To improve happiness, first find yourself unhappy

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

In order to find happiness, unhappiness needs to get documented.

This may not make sense at first, but this is one of the first exercises I recommend my coaching clients complete.

It sounds easy, but it’s definitely more difficult to do than it seems.

It is beneficial to isolate the points during one’s day that make unhappiness flare up.

The difficulty is recognizing all of them by writing them down.

It is often difficult to admit the number of occasions that one is outwardly expressing unhappiness or inwardly just feeling unhappy.

The points and issues that are documented are only a starting place. One must sort through the listed items to ferret out a cause or a symptom.

A commute that generates road rage could be due to a job that one feels stuck in, or perhaps just a tight morning schedule getting kids to school and other morning obligations completed.

Download and use the free Unhappiness Journal worksheet right now. Print these and use them to learn more about your day.

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Highs and lows within the same day

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

I just got back inside from burying my 10 y/o son’s hamster in the backyard.

It was running around in its little ball one minute, dead the next.

It was just the latest example of a concept that I’ve been studying which is the fleeting nature of happiness.

The key question is, “How is happiness defined?”

Is happiness defined as the number of minutes during a day that one thinks happy thoughts? Are you supposed to run around with a goofy smile on your face? How about putting one of those yellow foam golf ball sized smiley faces on your car antenna? (I really don’t like those). Are the number of happy thought supposed to exceed the number of sad thoughts? Who has time to count this stuff?

Happiness exists on many levels and in multiple facets of one’s life at the same time. It comes and goes, sometimes within a very short period of time.

I was writing this article about happiness highs and lows within the same day when the hamster died.

Yesterday evening, my 10 y/o son had a whopper of a birthday celebration at a new local bowling alley and fun center. For 3.5 hours my son had a blast with his friends.

Right after that we had a funeral wake to go to for a family friend who lost their mother at age 80 something. At the wake, probably because we had never met the deceased, we actually had a fairly nice time visiting with our family friend’s extended family.

So there we were, with a deceased old lady laying in state in an open casket and we had a nice visit. But as an event to go to immediately following a 3.5 hour all out kid party pallooza, it was a weird succession of events.

My wife and I rent RV’s in Atlanta, Georgia. On Saturday morning we dropped off our camper in fine shape at a parking lot across from the Georgia Dome for the Alabama vs. Clemson college football game. We were happy to teach the tailgate rv renter how to use the RV and we were of course happy to make another rental sale. We always enjoy watching grown people embark upon an RV trip, even if it’s just tailgating.

On Sunday morning we picked up the RV and it looked like a bomb went off in it. Ok, not that bad perhaps but to us, with our newest RV in our fleet, we were “not happy”.

These are several examples in my life within about a 48 hour span. I’m certain that this is not a phenomena unique to me.

And the goal is to flex and just go with the flow and not be knocked completely down from the lows nor perhaps to be entirely giddy about the highs, either. Just seeing that this is what life brings us. And how we choose to experience the buffeting winds is a major factor in how much happiness we experience.

Happiness comes and goes. It’s an unbelievable factor in our daily lives and I want to master it.

Tags: Happiness observations
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I’m unhappy that there is so much information about being happy I can’t get through it all.

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

Have you noticed that the subject of happiness, the pursuit of happiness, the elusive nature of happiness, and the relationship of happiness to money is talked about so much, it’s difficult to digest?

Anyone else drowning in a  pool of information and opinions?

It’s ironically upsetting.

It’s like being shown a great big piece of chocolate cake through a glass window that you can’t get through

This is why I believe it’s necessary to have happiness classes.

I’m going to boil it down into quick lessons so that the subject of increasing your own happiness level becomes actionable. You will have some takeaways to improve your chances of having a good day.

Because as we all know, every day is a good day. If you’re able to read the Obit’s in the newspaper, you ain’t in ‘em. And that’s at the very least a better start than those folks in the newspaper, wouldn’t you say?

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I can’t do caffiene anymore

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

I’m in Georgia. Home of syrupy sweet tea. I swear it’s one of the reasons I moved here.

But I’ve noticed that I become markedly irritable after drinking sweet tea, especially at night.

Between the sugar and the caffeine I’m setting myself up for a problem.

It’s so dang good though. I can’t seem to place my cup under the Diet Coke fountain - and that has caffiene too. The lemonade option at most soda fountains kills me. It says “0% fruit juice”. So why call it lemonade?

I’m trying hard just to drink water. Which is downright boring.

But in order to not be an irritable Father and Husband, I need to drink water.

Am I just getting old? Or just more self-aware? Both?

Is this a good thing?

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