The Happiness Formula

QUOTE OF THE DAY

THE HAPPINESS FORMULA

448 Words | 1 Min 38 Sec Read

Do you know what is required of you to be truly happy? Not the kind of short-term happiness you feel when you’re excited about something or when everything goes your way for the day, but the kind of ever-lasting happiness that comes from within.

The type of happiness that is the lens of your perspective on life.

It makes every negative a positive. It makes you stroll through life with a skip in your step, excited for what's to come.

That happiness is rare for most people, but it is more than attainable, and it doesn’t come from having a nice meal, nor does it come from winning a football game.

That type of ever-lasting happiness only comes from one thing: progress.

The reason it comes from progress is because of the psychological need for it; it's the same need that when it was cold outside, we needed to build shelter. Our raw food made us sick; we needed to invent fire. Our skin was damaged by the elements; we needed to invent clothing.

Humans need the feeling of progress, and most people chase it without knowing exactly why.

You want to advance in your career; why? To make more money, why? To live a better life, why? To be better than you were before? = Progress.

So if that's the case—that happiness innately comes from progress—then how can we be sure that we are making progress?

By giving yourself the deserved wins.

When working towards a long-term goal of yours, you can’t help but dread how far away the result is.

It tends to feel like a mountain in the distance, untouchable, and the majority of the time, it's a hard reality to accept that if you want to scale that mountain, you’re going to have to set yourself out on a long, treacherous journey with no guarantee of making it.

That's why most people don’t make it, or even more commonly, don’t even make a start.

Giving yourself the deserved wins is the way to combat that.

Now, instead of having to hold your breath until you get to the top of that mountain, you can breathe every 100 steps.

You reward yourself for the progress that you’re making to not only enjoy the journey more but complete it!

These small wins matter more because they are so much more likely to occur compared to the big breakthroughs in the world. If we only waited for the big wins, we would be waiting a long time.

And we would probably quit long before we saw anything tangible come to fruition. What you need instead of big wins is simply the forward momentum that small wins bring.

ACTIONABLE NEXT STEPS:

So, where do you go from here?

Not only do you need to identify where you have made progress in the past to reinforce to yourself that you’re capable of doing so, but you also need to start rewarding yourself for any future progress that you make.

The more you shout it to the world and the more you acknowledge it, the happier you will be.

TAKEAWAYS:

If you want to be truly happy in life, then you need to be certain that you’re making progress. If you want to make consistent and uninterrupted progress, you need to start rewarding yourself for the wins.

Big, small, or micro, if you’ve made progress that deserves to be acknowledged, and if you want to make more, then it's important that you acknowledge it.

BOOK OF THE WEEK ⤵️

The book of the week is ‘Shoe Dog’ by Phil Knight. An autobiography of the unassuming founder and creator of Nike. Learn his story, his methods, and his strategies here.

CREATOR OF THE WEEK ⤵️

@herfirst100k

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The creator of the week is @herfirst100k, a female-based personal finance creator who shares tips, tricks, hacks, and everything you need to know to live a financially free and abundant life. Check her out!

LESSON OF THE DAY ⤵️

Nobody else is responsible for your life but you.

Many people may be at fault for your pain and unhappiness. But no one else is responsible for digging you out of that pain or unhappiness.

Your mind is like an operating system; the more you push it, the more strain you put on it, and the higher the likelihood there is of something breaking.

Therefore, you need to know when to give it the rest that it deserves, which all comes from knowing yourself. Some people can work for 16 hours straight with not a bead of sweat running down their face, and others only 4 hours before a mental breakdown occurs.

Get to know your operating system and use it to its full capabilities, but make sure that you don’t confuse ‘burnout’ with an excuse to be lazy, as they are two very different things.

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