What Everybody Ought To Know About How to be Happy with Yourself and with What You Have
Are you unhappy with what you have? Maybe you have some success, a comfortable life. But still, you feel like something’s lacking.
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In this post, I share with you the essentials of how you can be happy with yourself and with what you have. It all comes down to cultivating the mindsets and actions that help you to focus on the good things in your life, to let go of oppressive burdens, expectations, and beliefs, and to make the best of what you already have, out of the here and now.
As I argued in a previous post, being truly happy is a lot less about certain getting things than it is about incorporating things into your life in the right way and moving through the world in a way that works for you. To an important extent then, happiness is a choice. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control the way you process things and your actions. Here I dive deeper and discuss several changes in mindsets and actions that you can make to be happy with yourself and with what you have.
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Changes in M indsets
1. Realize that Life Is Not Mediocre. Life Is Magnificent
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In the ordinary dull pace of life, with its busyness and stress, it can be easy to lose track of everything that is great about your life and the world. We tend to end up focusing on what we don’t have, feeling helpless to do much about our happiness.
But this is not the full picture. You need to resist being sucked into this false mindset. For there are plenty of things about your life that are pretty great Take a moment now and ask yourself,
What about my life is amazing?
We all have things if we’re being honest with ourselves. Ask yourself the following questions:
Are you generally healthy?
Do you have a roof over your head?
Do you have enough to eat?
Do you have a pet?
Do you have family members you’re close with?
Do you have friends you can lean on when times are hard?
Have you had an education?
Do you have pastimes you lose yourself in?
Do you have important milestones you have reached in your life?
Are there beautiful things in nature you have appreciated?
Have you been moved by feats of creativity and works of art?
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If you can answer yes to any one of them, then you already have a reason to celebrate! And if you can answer yes to several of them, then you have a lot to be grateful for. And you can make yourself happier by vividly considering all the amazing things you already have in your life.
Oppressive Limiting Mindset: My life is mediocre. I’m fated to be unhappy. At any given moment, there’s nothing I can do to make myself happier.
Philosophical Reframing: Life is pretty magnificent. At any given moment, I have the power to find something that makes me happy by focusing on how much I already have.
2. Realize That The Past Is Not a Burden that Dooms Your Fate and Weighs Down Your Future. It’s a Mine of Experience, Happy Memories, and Wisdom that Can Help You Forward
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You can’t change what’s already happened. But you can change the significance of what’s already happened. All too often, we waste our lives worrying about what could have been or agonizing over our mistakes. This is completely useless. Don’t let your past continue to drag you down. Decide that you’re not going to let it any longer.
Consciously let go of bad experiences holding you back such as:
-romances that did not work out
-mistakes that you made
-humiliations that you endured
-opportunities that you squandered
Stop wasting your time feeling guilt or regret over these things. Your past failures do doom you to fail in the future. Your past doesn’t have to shackle you or limit your future.
You can instead use it as a mine of goodness, rich in ore of happy memories, learning experiences, and wisdom. A mine you can always excavate by focusing on all that you’ve had the privilege to enjoy in this life.
Take the time to savor all the good you’ve lived in your life. Consider things like:
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-happy memories from different periods in your life (childhood, high school, college, etc.)
-personal achievements (creative, athletic, intellectual, etc.)
-good and meaningful times with different friends (parties, outings, trips, etc.)
-professional successes (at talks, meetings, in publications, etc.)
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To get the most out of this mining of the past, I recommend that you use my Philosophical Life-Design Inspired Good Life Journaling Technique that you can use to gather data and information about how these different happy experiences contribute to your own vision of the good life. Record your levels of engagement, energy, and harmonization with your core values for these different experiences, and reflect on why they engage you/energize you/harmonize with you as they do.
Oppressive Limiting Mindset: My past weighs me down. My past failures show I will fail in the future. Thinking about the past fills me with regret.
Philosophical Reframing: My past skyrockets me forward. My past experiences and memories inform what I've learned and how I will succeed in the future. Thinking about the past fills me with joy, inspiration, and wisdom.
