EP 3639 Happy is a skill, not a place

0:00Hey guys welcome to today's podcast. Today's episode. Happy is a skill not a place. So happiness is a skill you develop. Happy isn't a place you're fine. I talked to people and go I just want to be happy and very good. Cool. Just being happy means it's like going I just want to be fit or I just want to be educated or I just want to be whatever. You need to develop the skill of being happy. Happy isn't just a place that you arrive at. Happens to skill you develop through your perception and perspective, through your focus, through how you assess information, how you disseminate different things in your life into what you believe it is. Happy is a skill and to me happy isn't even the word for me. It's peace. I want peace on my contentment. Now you might go you want happy. I think it's just a probably a mechanism of definition but to me happy is a skill you develop. It's

1:01not a place you arrive at. And people I think fall into a trap of wanting to find happiness. I can find happiness in a place like I'll find happiness in a person or I'll find happiness in a job or I'll find happiness in money or whatever. But the problem I believe is you don't find it. You have to actually create it. It's a skill because you and I can both go through a very similar thing and I can be happy about it and you can be miserable or vice versa. Because you can be you know something is a very simple example but you and I might both break up from a relationship and I might go it's the most devastating and it's the worst thing ever and you can go I'm happy that that ended because even though I enjoyed it it wasn't everything I wanted and there's more out there for me. So those two things can be absolutely both are true both can be true but the happy is a skill and that's just how you perceive things. Now I

2:02look through whether it was the stuff out of the police PTSD by bar, divorce, not see my daughters. I go I'm really happy in my life now despite those challenges because I've built the skill of being happy. I built the skill of peace and contentment. I've built the skill of understanding how those things have actually contributed positively to my life but the overwhelming truth is you will live the life you choose to live and it sounds so very cliched and tried and putrid and woo woo but it's so very true. You will live the life that you decide to live. If you decide to be miserable you will be miserable and most people focus on the skill of misery and sadness and victimhood unconsciously and get really good at that. Not many people focus on the skill of happiness because it seems weird. So you know we focus on being miserable and unhappy because that's the thing that we continually practice and repeat whereas if you practice and repeat the skill of being happy then your life will just end up

3:05being so much better and the happy skill is something that happens not because of the circumstance but sometimes in spite of it. So if something really difficult is occurring in your life and you decide to stay in a joyous peaceful happy content place then you're doing it despite that challenge not because of it. Now of course these days that I feel happier than others because things go really well. So it's very easy to practice the skill of happiness when my life is swimming along beautifully and everything's amazing. Then there's no real challenging developing that skill. When it's tough it's much harder skill for me to practice and develop but I still do it. I still try to do it because ultimately I just want to feel better. I want my life to be happier. I want to be in a better place. So for you when you look around at your life and you go how can I develop that that skill and I think there's some very simple things. Three basics. First of all you need to be able to look at the situation

4:07in now and understand that it's not permanent. Whatever the challenge or difficulty you're in now it can change if you're willing to change it. If you're willing to do the work and move forward and understand that there's a process that you need to get through. The second part is it's probably not as bad as you think because we catastrophize things. But I look back now I did a podcast interview today when I was talking a guy goes how did you feel about losing your identity and belonging in the place and I was like I was devastating. I think back I was like I was so devastated by that I thought my life was over. Littre I was going to end my life. Now look back and go there's no in there as bad as I thought. And the third part is the sun will come up tomorrow. There's always a possibility for your life to improve. And as cliched as bullshit as that sounds I absolutely believe that. When you could live your life in such a way that you can go you know what I love my life. I love it the person I am. I'm really happy with the individual that I am. And tomorrow the sun will come up

5:07and there's a new possibility to live a better version of my life. When you actually can live that and believe that then the opportunities and the beliefs in your life are pretty phenomenal. And there's opposed to being stuck in this place where you're constantly miserable your unhappy life sucks. You go you know what I'm just going to keep on pushing on. You're going to punch through this and make my life worthwhile. And as you begin to do that and you continue to do that you will just end up in a much happier environment. Yeah I think most people get stuck in the misery of life so hard it's not fair it's sucks dad I but I go says who? Because I agree life can be fucking hard horribly difficult. But if you can practice the skill of understanding that it's not permanent it's probably not as bad as you think and it will improve and you've got so much more time left. The sun will come up tomorrow and you get another shot at it. Then there's nothing that is that terrible. It's actually given you

6:08an example which is a tough one of Joel a friend of mine that I've talked to before whose son Ollie died. Him and I have conversations because you're really miss Ollie it's tough. He goes but it made me such a better person. There's positive outcome. Now he's not happy that he died and that's why I think peace is the word rather than happiness. But he certainly is a peace with what happened and he's making it mean something and he's driving it into a purpose. But he's not miserable and that's probably where I look at the peace happiness. It's actually you're avoiding the misery because his life could have effectively ended at that point and he could have just been the most miserable person ever. But no how many of life have still got two other boys that they've been parenting really effectively they're two beautiful people she's pregnant with a new baby on the way. There's so many things for them to be happy about despite the death of Ollie which was so horrible. But that is exactly what developing and skill of happiness is they can still be happy in their lives

7:09despite great tragedy and difficulty. You can still be happy even when shit things happen. It doesn't mean you're happy about that shit thing you're happy about that challenge but it does mean you have an ability to control your beliefs and outcomes and those those type of engagements and interactions that are so negative and so difficult you have an ability to limit the impact of those so that you can live a better life and be in a happier place. And I think that's freaking amazing. So that's a question to mask yourself. Do you work on the skill of happy or do you work on the skill of misery? Happiness is not a place you will arrive at. You can go out searching for it in a million different places and you won't find it. You might find fleeting feelings of joy and happiness when you meet a new person by a new car, get a new watch, do a new thing. But it's not sustained because it's not it's not internal. It's not intrinsic feeling. It's an externally addicted to feeling and experience that you have based on what is occurring around you.

8:10Based on who's around you at that time, what's going on with that. All of those things come out of the external part of what's happening for you. So then you are always reliant on your mood and your experience based on the things that are occurring around you. Instead of creating the feelings for yourself because you develop them developing a skill. And the more you develop that skill of feeling happy and peaceful and content, the more that you control that flight system gets you as parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems to operate effectively. When you can be in that more relaxed and rest and digest system because you meditate journal and you sleep well and you eat well and you train well and you do all of those things. When you can down-regulate that far-off flight stress response, then that skill of happiness is a result. Happy as a skill. It's not a place you get to. Go out and develop it.

9:11I hope you enjoyed this episode. Always remember, if you want the results, you have to do the work. For about how I can help you and my story, go to thatstronglifeproject.com.