Category: attitude

What Does Being Happy Mean?

by EvieBurke, posted in attitude, Being Happy, Happiness
happy plastic doll

So, what does being happy mean? How would you define it?

I thought about this over the weekend and realized that there’s a difference between “being HAPPY,” emphasis on happy and “BEING happy,” emphasis on being.

And just what is that difference? I’m so glad that you asked!

Being HAPPY (emphasis on HAPPY)

When I think about being HAPPY I think about putting on a happy face no matter what you’re actually feeling. There are some benefits to this, by smiling you actually can start to feel better and happier. What I really mean by “putting on a happy face” is when you’re using a happy mask to hide whatever it is you’re really feeling – and you’re not just masking it for others, you’re masking it for yourself too – you’re not allowing yourself to feel the emotions – any emotions.

Another indicator of focusing on being HAPPY is mostly doing things that have the immediate result of happiness, otherwise known as instant gratification. Instant gratification isn’t always bad, but if you’re doing it at the expense of your long term happiness you’re probably more focused on being HAPPY.

So, if the above are what being HAPPY is, what is BEING happy?

BEING happy (emphasis on BEING)

When you’re BEING happy you realize that you won’t be HAPPY all the time. You’re human, you have emotions and it’s normal to be upset, angry, or frustrated sometimes. When you’re BEING happy you allow yourself to feel those emotions. It doesn’t mean that you sit and wallow in them, but you remember that they’re normal and you don’t beat yourself up for having those emotions. One other thing to remember, it’s difficult to fully appreciate happiness if you’re not allowing yourself to feel other emotions too.

BEING happy means that you’re not focused on instant gratification. You recognize that for some things there’s more happiness in waiting then in enjoying it right now. You know what instant gratification is. It’s when you buy that item you want even though you don’t quite have the money for it (but you get paid at the end of the week!) or you have a problem and you spend the time looking for a magic pill, but not the time to slowly tackle it bit by bit (think get rich schemes or quickly lose 10 pounds in a week promises).

BEING happy is about recognizing what you’re feeling and deciding how you’ll respond, instead of reacting. This brings me back to my definition of happiness:

Happiness is a state of mind that you choose to be in regardless of your circumstances or situation.

Happiness is a choice. You choose your own definitions and rules for your life – so which ones do you choose?

What does being happy mean to you? How would you define it?

What to chat with Evie about this? Schedule here.

Photo credit: Happy Man by Neal. via Flickr

Who Can You Change?

by EvieBurke, posted in attitude

If you could change one person in your life right now, who would it be? In your head, picture that person smiling. Thank them for who they are and for the lessons that they teach you about yourself.

That person you’d like to change – you can’t change them. No one can change anyone other than themselves. The people you’d like to change can teach you a great deal about yourself and your patterns.  Remember this post about how to change how others treat you?

You can’t change someone else, but you can control how often you see them. If the person is someone you can’t (or don’t want to) limit interactions with – like a spouse or family member then be sure to read the post mentioned above. Also, in some cases the difficulty is the result of a series of miscommunications. Check that you’re not reacting to a tone the other person might not even realize they have. Also check that you’re not reacting to an assumption you (or the other person) made.

You can’t change someone else – you can change your response to them. If you notice that you tend to react in a certain way when with one person in particular – notice when you’re reacting in that way and consciously chose to behave differently. I used to find myself feeling attacked and getting very mad when I was around one person. I couldn’t avoid him, but I could change my behavior. So, one time when I found myself heading down the path of feeling attacked and getting angry, I consciously choose to stay calm and answer each question calmly, accurately and concisely. Much to my surprise, he matched my tone (instead of me matching his) and calmed down.

Where in your life can you take control of your reactions?

Your Words Are Important

by EvieBurke, posted in attitude

Your language is very important. Not only does it convey your thoughts and feelings to others, it can convey them to you too. What am I talking about? Let’s say you go through the day saying this is hard and that is hard and they’re hard to talk to. You’re describing your day and also sending yourself a message that everything is hard. And since we all like to be right, even subconsciously, everything stays hard.