3. Realize that Comparing Yourself with People Is Not a Way to Measure Your True Success. It’s a Weight of Focusing on the Wrong Things and Falling into the Rat Race
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Where envy and jealousy take root, happiness cannot flourish. It’s impossible to stay happy when you keep focusing on how others are better than you. When someone has something you like but don’t have (a job, an award, a significant other, etc.), don’t let yourself get upset about this. Instead, be happy for them and focus on moving forward and making yourself happier.
More generally, you need to stop measuring your success in life by comparing yourself to others. It sets you up for unhappiness by inviting jealousy and envy. This is especially because people tend not to share nearly as much of the bad as they do the good.
It’s good to expect and demand a lot of yourself. But the measuring stick you should use is not others, but rather the best version of yourself. Don’t try to do better than others. Try to do as best as you possibly can. And remember to be compassionate with yourself as you do so.
To the extent that you measure your progress, this measuring should empower you to do better, not debilitate you by making you focus on how much you fall short. When you fail to do live up to your best, use it as a learning experience.
Oppressive Limiting Mindset: I measure my own worth, progress, and success by comparing myself to other people and seeing if I’m better or worse than them. When I fall short, I despair and feel jealousy and envy.
Philosophical Reframing: I measure my own worth, progress, and success by comparing myself to the best version of myself. When I fall short, I compassionately learn from the experience so I can do better next time.
4. Realize that Material Things Are Nice, But They Will Never Be the Source of True Happiness and Desiring Them Can Lead to Unhappiness.
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We all need material possessions to survive, and the comforts of modern civilization can be really nice. But the enjoyment that fancy new things provide tends to wear off surprisingly quickly. All too soon your new possessions become as mundane as others and you’re back to where you started.
By cultivating unhealthy desires for material possessions and making your happiness depend on them, you set yourself up for unhappiness. This is related to the “satisfaction treadmill effects” that the human mind tends to exhibit and which make thinking of happiness as getting what you want problematic. Essentially, the human mind has a tendency to require more and better material conditions to reach the same level of satisfaction as before.
Material possessions are nice, but by themselves, they will never make you happy. It is only by making the right use of them that they make us happy. And in the long-run, placing your happiness on material things will only lead to disappointment and further unhappiness. So be grateful that you have them while you have them. But realize they don't last. Don't attach your happiness. To them, as the Buddha teaches, "The root of suffering is attachment."
Oppressive Limiting Mindset: If I want to be happy, I need to have nice material things.
Philosophical Reframing: If I want to be happy, I need to release myself from desires for material things.
5. Realize that Your Happiness Does Not Depend as Much on Your Outcomes and Current Success as it Does on Your Mindset and Trajectory
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A key change in mindset that can empower you to be happy with what you have lies in the shift away from an outcome-focused, static approach (trying to bring about a certain state or outcome in your life that will get you happiness) to a process-focused, dynamical approach (creating a way of interacting with the world that makes you happy).
Life is not static. It’s not about what you have or get. It’s not a destination to be reached. Life is dynamic. It’s about growth and change. It’s a journey to be enjoyed!
As I discussed in my Ethical Life Design Post, really adopting this mindset can grant you something incredibly powerful: Failure Immunity. The ability to turn any perceived failure into growth. Go read more about it here.
Part of what’s exciting about this change in mindset is that it really empowers you to take control of your happiness. Because it makes your happiness depend on things that are under (rather than out of) your control. You can always change your mindset. You can always change your trajectory, regardless of what you have in life. It’s simply a matter of deciding that you’re going to think and do differently going forward.
Oppressive Limiting Mindset: My happiness depends on outcomes and current, external markers of success, and these largely depend on things outside my control.
Philosophical Reframing: My happiness depends on my mindset and trajectory, and these are largely under my control.
Changes in Actions
1. Engage in a Daily Gratitude Practice ​
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As Tony Robbins puts it, "where gratitude begins suffering ends." It's impossible to feel intense suffering when you're experiencing immense gratitude. So you owe it to yourself to cultivate gratitude. By doing so, not only will you make yourself feel better, you will also become happy with yourself and with what you have through a genuine appreciation of your life, yourself, and what you have.
