Self Improvement Daily Podcast

Can we all agree that we want a little more fun in our life? Fun usually leads to happiness, which is something we all could use a little more of. The reality is, happiness is a little more ominous than we think. This can best be explained by Dr. Mike Rucker, who is an expert on the psychology of happiness and fun.

‍

Dr. Rucker stated, "For many of us, a fulfilling life includes a drive towards happiness, making attaining happiness worthy of pursuit. However, there is an inherent risk when we chase happiness in this way. When we make happiness our goal, often unconscious dissidence is the result. This occurs because when we try to resolve ourselves to being 'happy', we naturally become aware of the distance in our current reality and the reality we seek. You might have heard the coaching maxim, 'Its better to measure the gain, than measure the gap'. However, when we blindly pursue happiness, that's exactly what we fall victim to. Measuring the gap. I submit to you there is a better way, and that way is creating a bias towards fun. This approach steers our focus away from the happiness gap, which science suggests paradoxically makes us less happy. Instead, it creates us more opportunities to create joyful moments. When we take action-oriented approach to creating more joy in our life, we move our focus away from what is missing, and towards the awareness that we posses the agency to create our own joy".

It’s a dangerous game when we are explicitly pursuing happiness. Dr. Mike suggests instead that we pursue happy moments by way of having fun, because that is more objective than playing the comparison game, or falling into the happiness gap. Measure your happiness the right way!

I met a woman two days ago who probably doens’t know how big of an impression she left on me. She had a great answer to an interesting question, “What is the one thing you have to do to turn your passion into a business?”. Her answer was, "follow your shine". First, the word "shine". You can’t be angry and use the word shine. It’s just impossible. "Shine" has a positive connotation that speaks to a very natural beauty.  It also makes you feel protected. When we’re safe, we have more courage to explore and experience.

The last word is "follow". "Follow" provides the direction for the expression. Once you find your shine, what do you do with it? You use it to guide you where you are meant to go. It is the path being paved before you on your journey. Which is why it is the perfect thing to tap into when turning your passion into your business. You have faith in your skill set, you answer the call, and you trust the process.

Want to hear one thing we all have in common? We are all breathing.  But there’s way more to it, did you know that our breath has the ability to dictate the way our body chooses to interpret certain situations? Dr. Jen Esquer shares about how we’ve been breathing wrong this whole time! Have a listen.

“Think about a breath cycle. We have the inhalation state and the exhalation state. I inhale and I exhale right? Well that inhalation phase, even if you were to hold your breath, that's your sympathetic fight, flight, freeze response.Your exhalation state, or we're even holding after your exhalation state is more of that parasympathetic rest, relax, digest state. Now, if we can tap into that exhalation phase, then we can start to shift and we can start to stimulate that vagus nerve and activate that parasympathetic system”.

That’s really good information, especially when you think of what we have been told to do our whole lives to calm ourselves down. Take a deep breath right? Well the better piece of advice might be, take a long exhalation. There’s a reason your heart speeds up when you breathe in and slows down when you breathe out, it’s your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system at work!

Keep your phone away from your bed at night. For years, I have kept my phone plugged in, sometimes even on loud, not too far from where I sleep. It was necessary in my last job because I was on call, and the habit continued until recently. I liked the flexibility of being able to address anything urgent or stay aware of people trying to get in touch with me, but I didn’t realize the cost that it all comes at. That cost comes in two main ways.

First, keeping your phone near your bed likely means that it is the last thing you engage with before you go to sleep. The blue light on our phones throws off our circadian rhythm and actually makes it harder to go to sleep. Keeping your phone away let’s you wrap up a few other things before bed, helping to restore your circadian rhythm and improve the quality of your sleep.

Second, is when your alarm goes off in the morning it forces you to get on your feet. I never snooze my alarm, but I do have a tendency to wake up slowly and rest my eyes for about 5 more minutes before I start my day. If I wanted to continue with that in my new practice, standing up and getting on my feet brings all of my attention to the times when I do decide to slide back into bed. This worked so well that I only did that once in the last 3 weeks. Because of that, I find myself starting my days 5 minutes earlier with the same amount of rest.

So, I’d encourage you to try it. Keep your phone away from your bed tonight and see how you feel in the morning. My guess is that you fall asleep quicker, wake up faster, and start your day sooner.

It’s about using the law of least effort. I know what you’re thinking, good things come to those who work hard! I completely agree, but I would argue that better things come to those who work hard and work smart.

Historically, humans have a predisposition to prefer minimal activity and effort. This comes back to the days when we actually needed to secure resources to survive and reproduce. Things are different now, but our DNA is not.

The law of least effort is exactly that predisposition, but instead of using it as an excuse to be lazy, we can leverage it to be more efficient.  This is best understood in an example presented in the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. You want to eat healthy, but when it comes down to it, taking the extra 10 minutes in the morning is just too much to actually do it. There’s friction. What you can do, is prepare healthy meals in advance, which reduces the friction of acting on the healthy choice and allowing you to easily receive the benefits of that decision.  

The best thing to do is understand what positive choices you want to make, understand what the limiting factor is, and find ways to reduce that friction either by preparing in advance or making intentional choices. Even choosing a gym that is directly on your commute to work instead of 5 minutes out of the way could make a world of difference. It’s all about reducing friction!

There are so many great things happening around us, we need to make sure we keep our eyes open to them.  It could be something big, like a breakthrough or a connection or a new spin on a project. You’d be surprised to find that there’s more of these than you’d think.

To continue, some days you have to look a little harder to find something positive. It might be hidden behind or blended in with something bad, but know that it is there. If I’m looking for some positivity in my life, I try to add perspective, and that’s where I practice gratitude. The underlying force of gratitude is a positive appreciation for your life, and when you take that approach to positivity, there is no shortage of things to be thankful for. 

For example, you get laid off from your job. Not trying to spin that into a positive, but what that might mean is you get to spend more time with your roommate, partner, or child.You build a deeper relationship and maybe help them through a challenge they are experiencing. I hesitate to call it a silver lining, but it is a positive element that came from the negative situation. It is always there, some days you just have to look a little harder.

“Keep it simple stupid”

The core of it is all about reducing complexity. The more moving parts that are involved in a decision, add a layer of complexity that makes it more difficult to reach the intended destination. But, having a special focus on keeping things simple, you can have a more defined direction and easier path toward what you are trying to accomplish.

This philosophy applies in so many different areas. When building out a new system at work, strip the task down to its fundamental components and address them at face value. When hoping to go on a date, be clear about your intentions and ask for their phone number. When trying to get healthier, focus on the areas that contribute to your health, like exercise and nutrition to optimize your results.

The same goes for productivity. Throughout our days, we are presented with things to do that fit somewhere on a difficulty spectrum. It’s the difference between deciding what to wear, which is a low difficulty task, and finding a clever way to make an introduction, which is a high difficulty task. A great tip is to quickly move through the low difficulty task so that you have more time, energy, and will-power to apply to the high difficulty tasks. The easy things don’t need to be over complicated. Keep it simple stupid.

This message is a snippet from someone who is very inspiring, Ms. Mel Robbins.

‍

Isn’t that so true? We just assume the worst of intentions in others when they do something that negatively affects us. But, what it comes down to, is anything they do is out of our control, so why does it deserve to be so influential in the way we internalize it?

Not only is choosing to be optimistic in negative situations, and choosing to see the good in others, a decision that benefits us, but it is very contagious and affects those around you.