Self-Management Tools

Successful People are Happy People
If you want to be happy, then strive to live a successful life. Most people use the word, success, like they know what it means. But I'm not sure they do. When I first started thinking about success, my first definition was "setting goals and achieving them". Finally, I decided to check the dictionary for a more professional definition of success: "something that turns out well".

I was not complete satisfied with either of these definitions. I was looking for a definition that included the key variables that, if applied towards a goal, would allow a person to achieve success. So, after some thought, here's my new definition of success, which just happens to like itself to happiness as one possible portal. . :

"Success = Achievement of an important goal through deliberate action taken against resistance."

The important ingredients in the above definition of success are the following:
1. A personally defined, non-trivial goal (important goal).
2. Some element of effort or challenge required beyond the ordinary to achieve it (action taken against resistance).
3. The goal can only be achieve by personally direction actions (deliberate action).
4. The goal is achieved to some level of satisfaction (achievement).

Now to answer the "so what" question. This definition is important, because it allows a person to plan in advance worthwhile goals and increase their chances of achieve them. So, what can one do to ensure their own success? Follow this prescription for success:
1. Select an important goal.
2. Anticipate the challenge or resistance to the goal and prepare a plan that is capable of overcoming it.
3. Execute the plan with deliberate actions.
4. Iterate planning and executing until satisfactory results are achieved.

An iteration loop (#4) implies that one has multiple chances to achieve a goal. The childhood mantra applies here..."If at first we don't succeed, try, try again". All four of these variables are under one's control to some degree, and so, success can be controlled by following the prescription inherent in the above definition of success. Now that success is defined, we have no excuse not to be successful.

Compelling Reasons
As a follow on to my definition of success, I have come upon a new, more profound definition that greatly simplifies life. I was pondering why many of my own goals are left at the starting gate and not acted upon. When I review all the things I wanted to do, it seems that I have only acted on some of my goals. And then, of those goals that I did act on, I only completed some of them, achieving coveted success. Why did I act on some goals and not others of my own choosing?

I believe I know the answer. The answer why some goals are never attempted is the lack of a compelling reason. Seems that many of my goals are just wishful fantasies. I would like to have the benefits of the goal, but I lacked a compelling reason to expend the time and energy required to achieve them.

From now on, before setting a goal, I intend to find the compelling reason why I should devote my limited time and energy to achieving it. Once I find an answer that provides enough motivation to get me past the resistance to start on my goal, then I know I have a goal worth fighting for.

So, if I were to redefine my definition of success, it would be simplified as thus: Success is the expected result of a compelling reason. In other words, a compelling reason will lead to its own success.

So, before launching off on a goal, make sure you have a compelling reason behind it, otherwise, you will have insufficient reason to even start on it. With a compelling reason, anything is possible.

Happiness Defined

Happiness is something that everyone says they want, but not certain how to define nor how to attain it. If you ask people the times that they were the happiest, they can tell you. They were events of personal triumph, events of great joy, and occasions of celebration. A friend of mine told me that his three happiest moments were when he married his wife, come home from Vietnam with no missing body parts, and when he stepped down as president of a stress-filled job.

If you ask people their times of great unhappiness, they would likely be events of great sadness, disappoint, and failure. Thus, it seems by our personal accounts that we tend to associate our happiness with our emotional states. We associate our happiness with positive emotions and our unhappiness with negative emotions. So, I am ready to define happiness based on just the anecdotal evidence and responses people have given me about happiness.

Happiness = Positive Emotions

Thus the more often you can elicit positive emotions, the more often you will feel happy, and likewise, the more often you can assuage negative emotions, the less often you will feel unhappy.

Happiness from Having

If happiness is due to positive emotions, then it seems clear that to have more happiness, one must create more positive emotional states for themselves. One way to do this is to eliminate any unmet needs by satisfying our senses and appetites. This form of happiness is akin to materialism and consumerism. In this model of happiness, you can buy happiness, just indulge your carnal pleasures.

My next-door neighbors are new to this country (doctors from Egypt). In the one year they have lived next to me, they have traded in all four of their cars up for new models. Just yesterday, both their sons came home in new Toyotas (Camry and Maxima). I suggested that to the father that he might be spoiling his sons. He told me, “Why did I emigrate to this country if not to make my son’s happy.”

Certainty, a new car, a good meal, or a big-screen TV will make one happy, at least for an hour, a day, a week, perhaps longer, but eventually, what we have will become ordinary as we acclimate to it. We habituate to material things; and like any addiction, we must have more of it to attain the same level of excitement and pleasure.

While you can buy some happiness, the happiness you can buy is not very high, and it is quick extinguished. Here is a little secret tip for happiness regarding material things…they must be spaced and rotated so that these carnal pleasures bring us not only something to look forward to but continue to satisfy us to the save levels as they did initially.

Happiness from Doing

Humans are goal-oriented creatures; we are always questing after something we desire. We are always going somewhere but we seldom arrive at a destination. After all, how many times do we want to get married or graduate from school so as to attain great happiness? Once should be sufficient. If our happiness were only satisfied when we arrived at our destination, we would shortchange ourselves in the amount of happiness we receive. We need to find more ways to make the journey itself a source of happiness.

The best way to do this is to choose our journeys based on the things that we like to do and are good at doing. When we are “doing our thing”, we are content and happy. Whether we arrive anywhere or not is immaterial.

We are all good at something…having been graced with special talents, skills, abilities, and strengths. When we use our strengths, in ways of our choosing, we are happy. You can also gain pleasure from finding ways to enjoy whatever it is you have to do. Happiness is not limited to just those occasions when we get to do what we like, but in choosing to find ways to like what we do.

If you have a chore to do, find a way to make a game out of. See how quickly and efficiently you can complete it. Add music, merriment, and companionship to the job. The time will go quickly. The reward is getting done with a chore that must be done. Or you can hired someone to do those jobs you just detest. The fun is finding someone to will do it for you and learn from them what you can about new ways of getting the job done in the future.

Happiness is 90% half mental

The most important thing about our time on this Earth is not what we gain in material possessions (the toys or our destinations), and it is not that we got to do the things we enjoyed doing (the game or the journey). The most valuable thing that we can claim about our life is what we became by having things and doing activities. What is important is that we become a person of character and created virtue…we had noble reasons for what we owned and what we did.

Our being, our character, our virtue is reflected in our thinking, in our choices, and our reasons for doing all that we choose to do. If we get the thinking right, we will like whatever it is that we have, we will like whatever it is we choose to do, and most importantly, we will like who we have become.

Happiness is not well understood even to this day, but everyone says they want it. The better you understand the principles of happiness, the more likely you will think the right thoughts and take the right actions to be happy. We know that we can make ourselves happier by having the right things, doing the right actions, and being the right person.

Having the right things will make you happy if you space and rotate your pleasures to avoid habituation. However, doing the rights things (the things you do during the journey to your destinations) is more powerful in attaining happiness than having the right things. You are on the journey far longer often than the time spent enjoying the arrival.

Finally, the most powerful source of happiness is neither the having nor the doing but in the being. It is a way of thinking that makes one view life from an optimistic, positive, and hope filled way so that no matter what we have and no matter what we are doing, we will be happy regardless.

It is not what we have or what we do that makes us happy, but the reasons for which we do and have them. Thus, the real power behind our happiness is in our thinking. Thinking makes it so. Happiness is a decision, a direction to which we must devote our thinking. Creating happiness in our life is important, and worth the effort.

Self-Management Tools - Happiness