Do you have to, or do you want to?

This week, I led my very first Happiness Challenge, with a group of 50 participants.

The assignment was simple: Think of something small that you know tends to make you happy, and commit to doing it every day, Monday-Friday.

In some ways, it's an easy exercise: Take a walk outside? Listen to music? Notice what I'm grateful for? No problem! I love doing those things.

But it was interesting for me to notice how quickly my desires could start feeling like burdens once a commitment was involved -- as if they were not things I wanted to do, but things I had to do. As if I had no choice in the matter.

I kept catching myself in "have to" mode, and reminding myself of what I actually wanted: not to prove anything, or please anyone, but simply to experience joy!

I also realized how often I do this in the rest of my life, seeing myself as a victim of my obligations and "to do" lists rather than the creator of them.

Is it something you can identify with, too? If so, I invite you to join me in playing with shifting those have to's into want to's.

Do you have to go to work, or do you want to go to work? Do you have to get groceries, or do you want to get groceries? Do you have to study for that test, or do you want to study for that test? You get the idea.

Sometimes just shifting the language around is enough to create happiness.

How to REALLY inspire community

I saw this poster on the commuter rail to Boston the other week, and started wondering what would make it a more effective advertisement for someone like me.

If a company wanted to be powerfully associated with things like joy, love and community, what might their Gift of Happiness-inspired advertising campaign look like?

Here's what I came up with:

What do you think? Would an advertising campaign like that catch your eye? Do you know companies that already advertise that way? What other creative ideas do you have for companies that want to make a significant positive difference in society?

Hygge for homebuyers

I love thinking about small, meaningful ways that business owners and service professionals can surprise and delight their customers.

One idea came to me recently after I received this article about hygge and happiness from a real estate professional who must have come across my own blog post on the subject.

It's fun to tell people about hygge, I thought, but why not help new homeowners actually experience it for themselves?

I elaborate on the idea in this video.

What do you think? Does the idea appeal to you? What other ways do you -- or could you -- delight new home owners?

The Gift of Happiness... and Pancakes

There are some businesses that just "get" the Gift of Happiness philosophy. They want to delight their employees, customers and communities -- and they DO it! -- in ways that are simple, creative, and fun.

Snooze is one of those businesses that just gets it. 

In the video below, I share some of the reasons I love this restaurant that I visited only once, and why it so perfectly embodies, and helps me explain, the Gift of Happiness approach.

What other companies do you know of that have created a culture of joy, gratitude and giving? How did they do it? How would you bring this kind of energy into your own organization?

Having problems is not a problem

The problem is that you think there's a problem...  and even that is not actually a problem.

That phrase came to me earlier today, as I was pondering what has started to become a common interaction with people when I share that I am a happiness consultant.

I tell them about the work I do, and they start telling me about things that are wrong with them and their life.  It feels as if they're saying, "Help, I have all these problems. Please, tell me how to fix them so I can be happy."

I can unwittingly find myself placed into the role of "expert," with other person hoping that I will tell them something they haven't heard before, something they can do to make those problems go away so they can be happier.

It is easy for me to experience anxiety and self-doubt in these situations, as if my value and legitimacy rest on being able to come up with a good answer for them -- when the truth is, I don't have one. Because there isn't one.

There isn't a good answer because the question is based on a flawed premise: that our unhappiness is due to objective "problems," and that getting rid of them is a prerequisite for happiness.

It is just not true.

In fact, that whole anxious problem-fixing mentality is what sets us up for unhappiness in the first place. It's a lot easier to experience happiness when we remember that the whole concept of a "problem" is subjective and made up.

Certainly there are some experiences that we like more than others. We don't have to like feeling angry or anxious or depressed, or that We've lost something or someone important to us, or the myriad ways that human beings mistreat each other.  But just because we don't like something doesn't make it a problem. It's just the way life is right now.

Happiness comes from seeing that we have a choice about how to think about the unpleasant experiences of life, and how to act in response to them. It comes from giving ourselves permission to experience what it's actually like to be us, and to act according to what we want for ourselves and others, without having to judge any of it as good or bad.

Reflecting on all of this, I am suddenly eager for the next time I start feeling compelled to help fix things about other people's lives, as an opportunity to practice shifting out of my own worry and self-doubt. It's not a problem that there's this problem, I will tell myself. It's not even a problem that I'm seeing it as a problem. All of it is just life.

It's from that peace of "there is no problem" that all the good answers come.

Love on the larger scale

It occurs to me that the basic premise of my last post -- that worrying about the people we love is not itself an act of love -- also applies to how we think about the world.

There is so much fear in our public conversations these days: fear of climate change, fear of terrorism, fear of oppression, fear for the economy, fear of changing values, fear of "What will happen if...?" 

