Category Archives: Personal happiness

When all of your problems are gone

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I can remember being a little kid, and thinking, “I can’t wait until I’m 12, and I won’t have any of these problems anymore.” Then the number was 16, and 18, and 25.

And here’s the thing…I was right. As you get older, you no longer have the problems you had before. You have new problems instead. There is no finish line.

So instead of fighting the challenges that life gives you, accept that you are always going to have problems, and things to overcome. And when you overcome them, you’ll have a bunch of new ones.

That’s just how life works. So don’t fight it.

Be afraid, but do it anyway

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Fear is normal. It’s designed to keep us alive. But it can also keep us from getting the things in life that we want.

We get scared of new experiences, meeting new people, trying new things. But these are the things that move life forward, and lead to great things happening in your life.

So go ahead and be afraid, but don’t let that stop you from doing the scary things. Don’t let the fear hold back your life.

Whose goals?

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We’re constantly working to achieve goals in our lives. The problem is that the goals you’re working towards might not be yours.

Society tells us so many things about what’s important in life, and what success looks like. And so many of us invest so much time and energy trying to live up to those goals without stopping to think about whether we even agree with them.

You want a big house? Why? You want to make a million dollars? Why? Are you thinking about goals that actually matter to you, or goals that you picked up from someone else?

The next time you’re thinking about the direction you’re going in life, really think about why you’re going that way. Achieving someone else’s goal isn’t success.

You’re either moving forward or backward

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Making progress is hard. It’s a lot easier to do nothing. But in nature, everything is either growing or dying, and we are no exception to this rule.

There’s no such thing as staying the same. There is only progress or regression. This applies to your health, your work, and your relationships. If you aren’t working to make them better, then they’re getting worse.

Don’t coast. Put in the work. Be better every day.

Take control of something

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It’s in our nature to want to have some control. But most of the things in our life are outside of our control, and this creates stress and anxiety. To make yourself happier, take control of something.

Even when it feels like your whole life is spinning out of control, there is always something you can take control of. Even if it’s something small, you will feel better when you are controlling something.

Look around your life. What can you take control of?

You messed up

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So, you messed up. Now what do you do?

We’ve all been there. We make a bad choice, or a series of bad choices, and now we just feel bad about where it got us, or who got hurt in the process. How do you take that negative and make it okay?

First, own it. Don’t try to put it on someone else. Even if someone else was involved, take ownership of your own actions.

Second, if you hurt someone, make amends. Tell them that you messed up, and you’re sorry. Don’t make any excuses for yourself, just own it and apologize.

Third, give yourself permission to feel bad about it. Sure, every cloud may have a silver lining, but when you’re in the middle of the storm, you can’t see that silver lining, and that’s okay. You can take time to work through it.

Last, move forward and learn. What did you learn about yourself, or about someone else? How can you avoid making that same mistake again? How can this experience make you more understanding of other people when they make mistakes? How can this make you a better person?

Don’t treat yourself like you’re supposed to be perfect. You are a flawed human who is going to keep messing things up. If you keep messing up the same thing, then it might be time for some outside help. But for the normal mistakes you make in life, give yourself permission to be human, and try to learn as much as you can from every experience.

You always have a choice

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There are a lot of times in life when it feels like you don’t have a choice. The reality is usually that you have a choice, you just really don’t like any of the options. But that is still a choice.

Even if all available options seem terrible to you, you still have a choice between those terrible options. When you find yourself in that situation, recognize that you actually do have a choice, albeit an awful one. Then try to pick the least terrible option available to you. You’ll feel better about the outcome if you recognize your role in it.

Just look around

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When you’re with a friend, and they go to the bathroom, do you immediately pull out your phone and start scrolling? Why? Have we, as a society, become incapable of just looking around at the world in front of us?

The next time you’re in a public place, and your friend walks away, try leaving your phone in your pocket, and just look around. Let your thoughts wander. Look at the people, because people-watching is always interesting.

Allow yourself to just be present in the moment, without an electronic distraction. I think you’ll find that it feels pretty good.

Make the change

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Twenty years ago today, I was red-faced, steam coming out of my ears mad. It had been a year since my promotion, when I was promised that if I increased the profits on the 2 departments I was taking over, they would give me a cut. March 11, 1999, my boss told me there would be no bonus.

I knew in that moment that I was going to quit that job and start my own business. I had proved that I could make money for someone else, so I decided I would make money for myself. I had a mortgage, a baby girl, and a wife without a job, but I knew what I had to do.

Twenty years later, my business is thriving, that baby girl is a junior at Ohio State, and my life couldn’t be better. I saw that I needed a change in my life, so I made it happen.

There are so many moments in life where we want things to be different, and in a lot of them, we don’t have any power to make a change. But when you do have the power, make the change! Don’t let fear of the unknown, or fear of failure, hold you back from creating the life that you want.

Logically, there were many more reasons against quitting my job and starting a business than there were reasons for doing it. But I did it anyway, because for my own long term happiness, that was what I needed.

Be afraid. There’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t let the fear hold you back from creating the life that you want. Make the change. Live your best life. Don’t wait.

Turn off notifications

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Your phone buzzes and you look at it. We’re conditioned to immediately look any time we get a notification. Why? Because we get a little dopamine release from it.

Why is that a bad thing? Because when you look at a notification the moment your phone buzzes, you are giving away your power over your own time. You are allowing a person, or an app, to decide for you how you will spend your time. Do you really want other people, or apps, to be deciding for you how your day progresses?

Step 1 is to turn off notifications for email, because how many emails are actually urgent and need you to respond right away? Probably none.

Step 2 is to look through your apps, and decide which ones are worth interrupting your time. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat; how many of the notifications that you get are urgent? If they’re not urgent, then why is your phone interrupting you for them? Do you have rain alerts? Do you need them?

Once you’ve got the notifications turned off, you can decide for yourself when you want to open Snapchat and see what your friends have been up to. You can take control of your time. I think you’ll feel a lot better choosing for yourself how you spend your time.