The Secret to Enduring Happiness
Happiness, rather an enduring state of happiness, is not what you might think it is. We can't expect to win or feel good all the time. However, most people inadvertently attach their personal happiness to whether they're winning or losing, or feeling good or stuck in the suck.
Win = Happy. Lose = Not Happy, Right?
The times we win, the things we do to help others, our close relationships, and our valued experiences all contribute to happiness. Still, those big, bold moments of joy are often fleeting. So, how do you maintain a consistent happiness quotient above the baseline?
This idea of "above the baseline" isn't a state of constant happiness but the idea that happiness can be maintained more often above the baseline than below the baseline. There's a disclaimer: we shouldn't expect to be happy all the time, but we can tip the scales in our favour. We need sadness, sorrow, and disappointment to give us contrasting perspectives. You won't ever fully appreciate the gifts without the gaps, but in the same light, we must try to focus on the gifts, not the gaps.
I have two strategies for enduring happiness based on being more consistent. The first strategy involves your inner reward system and a beautiful neurochemical called dopamine.
Strategy 1:
When dopamine is released in our brains, it feels great—probably why it's referred to as the "feel good" hormone. This wonder drug is keenly tied to pleasure, enhanced motivation, self-confidence, a better sense of self-worth, and increased attention; even your memory improves! Dopamine doesn't do its job alone; it works with serotonin (also keenly tied to happiness) and noradrenaline. Dopamine is a core part of the reason we do almost everything—it's the motivation, reward, and reinforcement loop. We constantly strive for a dopamine rush because it puts us in a pretty good mood. It contributes to alertness, focus, motivation, and happiness. These motives are why certain websites and social media accounts have photo collections called the "dopamine dump." There are significant downsides to not having enough dopamine and problems associated with too much dopamine. Still, most people struggle with the former, not the latter. People struggle with things like lack of alertness, concentration, and enthusiasm or feeling depressed when lacking dopamine.
So, why aren't we making a conscious effort to increase our production of dopamine?
Some strategies include eating more protein and fewer saturated fats, getting more sleep, meditating, or even listening to music which increases dopamine production. But the easiest (and most rewarding) way to increase dopamine production (and enjoyment) is tied to effort.
We need to learn to train our internal reward system to recognize dopamine and to recognize the things we do that produce the dopamine dump. In the process, we will become more growth minded and reach higher levels of achievement in life.
Sounds good, right?
To put it succinctly, there's more dopamine derived in the effort and strain process than in the destination.
What does that mean?
If you've ever had to work hard to achieve a goal (really hard), you've enjoyed a lot of dopamine. It's important to acknowledge there's more dopamine produced in your effort and strain than in the destination. Don't get me wrong, when you win, it feels good, and it's good to celebrate. If you close a deal, reach an athletic goal, purchase a car, hit a business milestone, get married, win the game or buy your dream home—it's worth celebrating. Still, we can't get caught up in the results and forget about the process. Each repetition of effort releases dopamine, so when you look at the cumulative dopamine derived in that process, it far surpasses the quantity of the dopamine dump.
It feels good to work hard. And guess what, you're much more likely to reach your highest potential when you put in hard work.
When you work out in the gym, climb a mountain, do manual labour, work at your desk, or work at practically anything, it feels better to work hard than to work easy. Let's use the gym as an example. If you sweat it out in the gym and push yourself to your limit, it feels better than if you go to the gym and work out easy. This is because hard work equals a high dopamine output (including serotonin, noradrenaline, endorphins, etc.). This should be intuitive because we've all felt it, so why do we have days where we slack off or don't put in our whole effort?
We're just not connecting the dots.
Internally rewarding effort and strain and recognizing our dopamine release are the foundation of the growth mindset. The growth mindset involves the belief that through effort and determination (hard work and time), we can achieve mastery at anything we set our minds to. Hard work gets results. With a growth mindset, you'll embrace challenges and persevere through obstacles to achieve success. That said, if we understand why it feels good to work hard and appreciate the rewarding feelings of the hard work, we'll be more likely to put in more effort. In every shift or instance where we're tested, we'll push just a little bit harder in search of the fantastic benefits of dopamine.
