This is my cat, Hugo
I look at my cat,
And think….”wow, you’ve got it sussed”
He does what he wants..
even if that is stampeding around
the house at 3:30am waking everyone up.
Sleeps when and where he wants,
dismembers frogs purely for sport
eats what he wants
Jammy bugger…
(haha – he’s had his balls done,
so he doesn’t get that one –
but he has his memories…)
1:0 to the humans
We tend to like to keep our balls.
But essentially he’s happy.
Humans brains have tripled in size
throughout evolution
But that wasn’t just adding hard drive space
we actually added whole new parts.
In particular, the pre-frontal cortex
That’s where we create experiences.
So we get some news, or a decision to make
and we play out some scenarios in our mind.
What will happen? What if?
Everything is going to fall apart!
Or be amazing.
My cat doesn’t do that.
He just does his thing.
Needs a poo – goes and has a poo.
Look at the chart.
This is your Global Happiness.
How you feel on average.
Our SET POINT –
(our default meh! or yay! level)
amounts to about
40% of how HAPPY WE ARE
at any snapshot in time.
Just 10% is because of stuff that happens.
If you just wrote off your car yesterday
OF COURSE that is going to be have a massive
impact on how happy you are this week.
(that’s called your hedonic happiness)
But really good studies have shown that in 3 months
it won’t have affected your Global Happiness.
Back to Set Point
Your default.
Really big things like bereavement does skew this
but in general…that is the way it is.
HOWEVER…
50% is governed by Intentional Activity.
Things you purposely do.
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Oh No.
We have to throw something else into the mix.
Bit odd…
Ok, more studies (trust me – can send you the details
but it is too much for a blog post)
have PROVEN
that people who
don’t get to choose an outcome to a decision
are happier about that decision 3 months down the line,
than if they got to choose.
Eh?
I know.
Stay with me.
Ok extreme things out of the equation.
(Like the house burning down or
Benedict Cumberpatch telling you
you have lovely boobs).
Lets say you are buying a house.
You ranked your final choices in order 1-10
The others got snapped up by other buyers
and you were left with 4+5, but there was nothing much
to choose between them.
So of course you choose 5.
In 3 months when you’ve unpacked…
presented with the details of all the houses again
you are HIGHLY likely to rerank your present house higher
and the number 4 house lower than before.
Free irreversible choice has the illusion
of making you happier
but all it does is make give you new details for your
10%.
Its like when you have nothing left in the fridge
except a few odds and sods, and you put
effort into adding the right spices and being creative
and you cook the nicest meal you’ve had in ages.
It’s not what has HAPPENED.
It’s not what you HAVE
When we are trapped.
We find ways to be happy.
We make the best of things.
.
It’s WHAT WE DO ABOUT OUR SITUATION
that fills that 50% of happiness.
The actual part that can make the difference.
And the fewer completely free, reversible
decisions you have to make the higher your
happiness score will be.
The unanticipated joy of being totally stuck
It’s properly counter-intuitive.
But its true.
One more thing to add in…
It’s Your age, love.
People, on balance feel happier as they get older.
There is a blip at late 40s apparently
and then the just goes up and up.
Old people are happier than middle aged people
Middle aged people are happier than young people
No one is happier than my lazy, pampered,
terrorist of a cat.
You can’t choose whether to get older or not.
It’s gonna happen.
So you find ways to enjoy the benefits.
Which makes you happier.
I was chatting the other day in the pub
to a lady in her mid-60s.
She was telling me about her fitness session she does
with a few other ladies of similar age.
The ladies knew they weren’t as ‘model cover’ gorgeous
as they once had been.
And it made them kind of relax and enjoy it all more.
The sorts of things they stressed and obsessed
about in their 20s
they couldn’t give a flying dismembered frog about now.
Older people are more emotionally stable,
wiser, more tolerant, have more knowledge,
can deal with conflict more skilfully,
are better at compassion,
at dealing with sadness…
Older people naturally are drawn to the positive
(one of the experiments quickly showed people
100 pictures of faces.
The older people where overwhelmingly
drawn to the happy ones)
and we get better and better as we go along.
It’s just the flippin body that can let us down.
Pain and illness..
Major happiness vampires.
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We live twice as long as we ever did as a species
in the whole of history…
and all of that has happened in the 21st Century.
So now our children are in the UNIQUE position
of having lots and lots of older people around.
With all that happiness and expertise to pass on.
So we can look after our health, and be this army of
expert happy healthy guides
Or we can be reckless with it, and have our young people
spending their future and resources looking after us.
What happens to us, and
‘it’s just me, innit”
only account for HALF of our happy score..
And what you do with what you have
accounts for the rest.
AND that we are getting better at life in general
and that old age is actually to be looked forward to –
not dreaded..
YOU better make sure
that the body can keep up.
Make that a non-decision.
If you know you are not living as healthily as you could
you might have to give yourself no choice.
(before your body decides that for you at some point)
If you join the gym (mistake in my opinion,
but then I would say that, wouldn’t I)
you HAVE to commit to going 3 times a week.
Book sessions with the gym staff,
post on FB that you are on a mission
Take a friend
(find one that can’t drive so you know you need to)
If you want something and noone is going to make you do it
find ways to make yourself do it.
The overwhelming majority of people that join the gym…
…DONT KEEP IT UP.
Or chances are…at some point…
like when people stop going to their slimming club
or get fed up with the regimen…
They slip.
Foot off the gas.
Back to square 1 or more usually -1
That’s what a coach or a trainer is for.
To take you from where you are –
to where you want to be.
To somewhere you wouldn’t have got on your own
No point saying: “I am not going to eat that
Galaxy in the cupboard”.
Yeah, you will.
At some point.
But if you threw it away,
and didn’t take your card in to pay for petrol,
just took the right amount out of the cashpoint
and packed a lunch
….and read all my stuff on maintaining your blood sugar 😉
and asked your husband to stop buying it for you
(even if its the default bribe he uses to get in your pants)
You take your free decision away..
Then you will feel happier.
Science has shown us this.
Short of joining the army or going to prison
(or having a really overbearing Mother in Law)
Noone is going to make you do this stuff.
So if you want something you have to be clever.
You have to take away your choices and not
feel deprived
Because you end up happier.
Not just because you got all healthy and gorgeous
But because you intentionally made the best of a situation
….and that just makes people happy.
So knowing:
It’s what you DO and the best you make of any situation
(even a really unfair shitty one)
And that limited choices is actually a good thing
And that you will get better at all of it
the older you get
That will make you happy.
(Fat, skinny, poor, rich –
if you like big butts and you cannot lie…
none of that makes a that much of a difference).
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A lady that does PT with me
just bought a size 16 instead of her previous 20.
When she talks about how she feels now
it isn’t about the weight.
She feels confident in her strength of character
new-found determination,
and because of what she’s achieved.
She feels happier (not every day – this lady has had
some unbelievably tough times)
But in general.
And that was because faced with
“for my health have to do this”
NO option
She made the best of the situation.
Her happiness has skyrocketed
She made her own happiness.
Often people need a coach or trainer to take away the
“shall I bother, today?”option
(on a related note – Did you know that the people
who spend the LEAST on their fitness class or gym
are the MOST likely to give up going?)
But in terms of happiness
know that how happy you are
is largely how you deal with the hand you’ve been dealt.
Not with the hand itself.
#10 QUICK
Happiness Tips
Click here
Be happy
Wise & Gorgeous
xxxxxx