Fall Back Words
I call words you use over and over again in your day to describe something as a fall back word. It’s your personal go-to description word like hard. When you find yourself using a negative fall back word try to find another way to describe what you’re talking about. Using different language will take some of the sting from the description and things will feel less hard (or whatever your fall back word is).

If
Saying if indicates you haven’t fully committed to something; that you still have a decision to make about it. In many cases I know that if is entirely intentional. What about all those times when it’s not intentional? If this project is on time we’ll have time for that or if I get to work early I’ll answer that email or if I leave on time I’ll stop at the store. Subconsciously you just told yourself and anyone listening that you’re not committed to the project being on time, getting to work early or leaving on time.

Change your wording to when. So, it becomes when this project is on time we’ll have time for that or when I get to work early I’ll answer that email or when I leave on time I’ll stop at the store. See the difference that makes?

Should or Have To
Stop should-ing all over yourself. I had never heard that phrase until I became a coach and now it’s one of my favorites. You know you say it, I still say it occasionally – I should do this or I have to do that. How do you feel when you say those words? Do you feel heavy, maybe a bit of Ugh! type feeling? A let’s get this over with already feeling? What if you said I want to instead? I want to do this. How does saying that feel? Does it feel a bit lighter? Maybe you’re looking forward to doing it now?

Can’t say I want to do this about something? Find some reasons that you do want to do it. Maybe you want to make that phone call (or send that email) because sitting and worrying about it is much more draining then actually picking up the phone. Or making time to teach someone how to do that task might take you an hour now (when you could do it yourself in 10 minutes), but then you won’t have to do that task 15 times in the next month (you gain 2.5 hours!).

Conclusion
Our words affect how we feel and think about things. Notice when you’re saying these things and ask someone else to nicely point out when you’re using these words. They often creep into our vocabulary when we’re not paying attention.

What’s Not Working vs What’s Wrong

by EvieBurke, posted in attitude, perspective

In the last post I wrote about focusing on what goes right instead of what goes wrong. Later, I remembered reading something when I was still trying to figure out what being happy looked like for me without changing jobs. The gist of the article was that focusing on what’s going wrong instead of what’s going right is what’s wrong with today’s business culture.

Ok, besides the irony of that topic, I remember thinking that in some cases focusing on what went wrong is really the best thing you can do. And you know what, I was wrong!

Let me back up a bit. I was a project manager and computer programmer at that point (yes, I was doing both over the course of my day). A big part of my job was looking what my clients reported wasn’t working with the software and doing one of 3 things: (1) solve/fix it, (2) find a suitable work-around or (3) report the problem to development (and hopefully find a temporary work-around for the client). The very nature of my job was focusing on what WASN’T working.

My thought at the time was if I only focused on what was working my clients would be very unhappy with me and I would quickly be out of a job. And really, who wants either of those things!?

However, there’s a difference between focusing only on what’s going wrong and focusing on what’s not working. I’m deliberately using separate words for each because the difference is what you focus on.

Let me explain. There’s a difference between having a leak in your roof and getting really upset that there’s a leak in your roof. The difference is your reaction. Having a leak in your roof is a fact; there’s a problem with the roof and you probably want to fix it. Getting upset that there’s a leak in the roof is an emotion you naturally have AND can decide to not have.

So, in my previous job things that weren’t working with the software were facts; this isn’t working as desired (or designed) and needed to be fixed. If my reaction was to be upset that I had to deal will all this stuff that wasn’t working (which I often did) then I could change that by focusing on what was going right.

Now, at first glance this could be a difficult task. After all, it was rare for me to hear about how well something was working. However, at some point I stopped being so frustrated by each problem that was reported and instead each new problem was just that – a new problem – and not something to get upset about. I’m not sure exactly when that happened, but I do know it took a bit of work on my part.

So, what did I do?

