6 more happiness helps that really work for me
And an adorable Jack update
Let’s get the most important information out there first: baby Jack now has a belly button! Congratulations, little buddy!
(To be clear, there was no concern about his belly-buttoning abilities. It’s just that everything your nephew does is just insane.)
OK, now that we’ve kept the main the main thing, on to part two of my tips for happiness! If you missed part one, feel free to backtrack.
1. Do it for today
Sometimes I just don’t feel motivated by the fact that little efforts add up to big results. The big picture can sometimes be more overwhelming than motivating, ya know? Like, I have to keep up good habits for how many more years??? Ahh!
So rather than focusing on how glad I’ll be thirty years from now that I exercised regularly, I focus on how great exercise will feel today! Sure, I want to strengthen muscles and develop a stronger heart and lungs, but I won’t notice that happening today. What will I notice? Endorphins. More energy. Deeper gratitude for my body. A clearer mind. Less stiff joints. Better sleep. I’ll take those things any day!
The “do it for today” mantra applies to more than just exercise.
I find it also helps me avoid an all or nothing mindset. For example, a thought like this: “Oh, I missed a day in my streak of reading the scriptures? Dang it, I’ll just give up for this week,” becomes: “Oh, I missed reading yesterday. Well, I would like to connect with God for a moment today. So I’ll do it for today. Not for the sake of a streak.”
You can do something good for today regardless of how consistently you do that good thing. As President Monson said:
“Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it’s a cinch. Each of us can be true for just one day—and then one more and then one more after that—until we’ve lived a lifetime guided by the Spirit, a lifetime close to the Lord, a lifetime of good deeds and righteousness.”
2. Do the hardest thing first
I definitely didn’t come up with this idea, but I sure do attest to its usefulness! Give your hardest task of the day the first slot on your to-do list. Knock that sucker out of the park! This isn’t always easy to do, but once that hardest task is done, the whole day will feel lighter by comparison.
The longer you ruminate over something, the scarier it feels. I even like to schedule doctor and dentist appointments to happen first thing in the morning so that I don’t psych myself out throughout the day.
So next time you sit down to your work day or school day, jump right into the hardest task—no thinking, just slaying.
3. Remember that now is not the time for everything
I wrote about this in a previous post, but I thought it was important enough to bring up again! The gist is this: You are not putting off living just because you can’t do everything all of the time.
For example (feel free to skip ahead if you read this from a post a few weeks ago), I dream of teaching group fitness classes one day. I’ve looked up how to get certified and have almost signed up to do so many times.
But then I don’t. Why? Because I have a full-time job, social and familial responsibilities, and I gotta sleep and prepare food and clean and rest. But even knowing the perfectly valid reasons why I am not a group fitness teacher yet, I sometimes feel guilty about it. Like, come on, Em. This is your dream and you’re not doing it!! Step up! Reach for the stars! Live now! Go! Go! No regrets!
Now all of those exclamations could be very helpful at various points in life. But the thing is, I just don’t have time right now. This isn’t the season for that dream. So I find release from guilt by reminding myself: I don’t have to do everything right now.
I am giving myself permission to be happy about what I do do.
4. Realize that feeling overwhelmed is a symptom of not being present
Oh, you guys, this one is soooo good. I heard on an episode of the podcast All In. The guest for the podcast was Anne Bednar. Anne had seven young kids when she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Read this part of the podcast and tell me you aren’t inspired by the insane power of living in the present. Anne says,
“I’ve come to understand being present as a way out of the feeling of bondage and the feeling of fear and uncertainty.
“One night I felt so sad about the prospect of me possibly not seeing all the milestones that I want to see in my twins or in my other children. I was so fearful and overwhelmed by that. At times I’ve had a hard time praying because I couldn’t even focus my thoughts, so that night I actually turned to a meditation app that had been such a blessing to my life in the months leading up to this diagnosis. I listened to a meditation by Brooke Snow, and in it, she said feeling overwhelmed is a symptom of not being present.
“And that was so powerful to me because at times in the past, even before this diagnosis, I felt so burdened by regret—of something that I said, or regret of something that I wish I had the bandwidth to do and couldn’t. Or I feared something that may or may not even happen in the future.
“But as I meditated and came in tune with the Spirit, I had such a powerful, freeing moment when I realized that I can be free as long as I don’t fear the future, I put the past in perspective, and I try with all my might to focus on the present.”
My mind loves to race ahead to the future. I am training myself to recognize when that happens and bring it back to the present moment and what I need to do today—not what I might have to figure out in the future.
If you want to really drive this point home for your sweet brain, I recommend watching Inside Out 2. The visual representation of anxiety and living in the present is incredible. And adorably colorful! That movie might be semi-annually required watching in our house.
5. Create a validation folder in your email
“Research shows that humans often remember negative … experiences over positive ones.”
That comes from Columbia University. And if my polka-dot-smarty-pants friend Emily Major chose to grace Columbia with her presence for grad school, then we trust Columbia!
But really, this fact is so important. You are going to naturally remember the negative things people say about you better than you will remember the positive things. That stinks! But we don’t have to take it lying down. Cue the validation email folder! This hack is both very adult and boring and very, very useful: Every time you get an email with a positive message about you, sort it into a folder you create in your email called “validation.” Receive a nice text from someone? Screenshot that baby and drop it in the folder. Nice comment on Instagram? Screenshot and in the folder. Get a card from a friend or your grandma that makes you cry? Take a picture and get it in the folder.
You think you are going to remember these nice things—but you are just not going to! So, make it real easy on yourself and get in the habit of squirreling them away like the adorable woodland creature you are.
And then a very important final step—OPEN THE FOLDER. Maybe you set a reminder in your phone to read through the messages once a month. Or every time you get feedback that is hard to swallow, you take a few minutes to read the nice messages.
I’m just trying to make your lives easier over here.
6. Teach happiness helps to others!
And lastly (so that we end with a total of 13 happiness helps, of course), if you want to implement some of these happiness helps, teach them to others. The act of teaching will cement them in your brain.
Harvard professor and happiness researcher Arthur Brooks says that when someone asks him his secret to happiness, he says, “Teaching it.” And he doesn’t mean teaching these principles in fancy lecture halls at Harvard with a slideshow. We can do it in everyday conversation.
“Learn, practice, share. That’s … the happiness algorithm. You’ll really remember what you learn if you teach it to other people,” Brooks says. “Learn more, change your habits, pass it on. When you are doing that, you’re in the lifelong process of “happier-ness.”
Kind of reminds me of what Jesus taught: “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” (and sister-en).
It’s like the Savior really wants us to find true happiness :) That truth is everywhere to me.
I love you!
If you missed part one of our happiness helps, find it here. This article of mine has as similar vibe to this one if you’re in the mood for more: Did Star Trek just save my mental state?