Week 2

This week we will be going over Secrets #3 & 4 out of the book "The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People ". Here is a quick review of last week's secrets:

Your life has purpose and meaning.
Use a strategy for happiness.


Secret #3
You don't have to win every time.


"Ultra-competitive people, who always need to win, end up enjoying things less. If they lose they are very disappointed, and if they win it's what they expected would happen anyway."


Life is not a competition. We are not in a race to see who can get finished with life first or with the most things. In some ways I think I am guilty of competing in life. Especially with 3 sisters so close in age; there was a LOT of competing. And more than just competing, there was comparing, which to me is still competing. One sister did something, so I felt like I had to do it too. Constantly comparing myself. I don't know if they all felt the same way, but having two older than me and one younger I was always thinking about all their accomplishments and feeling like I needed to measure up or do better. Of course in my mind I never did better, but looking back none of it mattered at all. Everyone is so different that constantly comparing and competing is useless. Competition isn't a bad thing, but when it consumes you and makes you miserable if you don't win, that's when it becomes bad. Let the other person win once in a while. And be genuinely happy for them. In the end it will make everyone happy.

"Competitiveness can preclude life satisfaction because no accomplishment can prove sufficient, and failures are particularly devastating. Ultra-competitive people rate their successes with lower marks than some people rate their failures."


Secret #4
Your goals should be aligned with one another.


" The four tires of your car have to be properly aligned; otherwise the left tires will be pointed in a different direction from the right tires and the car won't work. Goals are just like that. They all must be pointed in the same direction. If your goals conflict with one another, your life may not work."


This is appropriate considering most of us just made a list of goals for the new year. Look over those goals and make sure they are all aiming for the same thing. For instance, if your goals are to get promoted at work and spend more time with family, are those goals going to cancel each other out. If you get promoted, are you going to be working more, thus spending less time with your family? Or if you spend more time with family are you going to be able to put in the hours at work to get that promotion? Really study your goals and make sure they are all in sync with each other. When they are they can all point to one singular goal: Happiness.

"In a long-term study of subjects over the course of more than a decade, life satisfaction was associated with the consistency of life goals. Goals regarding career, education, family, and geography were each important, and together add up to about 80 percent of satisfaction. These goals need to be consistent with one another to produce positive conclusions regarding goal achievement."


Review:
You don't have to win every time.
Your goals should be aligned with one another.

These are the concepts I am going to work on this week. Keeping in mind the secrets from last week as well.

To see all the secrets so far go to the list on the right labeled Happiness Experiment.