  1. I decided to stop complaining. Complaining wasn’t making me feel better and it usually wasn’t venting. So, I decided to stop. And when I found myself complaining I did one of two things:
    1. Go immediately to the solution. This looks like: I’m really upset that this problem is still happening AND I’m going to talk to someone in development about a possible work-around. The part before AND is the complaint, the part after is the solution.
    2. Say something nice about the situation or person. This looks like: I’m really upset that this problem is still happening AND Amy is so nice about it on the phone.
  2. Changed the situation to better match my skills. Eventually my position changed and I was no longer a project manager. This was a great relief to me. I still worked on finding the solutions or work-arounds (what I really liked to do and was good at), and someone else took the phone calls and emails from the clients (I was good at it, but really liked problem solving better). Part of my frustration with getting calls or emails of new problems was it interrupted me when I was working on a solution to an existing problem – because someone else talked with the client – I was able to focus on one problem at a time.

What are things you’ve done when you’ve found yourself in a job that at first glance seems to be one that only focuses on what’s not working?

Photo credit: HA1 by Highways Agency via Flickr

When You Don’t Get Exactly What You Want

by EvieBurke, posted in attitude, Complaining, perspective

Have you ever had an expectation in a situation that wasn’t met the way you wanted it to or envisioned it? You expected x to happen and instead y happened. How did you feel about that? Disappointed, frustrated, maybe upset? Did you focus on what went wrong instead of what went right?

Guess what? You’re normal!

So, what can you do when you find that you’re focusing on what went wrong in a situation?

  1. Recognize you’re feeling that way, that it’s normal and OK
  2. Decide to focus on what went right
  3. Make a list of what went right

It’d be easy enough for me to stop writing there, but I thought you might want to know what prompted this topic. You see, yesterday I ran errands. I had a list of stores and things to get and off I went that morning. I arrived at the first store – an inviting, small and homey shop run by a very nice woman – and told her what I was looking for. She had something similar, but not exactly what I wanted. I had already looked in a few stores for what I wanted, couldn’t find it and I was sure I would have better luck at a small store specializing in what I was looking for. The woman was very frank with me and said I’d probably not find exactly what I was looking for and offered some other really good suggestions.

I decided what I wanted and reached my hand into my purse to pay AND didn’t have my wallet! It was sitting at home next to my computer. I shared this with her and said I’d return in the afternoon. Knowing I traveled about 30 minutes to her store, she offered to ring up my items, send me home with them and I could mail her a check! So, I thanked her, we chatted and I left her my business card and headed home with my new purchases – the rest of my errands on hold for another day because I had no wallet.

On my way home I found myself with one feeling and two thoughts around the previous hour’s events. What do you think the feeling and thoughts were?

Well, I felt disappointed because (1) I didn’t find exactly what I wanted and (2) I had to cut my errands short because I left my wallet at home. Interesting right? Out of everything that happened in a fairly brief period of time that was what I left with.

This is pretty common; you focus on what went wrong or not as planned instead of everything that went right. In the past it would have taken me a day or two to notice that I focused on what went wrong  (if I noticed it at all) and then beat myself up because I was so wrong to focus on that.

However, I feel it doesn’t serve me to stay disappointed and upset, so I followed the steps I outlined above. (1) I acknowledged that I was disappointed and that it’s OK to feel that way and then (2) reviewed the situation for other ways to feel about the morning and (3) listed what was good about the morning’s events:

  • The alternate suggestions that were offered were extremely helpful and things I hadn’t thought of before, lots of value right there.
  • If I ever have any problems with the items I purchased I can go back to the store or call her for suggestions (you don’t get that kind of personalized help at most major chain stores)
  • She allowed me to walk out of the store with over $70 in merchandise that I hadn’t paid for – with only a business card and a promise that I would mail her a check – so I could save an hour of my time later
  • If I choose to I can continue to look for exactly what it is that I want without feeling stressed about it because I have a very good alternative
  • It was a GORGEOUS day out and because my errands were cut short I was able to take a more scenic route home and enjoy the sunny fall day

Go ahead and try this next time you notice you’re focusing on what went wrong. Your mood will change – mine did.

Try it and let me know how it goes in the comments!