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So take some time every day, even if it's just five to ten minutes, to consciously appreciate and be grateful for the many things you already have in your life. By engaging in this practice, you can reinforce the above philosophical mindsets. There are different concrete practices that you can try out.
My favorite one, inspired by Tony Robbins's Hour of Power ritual, consists of going through a kind of expanding circle of gratitude. You begin by consciously visualizing what you're grateful for your self and your current life. This can include the lessons you've learned, milestones you've reached, emotions you feel at peace with, but also the parts of the home that you live in that you may enjoy, like your bed or shower.
After doing this for a couple of minutes, you turn to visualize your relationships with your significant others, your pets, close friends and family members, consciously appreciating what you're grateful for about them (the way you can laugh together, how they helped you through some tough times, how they thanked you when you were there for them when nobody else was).
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Then, after a couple of minutes, you turn to visualize what is good about the world in the present. I especially like to focus on the wonders of the internet and the way we can communicate so quickly across the globe and how much information is available for so many people.
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Finally, I take a couple of minutes to be grateful for my past achievements and successes as well as lessons learned and to be grateful for the fact that I get to work on the projects that I work on during the day.
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Try this gratitude practice out. See if it works for you. If it doesn't, try something else. Keep trying until you find something that speaks to you. Even if it's just writing down three things for which you're grateful every morning before you tackle any work tasks.
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2. Spend Time with People Who Bring out the Positive & Best Parts of You
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To an important extent, you inevitably become like the people you surround yourself with. Over time, their beliefs, actions, and emotions will rub off on you, and you on them. To be happy with the people you have in life, you should make sure to spend the bulk of your time with the people who bring out the best in you, who make you happiest and inspire you to live up to what is best and most awesome in you.
These are the people you can lose yourself in conversation with, people who can energize you when you're done spending time with them, the ones that give you insights and that will appreciate your own insights, the ones who help pick you up when you're down. To home-in on which people are the ones who really bring out the best in you, you can use my Good Life Journaling technique and gather data and information on which ways of spending your time with which people help you live out your vision of the good life.
These can be friends, family members, significant others, co-workers, or even casual acquaintances. You can find that kind of genuine positive and empowering interactions with all kinds of people. Only you know who are the people who really have this effect on you, so only you can make this choice for yourself. But if you make it, you'll be glad you did. You'll find yourself more able to show up as the best version of yourself as the people around you pull it out of you and inspire you to put it out into the world!
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3. Fill Your Environment with Things that Make You Happy
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Above I noted that material possessions, by themselves, are not the source of happiness, but by making the right use of material possessions, we can increase our happiness. Importantly, our environment affects us in a wide variety of ways, shaping our thoughts, attitudes, and possibilities. Love flowers? Place a vase in your desk. Spending even just a little bit of time around the things that make you feel good can help you feel a lot better about your life and what you have. Doing so will also remind you what you are grateful for and reinforce the mindset that life is magnificent and there is so much to be happy about.
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Setting up our environment in a way that helps us is particularly important in times of a global pandemic and social isolation. You may be spending the vast majority of your time at your desk recently. You owe it to yourself to make your desk a place full of things that make you happy rather than a place of deep misery.
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I myself have, among other happy-making things on my work desk, a plate my girlfriend bought me that says "Life is a Journey, Enjoy It!" that makes me smile and reminds me to make the best of things even in the toughest times. I also keep two stuffed animal friends with me: Kirby and Dragonite. Looking at their faces always makes me happy, and when I get stuck, I sometimes bounce ideas off of them! Doing so helps me turn a stressful time into a fun and often helpful moment. Again, by engaging with wisdom in the right way with what you have, you can find happiness with and with yourself.
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4. Be Active, Use Your Body, and Awaken the Joy of Movement
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Your body is one of the most powerful resources you have available to you to feel happy with yourself and with what you have. It is a physical lever that you can use to make yourself feel things and feel better! All you have to do is move it in the right way. As some people say "motion creates emotion." Even something as small as jumping up and down a couple of times while smiling can raise your happiness levels.
