in which you don't do anything and you never look forward to anything because you're scared of disappointment, which by the way means you are continually living in disappointment. Or you say, you know what, I look forward that I think that could happen, I'm going to go for it. You do take action, but at least if you do get disappointed, the whole time you are taking action, you are developing competency, knowledge, skill, ability, talent, mastery. So even if you got disappointed, you know what the disappointment came as? It came at the very end as a sudden surprise. I'd rather have disappointment come at the very end as a sudden surprise than every single day of fear and disappointment and living in that terror that I'm going to be disappointed and doing nothing with myself. Don't know about you, but that's how I feel. So first, enthusiasm for a situation, something specific, it's so important. And then that next part about looking to the future is they have a sense of positive legacy they have made up in their mind. And that's all they've done. They've made it up. Because you, you and I, we can't read the future. We have no idea. But they've made up in their mind this story about their life having meaning and specifically a legacy. They see, looking into the future, they can see the legacy of their children. They can see the legacy of their business. They can see the legacy of the love that they created. They can see something. They can see that they are going to leave some type of mark or some type of relationship or some type of situation where the world is better because they tried, because they showed up. And maybe you don't know what your legacy is, but you know what? You're never going to suddenly realize it's not just going to happen happen. You have to make it up. So if you're not happy today, start making up stories about what you can be excited about tomorrow and about what mark you might leave. The difference you might leave. Even if you don't know exactly what it is, you don't have to have precision about these things. But in general, when you cast your eyes into the future, you go, mm, that's gonna be good. Hey, y', all, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, would you please smash that subscribe button and and also post any questions you have down below because it's these questions that you're all asking that inspires these episodes. I'd love to hear what you think about it. Also, if you would love to join us on our next upcoming live training. We call it our high performance experience coaching program. If you like some coaching and have some perspective and get some two hours of live with me every single month. Then click the link in the post down below so you can join us in HPX Coaching. I'd love to give you some more strategies, more insight, and more interaction to help you reach your next level of success. Until next time. Again, please subscribe Share this video with anybody who could be inspired by it today. And thanks one more time for being part of my community.