To put it simply, if we work hard more of the time, we will be happier more of the time. Everyone is a hard worker because we've all worked hard at some point. When inspiration strikes, we'll go the extra mile showing up early, leaving late, and leaving it "all on the field." However, there's a big difference between working hard and work ethic.
Work ethic is enduring, consistent, and disciplined.
Being disciplined is a lot easier when you find the gold pot at the end of the rainbow, and that pot of gold is dopamine.
To inject an extra reward in this process, if your effort and hard work are directed in the service of others, it's like a 10 X multiplier. So if you're ever feeling blue, do something to help someone else. It gives you a sense of purpose in its purest form. I promise it will pull you from the depths of the funk into the fun, fulfilling happiness zone. If you feel useful, it's impossible to feel useless.
But that's enough about dopamine and your internal reward system. Next, let's talk about perspective.
strategy 2:
We all have something within us called negativity bias. We tend to weigh negative experiences, emotions, and feelings heavier than positive ones. It's why it feels worse to lose $100 than it does proportionately feel good to make $100. This bias toward the negative is a big part of why we have "bad days." So often, all that was really bad that day was one conversation, interaction, email, message, mistake, or missed opportunity. I acknowledge some days are awful—trust me, I've had my share. However, most days, if we were to look back over the day and audit our wins, we'd soon realize the day weighed far more heavily in the positive. The negativity bias makes us pay more attention to the gaps, not the gifts.
The idea of auditing your wins involves more than just having an awareness of them. It involves going one step further and feeling thankful for the successes.
You cannot feel stressed, sad, or anxious when thankful.
Gratitude releases a combination of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, which replaces and subdues the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol triggers a natural "fight or flight" response, while oxytocin makes us feel the "warm and fuzzies." It all sounds so easy, doesn't it? Just focus on the gifts and feel grateful. The problem is it goes against human nature and the brain's response to negativity. Rewiring your brain to set new default neural pathways takes effort.
My default mode is now heavily grounded in the positive, but it didn't just happen overnight. I put in lots (and lots) of repetitions to make it the default pattern. Some of the mental work inadvertently took place during my healing experience. For instance, when getting better from my spinal cord injury, I was hit repeatedly with reasons to feel thankful. When I brushed my teeth for the first time, I was so grateful I cried. I'd lost so much and yet gained so much in recovery. The contrast in perspective made gratitude stand out. It was my epiphany moment when I saw the benefits of appreciation in not only changing my perspective but impacting my physical healing. I could purposely activate gratitude to help me heal!
If I can do it, you can do it too.
The next time you're lying in bed having difficulty falling asleep because of stress or anxiety, try auditing your wins that day. Try feeling genuinely thankful for all that was good that day. It releases the bad. And, if you get a chance, let me know how it goes. You might find you just drift off to sleep with the ease we all strive for.
Gifts, not gaps! It sounds simple, but it requires effort to beat our bias. But, fear not, you can reward action and enjoy a small dose of dopamine.
Enduring happiness doesn't mean being happy all the time, but it does mean being happy more often than not. The times we are unhappy support higher appreciation for the times we are elated. Highs and lows are part of the human experience, but rather than living in a state of enduring unhappiness, let's strive to make unhappiness fleeting and happiness enduring. We all only have one life to live, so we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to put in the effort.
The greatest neglect of oneself is to move through life in a state of unhappiness.
Don't get stuck in the suck. Get unstuck and get after it. You've got this.
#gratefuleveryday
Resources:
Causes of Happiness. Study.com. (n.d.). Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-makes-people-happy-research-causes-of-happiness.html#quiz-course-links
Pietrangelo, A. (2019, November 5). Dopamine effects on the body, plus drug and hormone interactions. Healthline. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.healthline.com/health/dopamine-effects#definition
Klein, A. (n.d.). All you need is love, gratitude, and oxytocin. Greater Good. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/love_gratitude_oxytocin
