If you just stop right now and really consider the question “Am I happy with my life?” what would you honestly answer?
I can’t imagine anyone saying in all honesty that they are completely 100% happy with their life, but there will be people who feel that they are as happy enough. However, many of us are not happy with 1 or more aspects of our lives and really want changes to happen. Some of the areas of life that we may want to change are:
- Health
- Love/Romance
- Family & Friends
- Finances
- Personal Growth
- Recreation
- Living Environment
- Work/Career
The trouble is that people feel more unhappy with things when they feel they don’t have much control over them. I’ll clarify that: The less control you have over something when it’s going wrong, the more unhappy you feel about it.
Obviously, there are situations that happen which really are beyond our control, such as forgetting your umbrella & getting soaked in a torrential downpour on the way to an important interview! Or leaving your passport behind and only realising it at the check in desk.
Bad things happen, we all know that, some of it is seriously devastating life changing stuff such as bankruptcy, family break ups, serious illness, disability & bereavements.
These events are catastrophic when they occur and I’m not suggesting you can do much that makes a difference about these at the time they happen. They will have their effects on you. Further down the line from these events though and you have a better chance of recovering some of the happiness you thought you’d never get back.
What does ‘unhappy’ feel like to you? It could include sadness, frustration, regret, annoyance, anger, envy, lack of direction or motivation to specify a few.
Being unable to lose weight, sleep well, focus on going for that goal you really, really want to achieve but never getting there, leads to frustration and quite often annoyance at yourself.
Being stuck in a job you don’t like or even detest leads to feelings of being trapped, not fulfilling your potential and perhaps envy towards others who appear to be doing better at their career
What can we do about situations like those I outlined above?
We may have more control over some of the areas of life than others, for example we can take steps to improve our health, we can choose our friends (not family though!), we can continue learning and growing as a person and we can choose what we do in our leisure time etc
Some factors we may feel we have less of a say in how they turn out, such as work, career & finances because these often depend on other factors beyond our control.
Many aspects of life are linked of course, if you have limited finances then your options for recreation activities are limited & your living environment may not be what you truly desire.
You may be living in a cramped apartment with your kids, no garden and with no room to store anything tidily etc. You feel fed up for yourself and guilty for your kids – even though it’s not your fault. You hate the prospect that you could be living like this for the foreseeable future.
How about romance? Is that all under your control? Is it all down to you if you are happy in that relationship or not? Of course not! If your spouse is an arse who is selfish or lazy in the relationship, or cheats on you then no matter how much effort you put in you are not going to be truly happy.
What can we do about situations like those I’ve outlined above?
What if you realised that you COULD control all of these aspects of your life to a much greater degree than you previously thought?
Here’s a short story to illustrate.
At the age of 54 Kate had been a production manager at a company for 18 years. She’d been married to Bob for 22 years and she was far from happy in many aspects of her life.
She always reminded herself of how lucky she was to have a job, a home, dependable friends and reasonable health.
Kate had ‘forgotten’; who she was and what she wanted from life. She was on ‘auto’ every day. Stuck in a rut with a job she didn’t really like and her humdrum marriage and was basically settling instead of moving out of her comfort zone to make herself happy.
She had complained to her friends for at least the past 10 years about her selfish husband who rarely had any meaningful conversation with her, went out to the football and the bar with his friends but never wanted to spend any time with her. She was unhappy at work as she was getting older, and the 60 hours a week she was working were taking a toll on her health.
So why didn’t Kate do something about it all?
The simple answer was that Kate felt she had no control over any of it when in reality she did.
Kate, like millions of others fall into a trap, almost of their own making, whereby they are so used to their life the way it is that they just carry on with it regardless of the fact that they are unhappy. They feel that there’s nothing they can do, or that it will take far too much time, effort and discomfort for them to change things that they just don’t.
How can people overcome this obstacle to their own happiness?
The best thing you can do if you are in any kind of situation where you are not happy with a part of your life is to follow these steps:
(Write your thoughts down as you go through the steps)
- Focus on it - not dwell on it or worry about it but actually face it head on, analyse it, see it for what it is.
- Ask yourself in what way this person, situation or event is making you feel not happy. So how the unhappiness is manifesting itself – how it makes you feel & act. How it affects your day to day quality of life and happiness
- Ask yourself why you are allowing the person, situation or event to have this effect on you. Is it something you absolutely & honestly cannot change or escape from/distance yourself from/ put behind you? Or is it an ongoing situation that you feel stuck in? Are you truly stuck or is there a possible solution or escape route you can now see?
- Understand & believe that you have far more control over every aspect of your life than you may have thought. Even small actions on your part can have a magnified effect on instigating change for the better. Some issues you will have more scope to change than others but there aren’t many things that really cannot be changed at all for the better. Any action that you take to change the things you know need to change, will fuel you with inner confidence that you ARE able to exert power over your life after all. You then create a positive feedback loop where you take more actions that lead to more good outcomes for you in your life.
- Feel genuine love for yourself. YOU are equally as important as everyone else. When you genuinely care for and love yourself you are far less likely to accept being unhappy. This is not the same as becoming selfish
There was a happy outcome for Kate. She took action to change the things she could change; she took some time to find out alternative careers based on the skills & experience she had. It was mightily scary for her, she asked herself ‘What if this? What if that?’
After weighing up her options and reminding herself that she wasn’t happy with what she was doing now, she took the plunge by applying and eventually getting a job teaching adult education online.
She also forced herself into having the long overdue conversations with her husband about their relationship. She knew it could go either way and was really nervous that they’d end up arguing.
There were a number of heated rows, each blaming the other but they eventually both agreed that they’d each let things slide and made some commitments to try and change in certain ways to try to make their relationship happier for them both.
They set a deadline of 6 months to see if improvements in the marriage would emerge, and if not, they would have to consider if their future would be together or apart.
By allowing herself to feel temporarily uncomfortable Kate had regained control over her happiness.
You really can do the same.