These fears are being given voice all over the place, and I don't think they serve us, either personally or as a wider society.

I would like to see the fear-spreading replaced by conversations of what we want and are working toward.

Our fears keep us from seeing straight. They trick us into thinking that we are weak and lack resilience. They prime us to look for enemies, and overlook potential allies. They shut us off from our courage, creativity, and flexibility -- all the things that we need to solve problems. And they can even create self-fulfilling prophecies, because too often our fearful brains think that being *right* means being safe.

If we want the kind of society and future we say we want, we have got to get ourselves out of fear mode. It may not be easy or automatic, but it is possible, and I think it is a prerequisite for anyone who wants to make a positive difference in the world.

How do you move from fear to love in the face of large-scale issues?

How do you stay focused on what you *have* and *want* and *value* rather than all the things you *don't* want?

How do you keep working for the good without getting sidetracked by the bad?

I would love to hear what works for you.

Worry ≠ Love

The other day after school, my son asked to play in the woods behind his elementary school. He ran ahead, while I stayed to chat for a few minutes with another mom. Then I went to find him.

He wasn't in the first place I looked, or the second, or the third.

I felt that little twinge of worry, that "What if...?" thought, accompanied by a lightning-quick series of mental images of all the ways things could go wrong and how horrible it would feel.

Then I took a deep breath, shook off the images, and ended up finding him close to the first place I'd looked, happily peeling bark off of a dead tree.

What's interesting, though, was noticing my inner commentary as I calmed myself down:

If you were a good parent, you would be worrying right now. You should be feeling guilty about not keeping better track of your child. What if something bad did happen and you were acting all nonchalant? Everyone would think you didn't care!

So I wasn't really worried about my son, but I was very worried about people judging me for not worrying about him. Weird.

What was that about? Since when was the amount of worrying I do about people a measure of how much I love them? Does loving people well require that I worry about them? I don't think so. And yet that hidden belief has been operating in the background for who knows how long.

I don't get the sense that the people who really love well -- the Dalai Lamas and Mother Teresas of the world -- go around worrying about people. Just the opposite. Their deep love seems to come with a sense of trust in people, and in life.

It's true for me, too. When I am worrying, I am shut off from actually experiencing love. And that doesn't serve anyone.

I think it's time for me to ditch that Worry = Love belief once and for all.

What about you? How do you relate the experience of worrying about people? Does it feel like love to you? How does it feel when other people worry about you?

Ditch the justifications, and re-commit!

At the beginning of January, I committed to writing and publishing a new blog post every day for the entire month. I did it for 23 days straight, and it felt really, really good.

Then I missed a day.

I told myself it was the right choice, because my writing kept taking me away from my family in the evenings, and I didn't want to keep sending the message that my blog posts were more important than they were. Plus, it felt good to remind myself that I don't have to be a slave to commitments that no longer serve me. 

The problem was, missing that one day really made a difference for my momentum. I wrote on Day 25, then missed Day 26, wrote on 27, but then missed 28-30. Each time I missed a day, I added new justifications:

Maybe I didn't need to go a full 31 days after all. Really, I've already gotten what I set out to get, which was more comfort and ease in my writing. Maybe I've learned that I just don't have time for this along with all of my other commitments. 

Do you see how sneaky those justifications are? They protected me from the discomfort of having to admit that I'd failed at my goal, and they sounded so reasonable! But each one also made it easier to skip another day, and took a toll on my sense of integrity. 

By the beginning of Day 31 (today!), I had to admit I was disappointed in myself. My 31-day commitment had been important to me, and I felt like I let myself down. I wanted to re-commit to something, but what?

I knew it was important to me to keep sharing my ideas without sacrificing my sleep or the needs of my family. I also wanted to set myself up for success, so that I didn't feel a need to keep coming up with justifications when I hit obstacles.

Then I remembered the Ignite Video Challenge that I signed up for just a few days ago. It's like a free 30-day boot camp in creating video content, and I signed up on a friend's recommendation, not actually knowing how I could possibly fit it in on top of the blogging and everything else.

Today I realized I don't have to. I can put the blogging on hold for a while and just focus on this video challenge, which will open up a whole new set of possibilities for how to share ideas without the crazy time investment that writing requires. I am excited!

Stepping back, I love how this process demonstrates a basic cycle of life:

Failure -- > Disappointment --> Reflection --> Re-commitment --> Repeat

It's a good reminder to me that being anywhere in this cycle is totally okay. It just means I'm alive and learning.

What about you?

Can you think of a time when you fell short of how you wanted to be? Might you have had a little voice inside saying, "Don't worry, it's okay because [insert justification here]"? 

