Lasting Happiness

The pursuit of happiness may not, for some, be an obvious focus of a business blog.  After all, the psychologists often refer to the constant lack of happiness and satisfaction as being a characteristic driving force of entrepreneurial spirits.  Equally, entrepreneurs are not known for failing to commit to an idea.  Indeed they often commit so well that their failures are legion and titanic.  Their chances of significance through action despite fears (see my previous post "insignificant") are rarely hindered.

Optimists outsell by 20+ times

For me, though, there is something powerful to learn from some of the traits of happiness.  You only need to read a bit of the research on it to realise that working on happiness can create resilience, enthusiasm, motivation; all great characteristics for the hard knocks world of business.  Dr Martin Seligman, psychologist and leader of the positive psychology approach, also points to the wellness benefits of lasting happiness.  I think it goes like this; just because you are relatively happy does not mean you will live longer, but on average happier people appear to lead longer lives.  There appears to be a strong impact of a positive mental state on health.  Shocker!


We all seek happiness for our clients.  We help them move away from problems, we help them gain advantage, we work hard to ensure they love the service and if it goes wrong deal with complaints positively and quickly.  Intuitively we work for the happiness of our clients.   The same advantages must therefore accrue to ourselves.  Another persuader about giving the present happiness debate serious consideration is this:  unless you know how to be happy, how can you truly bring happiness to those around you: clients, team, family and friends?  And why should any group be treated differently?


Seligman gives some great guidance in his book "Authentic Happiness", and on the linked website www.authentichappiness.com, on how to work on personal happiness, and unless you are ranking yourself right up there at a 10 as you read my note, its certainly worth having a look at this.

Here are some of my favourite personal tips:

1. Use dreaming to find your happiness cuesRemembering times when you were at your most happy can give you important clues specifically as to what it is that makes you happiest.  
2. Power and actionRange of freedom to act is relative, some have more, some less.  All of us have some range, but not all care to believe so or to use it.  Take your power, such as it is, and like Andy in "Shawshank Redemption": become proactive in your own interests.
3. Authenticity
   This is the last thing some of you will think of for happiness.  "What?  Be the real me?  You are joking!"  Fair enough.  We all have capacity to learn and grow.  What I mean here is that if you spend most of your time doing things that are not the real you, running a life that doesn't suit you, that very difference will be a strain.  Returning to the real you as much as you can, will raise your happiness levels.
4. Accept yourself
   Kind of related to 3 but not the same, this point is about acceptance and is very tough but thoroughly cathartic.  You are who and what you are and you are doing your best given your knowledge and circumstances.  You always have!  Sure you can learn, and you are learning.  Accept your past, your failures and successes, your physical and mental shape and STOP judging yourself so harshly.  Think of all the things you are unhappy about with yourself.  What a great deal of energy you spend on these.  Let go of them, and give yourself a break!  It won't stop you striving but it will allow you to choose to improve (or not) rather than it being an obligation.
5. Nurture your hopefulness
   This final thought is fundamentally connected to the idea of freedom of action, because hopefulness is such an enabling state of mind.  Hopefulness allows possibility.  Possibility creates motivation.  Motivation can lead to action.  Action creates outcomes.  Action is possibility into creation.  As you create, your freedom of action is increased.

I hope you find these interesting to ponder.  A little more detail on the dreaming point.  Here's how to do it as an end note to my blog.

Dreaming to find your happiness cues

Happiness is a surprising state.  Sometimes it sneaks up on us unexpectedly and we suddenly realise, "Wow, I had a great time today."  Then back to normal life!  


Pick three occasions like this and dream yourself back into them fully.  Go right back in your mind, and re-experience the whole thing; the colours, the people, the smells, the energy.  For each one, when you are done, write down (use a mindmap!) all the features you can recall and compare each statement.  Look for the common features.  Then check: are these normally present when you are at your happiest?  With luck you've found 3 or 4 attributes you are exhibiting, people or experiences that are present for you that are key to your personal happy state, and to look for and use in the future.


I'd love to hear some feedback on this rather creative and intuitive coaching tool.  When you have them it is simple enough to run through a mental checklist of other happier times and see if these items were also present.  If you can do it, it is now a matter of your choice as to whether you incorporate them (at least to some degree) other walks of your life.  Try it.  If it works even a little for you you will be encouraged to do it more and everyone you influence will benefit from your renewed and enriched contentment.

