How to Be 10% Happier and Avoid Suffering
Knowing and acting in alignment with your values
When was the last time you did an audit of yourself and asked yourself the simple question– what am I choosing to put my attention on?
Better yet, have you asked yourself about what your values are?
This might seem like a pretty deep question to be asking yourself at first glance, however to understand your values you need not look much further than how you are spending your time, and also notice where your focus is going most of the time.
We all have things that we want. We all want to be happy and to love and to be loved, and we all go about achieving this in our own unique ways. When we look again at how we are spending the majority of our time and notice what we are thinking about most of the time, this will give us the data we need to see what our values are and how they are serving us.
Are you Aligned with Yourself?
It should be noted, just because you tell yourself you value something does not mean you are actually treating it as such.
Since we all want to be happy, loved and successful (in whatever way you define success) we all end up going about achieving these ends in our own unique ways. What will help us is to consistently be checking in with ourselves to make sure our actions are aligned with what we tell ourselves we value.
For example: if you tell yourself you value your relationships and friendships, but then you constantly find excuses to not connect with the people in your life and nurture those relationships, then you are not really valuing relationships.
For example: if you tell yourself you value health, but you don’t carve the time out to go exercise and put in the effort required to eat healthier, you are not actually valuing better health, you are valuing comfort, convenience and hedonism.
Just because you want something does not mean you are valuing it. You need to actually put in the effort towards what you say you value in order to get the benefits.
Good Values v. Bad Values
How do we decipher what a good value is and what a bad value is? It comes down to two components:
- Is it the easy or hard route: Are you just taking the easy road on this one? The older we get, the more and more we tend to learn that nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. Challenge is tension, and tension grows us. Sometimes in our relationships we need to have difficult conversations where you might hurt or upset the other person in the moment, but if not addressed it will fester under the surface and just come bubbling up later in an even worse way. We won’t always want to go to the gym and workout, we might be tired or just feel lazy. If we skip it though we know we will not feel as good by choosing to avoid momentary discomfort. We will feel more agitated, we won’t sleep as well and have a gnawing sense of not respecting or trusting ourselves for taking the easy way out.
2. Does it lead to suffering: Usually when we choose to take the easy road in our life, there is an equal or greater price to pay on the other end. Endless hedonism and laziness might feel good in the moment, but over time leads to a whole host of problems. If we are constantly consuming without challenging ourselves or getting pushed out of our comfort zones, there is a kind of spiritual death that occurs. There is a restlessness which takes over our bodies, yet the longer you stay this way the harder it becomes to get yourself to move. This is a slow painful spiritual death by a million cuts, one netflix, and junk food binge at a time. Pain is always going to be inevitable in our lives, but we can avoid suffering by knowing how to choose and take action in alignment with the right types of values.
If I had to say what some good values are, it would be physical health, mental health, relationships, hobbies/passions, growth and challenge, and a sense of purpose day to day.
If I had to say what some bad values are, it would be something like comfort, hedonism, caring too much about the opinions of others, a petty and vindictive mindset, and a victim mentality just to name a few.
Change that which you Can
What I want you to do is to perform a values audit on yourself!
What are the areas you are spending the majority of your time? What is your mind focused on?
Take the time to reflect on how you are showing up in your life. You might find that you are not showing up in some areas that feel important to you. If this is the case, what is a first step to take in order to start improving?
I will once again borrow from the serenity prayer;
God grant me the serenity to accept that which I cannot change, the courage to change that which I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Don’t worry about being perfect, just look to control what you are able to control. You are going to run into bumps in the road. Just remind yourself this is part of the journey.
Even though I can’t promise that everything will be sunshine and roses, I can promise–you will feel more energized, you will respect yourself more, you will feel more inspired, and you will find yourself 10% happier while avoiding unnecessary suffering.