The Fog of Happiness
Photo by Rory Björkman on Unsplash
“Am I happy?” Take a moment to ponder on that question. Did you respond with a “Yes”, “No”, or a vague “It depends”?
“Am I happy?” is an oft-asked self-reflection question that we surprisingly do not always have a simple answer to. Your answer on a Monday afternoon after a series of tough project meetings could be different from the one when you are ready to wind down for the weekend after a very productive week. The answer can also change depending on who is asking. If your partner poses this question, you may be inclined to answer with a “Yes” compared to when your coach or therapist brings this up in a session. Most often than not, we do not know how to answer the question without a lot of caveats. Things may seem good in your life but there is this constant hum of a nagging feeling that you cannot shake off. A feeling of euphoria is juxtaposed with the depths of fear of losing that euphoria. Fleeting emotions play havoc throughout the day and happiness keeps changing like the needle on a fickle scale.
So, how should we answer this question? One ostensible way is to hold on to a very loose definition of happiness which pivots between feeling good and not so good. However, since negative feelings are overpowering, we may end up not feeling good most of the time and hence conclude that we are generally not happy. The other issue with this approach is that we could vacillate between the two extremes so frequently that any feelings of happiness are fleeting.
What if we morph the question to “What makes me feel good?”? Can this question cut through the fog of happiness and identify specific experiences that contribute to us feeling good? Turns out it can!
Within the fog of happiness, the specifics of what makes us feel good might vary. However, they broadly fall into these categories.
Joys that you can experience today
What can you enjoy today with minimal effort? What has life given you that you can relish for free? What is available in abundance?
Some that fall in this category:
Enjoying a breath of fresh air
Laughing at a joke
Being enthralled by a book
A delicious meal
Enjoying a great movie
These are experiences and material pleasures that you can enjoy effortlessly. There is no struggle. You’re also not in competition with anybody else to enjoy these. It is not a zero-sum game.
Events that you can be thankful for
This is a reminder that fate has been kind to you often. These could be advantages that you carry or lucky near-misses from a catastrophe.
Some examples:
Making it to your flight just before the gates closed
Narrowly missing an accident on your commute to work
Catching that serious error before you file your taxes
Noticing you forgot the laptop charger just before leaving for a business trip.
Being prone to a negativity bias, we recall the negative outcomes but rarely remember the positive ones let alone the ones where we narrowly missed a negative outcome. However, research shows that being thankful does make one feel good. Hence, deliberately recalling these events of near-misses and being thankful for them can further contribute to your good feelings.
Challenges that excite you
Finally, there is the excitement of a challenge! Things that you can attempt by putting in the effort, outsmarting the competition, strategizing, and executing.
Some examples:
Nabbing the job that you always wanted
Winning that tough deal after weeks of negotiations
A bet on your business paying off
Winning a competition
The reality about excitement is that it often carries a level of stress in trying to achieve it. What if your bet on the business strategy fails? What if you don’t get the job you wanted? What if you lose a bid on a house? When you attempt moments of excitement, you are also signing up to take on some stress if things don’t go your way.
The interesting thing is that we spend most of our lives chasing accomplishments and striving for success and the outcomes shape our definition of happiness. So, the last one among the three above takes a lion’s share of our perceived experience of happiness. However, as we see above, it is only one part of what constitutes our happiness. Let’s not minimize the role of the other two just because they are effortless to achieve and not as cool as the ones that bring excitement.
So, here’s a three-part strategy to infuse your life with good feelings. Each one is equally weighted and one is not more important than the other:
Savor everything that you can enjoy today (Did you notice the birds chirping today?)
Be in gratitude for the things you have been lucky with (It’s Monday morning but you can work from home!)
Try for a little excitement (Try for that public speaking opportunity)
Wanting to be happy may not always be actionable. However, there is a lot more that you’ll find if you go digging and cut through your fog of happiness.
How Do You Distract Yourself From Anxiety?
Photo by Lane Smith on Unsplash
Let’s look at it a bit differently.
It is not anxiety and fear that can hold you back or motivate you. It is the interpretation of anxiety and fear that can have an effect. Hence, if you interpret anxiety and fear as positive then you can use it to motivate you.
Now, how do you interpret it positively? Isn’t anxiety and fear all bad? That’s what you are probably wondering. Well, every progress in the world has its roots in anxiety and fear. When Thomas Edison went about burning 5000 bulbs till he got it right, it was his anxiety that carried him forward. Anxious to know what would work and why the current one didn’t work. If he didn’t care enough, he would have just given up. When you are called for an interview, it is your anxiety that lets you be alert and prepare well. If it wasn’t for that, you would just do a mediocre preparation. So, you interpret anxiety as something that is needed to push us forward.
Now, let’s talk about fear. Our fight or flight response system is rooted in fear. It is to alert us to be watchful. As Andrew Grove from Intel said - “Only the paranoid survive”. Fear is needed to be dissatisfied with the current state so that you want to make a change. Without fear, we would just be “ok” with the way things are.
There you go, reframe anxiety and fear as positive and this reframing will let you use it to motivate you. Once that happens, you will find that you don’t need to distract yourself from anxiety.
So What?
When I coach clients, they often tell me that even with the best intentions and plans, a string of negative thoughts often blocks them from making any progress. One of my recommendations to them is that they follow what I call the ’So What?’ approach - best illustrated with an example.
Let’s say that you have an interview coming up and you’re dreading it since your last one wasn’t that great. Now, your mind goes, “Oh god! This interview is going to be a disaster! I have 5 back to back interviewers and they’re gonna grill me. Last time, I fumbled and could not pick myself up again." These thoughts put you in a negative spiral and you are now fighting the negativity rather than focusing on the interview.
So, what should you do? Rather than going down this spiral, when the first thought hits you, you should just counter with ‘So what?’. Keep doing that for the next thought and the next and the next.
Thought: Oh god! This interview is going to be really tough. There are these five interviewers and they’ll grill me. Last time, I fumbled and could not pick myself up again
You: So what?
Thought: If I don’t do well, I won’t get the job
You: So what?
Thought: If I don’t get the job, I will have to apply to another one
You: So what?
Thought: I’ll have to start the process all over again
You: So what?
Thought:Hmm…(trying to figure out the next question)
This process questions some of the basic assumptions that involuntarily drive our thoughts. Assumptions that often go unchallenged since the mind is in a rush to make conclusions. By asking ‘So What?’, this process is slowed down and it forces our brain to question those assumptions. Things which earlier looked really bad do not look all that bad anymore and those which looked good looks even better! Every time you say ‘So what?’, the energy in the thought reduces and YOU are more in control.
After a few successions of ’So what?’, you will realize that the stakes are not as high as you thought it was. That feeling puts you at calm and you can now focus on winning the situation rather than fighting the negative thoughts.
Try it today. If you don’t, so what?