Tag: Happierness

Don’t Call It Mental Health

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Relationships, Success

It seems that the idea of mental health permeates Western culture as a requirement of wellbeing and a keen focus for employers and self-help gurus alike. The problem with the term and idea of mental health is that it is innately something that you have or you don’t. To feel that we don’t have it makes us feel that our life and mental state is below par and, therefore, less worthy than those who have it. It can make us feel that we are not enough.

I agree with Simon Sinek that a better term is ‘mental fitness’. It better describes the gradient upon which mental wellness sits. It becomes a scale and a skill to improve. It opens up the idea of working towards mental wellbeing one step at a time, much like building up strength or stamina. It implies a journey and not a binary situation where you have it or not. It allows for bad days and good days and avoids the self degradation that befalls those who do not feel mentally well. This includes those who have experienced war, as a soldier and a civilian.

Beliefs Are More Important Than Goals

The Pathway To Fulfilment

I’m currently reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’m only part way through the book but the book makes a good argument why goals do not help with continuous improvement but systems do. The standout idea so far is the way in which we think of habits: “Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.”

When changing our habits we can look at outcomes, processes or identity. “Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.” The most effective way is to see yourself as the kind of person you make the desired improvement or is doing the desired productivity or activity, to believe it. A great example in the book is this:

“Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first person says, “No thanks. I’m trying to quit.” It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still believes they are a smoker who is trying to be something else. They are hoping their behavior will change while carrying around the same beliefs.

The second person declines by saying, “No thanks. I’m not a smoker.” It’s a small difference, but this statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone who smokes.”

I guess it is all about mindset. Believe you are the kind of person who will achieve the goals that you want to achieve and your behaviour will reflect that belief. The results will then follow.

Build The Life You Want

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Leadership, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I recently watched an interview at Harvard with Oprah Winfrey and Arthur Brooks where they were discussing the book that they wrote together called Build The Life You Want. This book is on my to do list of books to read, but they covered the essentials of it in this interview. You can watch the video by following this link, but here are the essentials.

Happiness has three elements.

  • Enjoyment (not pleasure)
  • Meaning or purpose
  • Satisfaction

Enjoyment is pleasure plus people and memory. You must spend time with other people and make memories together to experience enjoyment. Also, you cannot keep satisfaction through acquiring things. There is an equation, however, for lasting satisfaction. Lasting satisfaction equals all the things you have divided by all the things you want. If you reduce the things that you want you increase lasting satisfaction.

Faith is believing that there is something larger than yourself. This could be God, nature, the universe, etc. The point is that you are not the centre of your universe.

As well as the elements of happiness that are mentioned above, there are institutions in your life that all need your attention to be happier. They are like a pension fund where you have to deposit in all of them to reap the rewards of feeling happier further down the road. These institutions are:

  • Family
  • Friends
  • Faith
  • Work that serves others

It is important not to think of happiness as a destination, but to aim for happierness. To be happier than you are now. It is a shift in state by ensuring that you focus on all four institutions.

When good things happen to you or bad things happen to you a good practice is to think, how can I use this in the service of others? This will mean that the bad things and the good things have purpose and you have control over what you do with what you get.

It is good to do small things with great love. Don’t always focus on having a big impact or making a big change. Doing small things with great love will, in the end, have more of an impact. After all greatness is determined by service to others.

Social media is the junk food of social life. There is no substitute for being in the same room as someone and being able to look them in the eye. This human to human interaction will give you more of the feel good hormones and will build stronger relationships. Interacting through screens is not the same.

Finally, your legacy is not some great thing that you leave behind, it is every life that you touch.