Insignificance

Looking around at the world, consciousness on some level appears to be innate; most living things interact, respond to feedback, have some level of awareness applied to a self and non-self.  Even the planet appears to have a sensitive feedback response system.   Yet when gazing at interstellar objects, the effects of awareness are hard to see.

A meteor has no thought for its trajectory, smashing into whatever lies in its pathway with unthinking force.  Some interactions are at full force and both objects forever changed, some are weak and not much moves.

unhindered potential

The nearest analogy to every day life I can think of is the moment you whack into an open cupboard door (standing up into it seems to be the worst).  Because you don't see the obstruction, there is no thought in your head to hold back the power and soften the blow.  You stand "through it" and the hit is immense, painful, dangerous; it sends you spinning.

People and ideas change us forever

Some people and ideas are like that too.  You probably only need to pause for a second to be able to think of a few people or ideas that sent you spinning on a new course.  Perhaps it was the ideas that those people brought to you.
These entanglements are significant for us.  They can be destructive of past ways, past structures, but even then there is a positivity to them, as they often help us break from things that have become stuck and release the next phase of our short lives.   Characterised by the strength and openness of the interaction, a willingness to speak freely and honestly, whether painful or not, and by strong emotion; whether they then stay with us or not, our lives are forever changed and at some level we are always connected through our histories.


Why are some people like this?   What is it about the entanglement that makes such a difference?

A colleague in our strategy team was with a couple of clients, talking about shared futures, about significant things.  She was a delighted suddenly to hear one say to the other "Ten years ago you sold x side of the business. You know it seems stupid that I have never said this, but why did you do that?"  Ten years of inhibition.  A "why" that was hidden but not lost.   Finally surfacing into the light it can be explored and answered and potential for change arises.  Who knows what happens next, but until that moment of disclosure, change was not possible.

There are many reasons why your "truths" stay hidden inside you.  Only you can know.

Hidden secrets sap energy

Sometimes you hide them from yourself - ignoring that nailed down box of secrets, not even pretending it's not down there - it's just so well hidden that you don't even see it yourself.

Sometimes you know there is something amiss, but it's a mess of feelings and pictures and really hard to put it into words.  It can feel overwhelming, at times, and some are overwhelmed with anxieties and frustrations almost "leaking" out, often over odd and small things.

With a sense of safety and acceptance, both of these stages can be worked through.  But even then, saying in words to yourself a deep and significant truth, that you are hiding from, is a hard thing to do.

Saying it out loud.  Now that's a toughie.  Even on your own in the car with the music right up!  Try it.

Saying it to the right people, without "losing it", in the right way?  No way!  Right?

The problem is, with hidden truths, unspoken fears and unframed anxieties, held fearfully or even unconsciously we lack significance.

Unlike the travelling meteor, arching freely across the skies, living with joy and potential, this process of inhibiting is contagious and all sorts of things are also held back.  Its like, because something has to be said but is locked in, many things get locked up with it, and not even the easy stuff can be said because that way leads to the locked box.

Think about it.  Are you conscious that your fears of disclosure or of pain hold back your power when you need it?   Rather than going for a goal ahead of your end line, bursting through the barrier with all the energy of a mile still to go, you slow up as you approach the key moment, all too conscious of the risks.  Literally all too self conscious so that you self-inhibit and take your power off at the moment it is needed?

Consciousness is such a wonderful energy, faculty, power.  Refined consciousness in humans is seen in many forms - and empathy is one of them, the appreciation for the feelings of others, care for how we affect them.

However, it can also hold back the real you.   Take some time this week and consider all your relating and your relationships, all your roles, all your goals.  Mentally mark up those where you are marking time.   What is it that you need to admit and forgive yourself for?  What needs to be expressed?  What inhibition must you now release to regain your power and move on with living?

My point in this blog is not to encourage a dangerous freedom, nor to a follow any particular polemic.  I have noticed in myself over the years that my desire to lead and to speak has been every day inhibited mainly by stuff which could be dealt with or which was plain nonsense when I worked it through and took the plunge.

My point therefore, is just to say that a life of greater significance is a choice that you have.   The connections may not seem obvious and logical, but by not exploring what is unexpressed and what seems at times inexpressible, are you choosing a less significant life?

It feels right here to finish by saying that when at my best, when I hit my stride, or my "line and length", I am rarely self-conscious.  I need my self-consciousness to point out risks, dangers and be wary of the needs of others.   I have to ensure self-consciousness is "on" for the right reasons, and to check, when it taps me on the shoulder, that it has spotted a genuine risk and not just a ghost.