Are You Good At Predicting What Will Bring You Joy? Most People Aren’t

Humans are terrible at predicting what will bring them pleasure. What we THINK will bring us joy or fulfillment often doesn’t. And, the things we don’t expect to bring us fulfillment sometimes do. The ability to predict what will actually make us happy can help us be more motivated to do tasks we don’t think we want to, find pleasure in places we weren’t expecting to, and to avoid disappointment.

Continue reading

Your Thoughts Write the Story of Your Life; Are You Happy With Yours?

A single thought may seem insignificant. But, did you know we have as many as 80,000 thoughts each day? Taken together our thoughts do become significant. In fact if our thoughts were written down, they would fill 6-8 books each day. What stories are you writing? Are they giving you the happily ever afters you want? If not–there is a way to edit, re-write and change the stories you’re writing without changing the characters or the the basic plot in your life.

Continue reading

YOU Are The One You’ve Been Waiting For

What are you waiting for?  Are you waiting for your spouse to stop being so critical or help out more?  Are you waiting for your kids to start being more respectful? Are you waiting for someone to invite you over and reach out to you?  Are you waiting for a job offer to come back?  Are you waiting to lose weight?  Are you waiting for someone to change the curriculum at school or someone to who shares your value system to run for political office?  Most of us are waiting for something.  Whatever you’re waiting for, I have great news.

YOU are the one you’ve been waiting for!

It’s easy to feel that we are at the mercy of others for things to change.  I want to remind you that YOU have tremendous power to change your relationships just by changing YOU and the way you think about them and by being brave to take action.   Here are examples of two women I admire, who chose to BE the change they were waiting for:

Change Yourself Instead of Trying to Change Others

First, several years ago a woman shared with me once that she was very embarrassed by the way her husband acted in social situations.  He was awkward and seemed to say things that only he found funny.  For many years she bit her lip but inwardly felt humiliated.  Sometimes she even tried to ‘clean things up’ for him socially.  Ultimately she realized her embarrassment about social situations was eroding her own relationship with him.

She decided that she wanted to be proud to be with him, no matter how he acted.  So, when he was awkward and made his jokes SHE decided to be the one who laughed.  She began to wonder what HE found so funny about his jokes.  Over time she began to seem more humor in them and she even found enjoyment in watching him enjoy himself.  She sincerely began to enjoy being with him more in social situations, and she found herself falling back in love with her husband.  Interestingly others relaxed and seemed to enjoy her husband’s jokes more as well. That was a nice bonus, but by then it didn’t matter as much because she sincerely enjoyed him regardless.  SHE was the one she’d been waiting for.

Change Your Environment Instead of Complaining About It

The second example is even more recent.  In 2016 around the time of the US Presidential election, Sharleen Mullins Glenn was feeling frustrated and concerned about the corruption and self-interest she saw on the political stage.  She kept wishing something would change, and that someone would do something about it.  Finally, she prayed to know what SHE could do.  The answer that came was to start, “Mormon Women for Ethical Government;” an on-line community of women who are concerned about ethical values in US governance and policy.  They are non-partisan advocates for honor, decency and accountability in politics. In just a short time it has grown to over 6,000 members and has representation all of the US and even the world.  They have been able to write press releases, hold rallies, talk to legislators and advocate for policy changes.    She chose to BE the one who she was waiting for.

Change Your Perspective

The first time we lived in China I was shocked at how people behaved in public places.  Trying to get on an elevator felt like a Herculean event, especially with young children.  The minute the doors opened, people began pushing and shoving and elbowing their way to the front.  There was no respect for lines or who was waiting first. It was survival of the fittest and whoever was the biggest bully won!  It felt rude and disrespectful to me.  One time I will never forget was trying to get off the plan after 24 hours of traveling alone with 3 young children; an anxious 5 year old, a busy toddler and a new baby.  I had survived the flight and was trying to get my luggage from the overhead compartment while helping a crying newborn in my front pack and trying to keep my toddler from running off.  Before the plane had even stopped.  People were up in the isles shoving each other to get off the plane.  When I tried to stand up people knocked me over and my daughter got shoved up against the seat.  Not one person stopped to let me get out.  We had to wait until every person got off the plane.  This might be fine if it is simply a short trip.  But his was my every day.  I could not understand it and it began to affect my experience living in China.

While we were living there I read the book, Wild Swans, which details the true story of 3 generations of women from a woman who was a concubine, to her daughter who was part of the cultural revolution, to her daughter who became a modern, educated woman and immigrated to the US.  Through it I learned much of the recent history of China over the last century.  Not just the facts and dates–but the emotional toll it took on people.  For example, I read about when the government asked many of the big thinkers for criticisms telling them they would be rewarded for improving the country.  Then, he punished them by imprisoning them, relegating them to rural labor or forcing them to leave the country.  Others were forced to give names of family members that the government would punish in return for sparing their own jobs.  These are just a few examples, but I began to see how a culture of self preservation had prospered here.  I understood how people could push each other down getting to the elevator or off the plane. They knew that to survive they must depend on themselves.  They knew that trusting others might be dangerous.  While I don’t espouse this type of social pattern, understanding it from a different perspective helped me feel less frustrated when I was in those types of situations.  Increasing my information on the subject helped change my perspective about it, and I felt less frustrated.  I was the change I’d been waiting for.  They weren’t going to change any time soon.  See All Things Brave and Beautiful for more perspectives on changing the way you see things.