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More fundamentally, we all at some point at children enjoyed moving through the world in a playful and energetic way. At some point along the way, society beats it out of us, but we can be conscious and regain it.
Try getting up and dancing around to your favorite song right now, don't think, just sway your body along with the music, smiling at the news If you can't. Do it right now. Or if you can't right now, next time you are free. Let the song move your body and soul, and try to keep this music with you as you keep going through the day.
Working out and stretching regularly also helps reignite the joy of movement in your body because it gets you to feel more at home in your body in the way you are aware of it on a subconscious level (through what is called proprioception). Even if it's just ten minutes three times a week, working out and stretching can help you be happy with yourself because it reinforces in your brain that by taking action, you can become happier with yourself.
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Another thing you can do to awaken the joy of movement in your body is to come up with a "Power Move." This is exactly what it sounds. It's a move (away of moving your body) that makes you feel powerful and excited, which energizes and infuses your emotional state with positivity. Tony Robbins likes to do a little shout while wiggling his hands and do a clap sometimes. I like to do some quick jabs at the air and then an uppercut. Try out something that you find epic and empowering. Have fun with it! It may seem silly or dumb, but ignore that, and lean into it! That's part of the point of this! Who cares what people think about how you move if the way you move makes you happy?
Yet another powerful way to use your body to make yourself feel happier with what you have is to engage in what is called "Power Posing." Essentially, it consists of posing in ways that take up a large amount of space (like puffing your chest out, extending your arms ou in a victory pose, or leaning back in a chair with your hands on the back of your neck), and it has significant biochemical effects on your brain that can make you feel instantly better.
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5. Get Outside (Safely) and Appreciate The Beauty of Nature
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A great source of happiness around us lies in nature, but it's all too easy to lose track of that with our busy lives. In this time of the global pandemic and social isolation, when so many of us have been forced to work remotely, it can be especially easy to fall into the tendency to make you spend all your time indoors through the demands of the world.
Now more than ever, you can be happy with yourself and with what you have if you carve out space and time to appreciate the beauty of nature the outside world has to offer, even if it's just a tree in a nearby street. Try sketching a beautiful plant, tree, or rock if it speaks to you. If you do, you'll find yourself appreciating it even more and being even happier with yourself and what's around you.
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Take a walk. Go on a bike ride. Maintain social distance and be safe while you do so, but don't let your life and your world become all about spending time in a couple of rooms within a house or apartment. Whatever you like to do outside, you owe it to yourself to do it. You'll find your mood improve and your outlook on life change. It will energize you and help put things into perspective.
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You don't have to go outside every day by any means. Staying inside watching TV or surfing the internet is a great way to relax, but you can get even more out of that indoors downtime if you mix it up with some safe outdoor relaxation, especially if it helps you to focus on the beauty of some aspect of the natural world.
Conclusion
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In this post, I have shared with you five key changes in mindsets and actions that you can take to be happy with yourself and with what you have. By making these changes, you can come to relate to what you have in a way that empowers you to be happy with it and be happy with yourself. Any one of these changes can make a difference in your happiness, but together they can all bring you great happiness with yourself and with what you already have in life.
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Another way you can be happy with what you have in life is by learning to tap more meaning out of your everyday experiences. You can read about three ways to find meaning in life and be happy with what you have here.
If you're interested in using a unique journaling technique to gather data and reflect on what ways of relating to what you already have make you happiest, then sign up and get my Guide to Good Life Journaling.
If you're interested in diving deeper into how to use your body, then click below and sign up to get a Bonus Guide to Power Posing.
And if you realize you need to make these or other changes to make your life better but you find fear holding you back, then check out my post on how to conquer fear using philosophy.
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I hope you make these changes in your life and find happiness with yourself and with what you have. But if you find yourself getting stuck and being unhappy with some area of your life no matter what, then consider joining me for a free happiness coaching call.
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