2 Tips to Improve your Happiness

In this post I would like to explore a couple of the common mistakes we often make in life which inevitably cause us distress. All people make these mistakes.  Even the most developed characters will make these mistakes though they will make them much less often than the majority of us who have not made substantial progress in the development of our character.

The point of this exploration is not to judge people for making these mistakes since it is something all human beings do. The point of this exploration is just to highlight the sorts of mistakes we make, how they negatively impact our happiness and how they can be avoided.

1. Expectations

It is natural to expect things from people around you, and from life in general. We expect that our loved ones show us how meaningful we are to them. We expect that our colleagues recognize how good we are at our jobs. We may even have the expectation from life in general that we earn enough money to live comfortable lives.

Some of us have really high expectations. Really competitive people will have the expectation that they always win. Some people may have the expectation that they are always the center of attention. Others may have the expectation that everybody always gives them what they want.

Even though it is natural to have expectations we must realize the danger that they pose. This is because all unmet expectations will produce resentment and unhappiness. When you have an expectation that goes unfulfilled the emotional response to that is resentment and unhappiness, it is a feeling that I have not gotten what I deserve.

The greater and more numerous our expectations are the more chance we have of suffering this disappointment. It is inevitable that our expectations will go unmet some of the time so by having them we have shouldered a ticking time bomb that will produce resentment and unhappiness at some point.

We must therefore be deliberate about recognizing and dropping our expectations. They are not necessary for us to live our lives. We can be just as productive, in fact more productive, in the world without expectations. Dropping expectations is not easy, they become deeply ingrained in our character. This is all the reason to work hard at it though.

2. Focusing on Results

Focusing on results is also something people have a natural tendency towards, some more so than others. Results focus is often hailed as a virtue. Society often admires people who know what they want and wont stop until they get it.

Knowing what you want and not stopping until you get it is not itself a bad thing. What we have to be careful about however is what we give attention to when we chasing what we want. Life is a process. The process of getting to what you want will generally be a substantially greater amount of time than the amount of time spent with what you want once you have. Once you have gotten what you want it is inevitable replaced by another thing and the process starts all over again.

If we live our lives with our attention constantly focused on something we want that we will only get in the future then most of our lives will be spent feeling empty, feeling like we do not have the thing we think will make us happy.

What we must do to avoid this is to not focus on the result we want to achieve by our hard work but rather focus on doing the work itself. We must give attention to the process of getting to where we want to go and live the moment. If we manage to take delight in the process we will have a much greater sense of fulfillment, our happiness will not be suspended to some time in the future where we have achieved our goals.