Be the One You’re Waiting For

What are you waiting for?

Whatever change you’ve been waiting for, YOU can make it happen.  Change yourself instead of waiting for others to change.  Change your environment instead of waiting for others to do it.  If you don’t know how, ask God and get moving.  The world needs you.   Your friends and family need you.  YOU need you.  Stop waiting, and be the one who makes it happen.  You’ll be so glad you did.

The Best Truth Can Make Us Happy

Most of us assume that the way we see things, is the way they are.   But have you ever disagreed with someone about what happened in a particular situation?  You both KNOW you are right?  There’s a scientific explanation for why different people can have a totally different idea of what the truth is!  The explanation can also improve your happiness.

Magic Words

I remember when I was young, my mother would burst into singing during dinner when we forgot to use the words, “please,” and “thank you.”  You might remember the song, “There are two little magic keys that will open any door with ease.  One little word is ‘thanks’ and the other little word is ‘please.”  I learned it as gospel truth that it is nice manners to say “thank you” when someone helps you.

 When we moved to China, we employed a woman to help us with some cooking, cleaning and child care.  She worked so hard, and amazed me with her efficiency.  As the mom of 3 little ones I was SO thankful for her help.  When she was at my home, I would often thank her for all she did.  I noticed that she looked very awkward when I said “thank you.”  Our communication was fairly limited since she spoke Mandarin and I spoke English so it was difficult to flesh out what was going on.  At first I thought maybe my pronunciation was off and I was saying something rude unintentionally!

However, I learned later, that culturally it is rude to say thank you to someone who is close to your family.  Family members and people in the inner circle of friends consider it essential to be loyal to each other.  Serving each other is something that is expected.  Saying thank you carries the connotation that the person is not part of your inner circle.  I was floored.  I had never considered that saying “thank you” could be rude!  In my culture saying thank you was  kind, but in China, in this context, it was not.

Is There Another Truth?

This is a fascinating principle to apply to the mind.  At any one time there are multiple truths that exist at the same time.   Our brain is used to seeing things in one particular way and it’s most efficient and comfortable for the brain to keep thinking about things in the same way.  However, keeping an open mind to the possibility of multiple true perspectives can be powerful in feeling happier.

In his book “The Happiness Advantage,” Shawn Achor, a positive psychologist suggests that at any one moment there are multiple realities that are true and available to us about any given situation.  He asserts that people who are happy often have the ability to discern multiple parallel realities, and select the most beneficial one.

There is so much information coming at us at any one time, it is impossible to synthesize all of it.  The brain uses shortcuts in order to select relevant information and process it in a meaningful way.  While this is essential to our survival, it also means that the “truth” we see is filtered.

These filters can be anything from our belief system, to our culture, to our anxiety to preference, to fatigue and many more things.  We don’t mean to skew our reality but it is a product of being a human.  The good news is, that if your reality isn’t working, there are several true realities for the same situation.

The Truth About Winter

Here is an example of how this concept increased my happiness.  Although I grew up in  Colorado, which is a four season climate, I don’t love winter.  As winter starts approaching, it’s easy for me to start feeling sort of anxious and trapped—even edgy.  The default reality that I think of related to winter is the one where my fingers feel stiff and cold, I have to bundle my kids to go out and find lost mittens, I have to scrape windshields and shovel sidewalks, and the cars slip on the roads.  The landscape is monochromatic, and people hurry between their cars and their inside destinations.

However, there is an alternative reality—equally believable to me—that exists as well.  There are things I do love about winter.  I love a white Christmas.  I enjoy skiing, sledding with my kids and playing Fox and Geese.  I love their rosy cheeks from the cold as they come in after being outside.  I love the excuse to put on sweaters and boots.  I love drinking hot herbal teas and hot chocolate and I love winter baking.   It’s nice to have an excuse to cuddle up and read or watch a show.

Both realities are true, but one will create more happiness and less feelings of resentment and isolation.  Turning into a Polyanna who can’t see the truth will not be helpful.  We absolutely need to recognize all the factors, but we don’t have to allow exclusively negative information we take in to form our view of reality.  At any given moment in the winter I will take in lots of information–everything from cold fingers and scraping the windshield to feeling cozy and noticing my children’s rosy cheeks.  As my brain chooses data to process, I can purposely choose to notice things I love and things I enjoy and spend more time thinking about those.  There will still be the negative, but I don’t have to allow those details to inform the chatter in my brain or my view of life.  I choose my reality by what I choose to focus on.  Choosing to live in the most beneficial true reality will increase our happiness.

Live in the Best Truth

What drags you down?

If you had to write a newspaper article about that situation or person or event, what would be the title of it?  Explore more than one reality about it.  Could you write a different newspaper article about the same situation that was equally true and but highlighted different facts?  Choose to highlight to your mind the facts and stories that bring the most happiness.