Truth Bomb Tuesday: here’s 3 new ways to think about calling more joy into your life.
People tend to see me as a pretty happy person. Some might even call me jolly.
And that’s probably right. I think I am a pretty happy person.
And look, I recognise that a lot of that comes from the privileges I have in my life. When you don’t have to work, and when you have the financial resources at your disposal that I have, then it’s easy to execute on your strategies for a happy life.
But not every rich person is happy, which proves that mindset matters. So here is three things to think about when it comes to making this year one of the most fun years ever.
Number one: Separate your laundry
I think it’s a pretty common story to come out of the Christmas break feeling like you’re just as burnt out as when you went in.
Christmas is a time of year that is often full of responsibility. All the in-laws that need visiting. A holiday that needs planning. All the odd jobs you’ve been saving up.
But then we get confused. Why am I so tired? I just had a holiday?
We need to protect our leisure time from the laundry… and from family obligations and from overbloated To Do lists. From everything.
We try to save time by mashing our responsibilities and our leisure time together.
“I really feel like I just need a day at the beach, but I also want to catch up with all my friends, so I will invite 50 people to the beach with me.
Don’t do this. Protect your leisure time at all costs. Don’t let anything encroach on it.
Number two: Commit and go hard
I think most of us tend to think about fun in big bursts. I’m going to go on a holiday to Paris. I’m going to go on a cruise around the Mediterranean. I’m going to hire a private jet and take all my friends to Taylor Swift.
But a happy life isn’t built out of huge monuments like this. It’s made from tiny pieces stacked one on top of the other, day after day after day.
We’ve got to think about happiness like dental hygiene or a high-fibre diet. It’s a form of psychic hygiene that requires daily upkeep.
Spend more time thinking about your daily rituals than your blockbuster blowouts.
Number three: keep the circle wide
One of the things that seems to happen as life gets busier and busier, is that the range of things we do just for fun gets narrower and narrower.
When we were kids we’d have 100 things we might do for fun – different games to play with our friends, different friends to hang out with, different activities to engage in.
But as we get older and life gets busier, our list of joyful pursuits gets smaller and smaller. We might only have one night to ourselves a week and one activity we engage in.
But what that means is that our happiness has fewer legs to stand on. And if something happens to one of those things – say someone nasty joins our netball team – suddenly all the happiness in our week is at risk.
The discipline here is the stay connected with all the things that make you happy and to keep making time for them. Keep a wide circle.
Don’t let all your eggs end up in one basket.
And look I could go on. I have gone on. I’ve been talking about this for years.
But hopefully here I’ve given you three new things to think about, and three new ways to take responsibility for your happiness and joy this year.
Let it be the most fun year ever.
DB.