I would say, that voice is half right. Falling short is okay. But you don't have to justify with with some special extenuating circumstance. It's enough to simply remember that you're human, and falling short is what we humans do. The real question is, What do you want now?

I'd love to hear what's next for you.

Who says?

Okay, quick quiz. Are the following statements facts or opinions?

Something is wrong. It's all my fault. That person is bad. I don't deserve it. It shouldn't be this way. It's going to fail. They should have ______. You have to ____. There was no choice.

Opinions, all of them: judgments, predictions, evaluations, "shoulds."

Distinguishing facts from opinions is an important basic lesson, taught all through school, to help kids make sense of what they read and hear, and sort out truth from assertion.

As far as I know, though, the standard curriculum doesn't ever invite kids to apply that same distinction to their own internal commentaries about life. I think it is a huge missed opportunity.

I'm thinking about this today because of an ongoing fight I've been having with my 2nd grader over homework. He doesn't want to do it, I tell him he has to, and lots of angry drama ensues.

Last night it came to yet another head, and at some point during the evening I realized I just didn't want to fight any more. The whole thing just felt so wrong. I went into another room and just sat with it all, hoping for some clarity about what was actually happening and what to do about it. 

Sitting and breathing, I noticed thoughts popping up left and right, frantically defending my actions, my point of view, and my overall anger, frustration, fear and shame.

He has to get his homework done. I should be able to help him. He should be nice to me, and listen to me. He is lazy.  He is stubborn. He has to learn how to calm down and deal with his anger. If he doesn't figure this out now, it will only get worse. This stinks!

They were all just opinions, but they didn't feel like opinions at the time. They felt like facts. And treating them like facts made me miserable.

What eventually got me out of my funk was that I started pushing back.

"Says who?" I began to ask.

Who says getting his homework done is so important? Who says he's not supposed to get angry about being told what to do? Who says this situation means I'm failing as a parent, or that there's something wrong with him as a child? Who says this situation means anything about any of us?

Faced with a question like that, the opinions lost their grip. They slipped away, and suddenly there was space for some new possibilities:

You teach about emotions, Anne. What would happen if you listened to his anger, the way you guide your students to do, rather than treating it like it's a problem?

You teach about motivation, Anne. What if you started tuning in to what actually makes him happy, the way you invite your students to do, rather than raising another human being whose life is dominated by other people's "should's?"

In hindsight, these are head-smackingly obvious insights: Practice what you preach! Apply what you already know! But I couldn't even look for these solutions when my opinions were shouting their "truth" in my ears.

To be honest, I still don't know exactly what the right thing is to do with homework, but this shift in perspective toward curiosity, openness and humility is huge. And I'm excited to bring more of what I teach out in the world into the walls of my home, where we need it just as much as anyone else.

How does all of this land for you? Can you think of a frustrating person or situation in your life and recognize any opinions masquerading as facts? What other approaches do you use when you find yourself trapped in drama that you no longer want? I'd love to hear.

More simple ways to spread happiness

I love coming across new, creative ideas for spreading the gift of happiness. In the past week, I learned of two more people doing fun and simple things to make strangers happy that I wanted to share with you.

One person is an artist named Bren Bataclan, who was a speaker at TEDx Natick. He got his start in 2003 when he started leaving his paintings around the Boston area with a note saying, "This painting is yours if you promise to smile at random people more often."

Fast forward to 2017, and so far Bren has left over 2000 paintings in all 50 states and over 60 countries, with plans to eventually hit the entire globe and even outer space! He also left several around the building where the TEDx event was held -- one of which is now in my house. :)

The other person on my mind is my dad, who sent me a short email last weekend to tell me about something new he's been trying out while walking at the mall. In his words:

Today I pioneered a new giving format, for mallwalkers!  I had a balloon in my pocket, and blew it up, and was holding it.  Along came a little girl, maybe 3, being pushed in a stroller by her mother.  The little girl's eyes went right to the balloon, and I approached the mother.  "Do you suppose your little girl would like this?" and gave it to the mother.  The little girl lit up like Christmas morning! So I laid in a supply of balloons, with the idea that I might blow up one and hold onto it, in wait for some unsuspecting mother and child!

And an update, a day later:

Today I gave away balloons 2 and 3 to little kids at the mall.  There were 2 young mothers, each with a little girl.  I and a walking buddy approached with a balloon each, and one of the little girls (the bigger one, maybe 3), saw them coming, and started walking toward us!  We gave them to the mothers, and they were OBVIOUSLY thrilled. Later, we saw the same people in the mall, and both kids still had their balloons! So much delight!  So little investment!

Thank you so much to ALL of you, for all the things you to bring joy into the world. My life is better because of you.