Here’s what is great about exploring one topic through a variety of different channels: the same insights consistently show up across different people’s experiences. It’s validating. One such insight is that you can increase your happiness through intentional actions.

If you’re interested in being happier than you are right now, consider the following activities that seem to hold true for many:

1. Commit acts of kindness – whether it’s random or planned, take time out of your day to do something kind for someone else. This may be especially helpful if you’re feeling down on yourself since it takes the focus off you. It can also help you keep perspective, especially when you work with those who are in much tougher situations. In the Happy documentary, one individual increased his happiness through community service. His insight: “Life is a loan given by God and I have to pay it back with interest”.
2. Pursue intrinsic goals (personal growth, close connected relationships, community service) as opposed to extrinsic goals (money, image, status)
   • Spend more time with close family and friends. They will be with you until the end and particularly when times are tough.
   • Be what you want to be – it’s hard to be happy when you’re constantly trying to be what others want you to be. Even if you get there, you’ll most likely be disappointed. If you’re not sure what you want, take the Know What You Want online workshop (To take the course for free, email us referencing this article and we'll send you a sign-up code).
3. Add some variety to your life – whether it’s changing the music you typically listen to or taking a class on a topic foreign to you, varying your routine can revitalize your experience of the world.
4. Get some aerobic exercise – movement releases dopamine and other hormones related to your mood. It’s easy to understand and even easier to put off. The hardest part about getting exercise is to start, so don’t delay. Just put on your training shoes and get to the gym, or wherever you go for exercise. Getting ample sleep is another good way to quickly boost your mood.
5. Strive to get into flow more often – flow is what happens when you’re so absorbed in an activity that you lose track of time. People often report feeling better during and after being in flow. If you're not sure how to create the conditions to get into flow, check out this article.
6. Feel in control of your situation – when things aren’t going your way, it’s easy to blame others or the circumstances. This puts you at the whim of the universe, which can often lead to unhappiness. One way to address this dynamic is to take extreme ownership of everything that happens to you so you take back control of how you live your life.
7. Build up your resilience – resilience is the ability to recover quickly when unfortunate things happen to you. One method I’ve found helpful is to diversify your life cornerstones. If achieving your work goals is a major cornerstone for you, avoid other work-related cornerstones. Consider health, relationships, or other unrelated areas where you can invest your time and energy. This way if one area of your life is not going well, you can lean into the other areas.
8. Step off the hedonic treadmill – if you find yourself trying to keep up with others on material goods or prestige (for example: type of car, status of job or school, etc.), know that you can opt out of this dissatisfaction-inducing competition. There is no need to run a race that gets you nowhere.
9. Find ways to sincerely give thanks - focus on what you have versus what you don’t have. If you can read this article, you have something to be grateful for because it means you can read one of the most common languages in the world, have access to internet, and have free time to read. Think about 2-3 specific things you’re grateful for each day to increase your happiness.
10. See time as a gift that you can use or waste. In Tim Urban’s popular article, Your Life in Weeks, he broke up our lifespan by months and then by weeks to highlight that no matter how we slice it, our time is finite. Although this realization may seem morbid, my hope is that it will encourage you to make the most out of the limited time you have.

Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert's research shows that we tend to overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional responses to good and bad events. The good feelings you think you’ll get when you hit the lottery, get promoted, or meet your soul mate is most likely short-lived. Conversely, the lows you might be feeling now because of a job loss, bad break-up, or health issue might fade much faster than you think.

No matter what your current mood might be, consider the actions above to increase your happiness. You might also want to take this Coursera class on the Science of Well-Being.

If you have any good books or other media on increasing happiness, please share it in the comments section.

Photo by Sebastián León Prado

The post 10 Ways to Be Happier When You’re Feeling Just Fine appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

Whether it's intentional or not, other people will do things that hurt us. This might be a work colleague who steals credit for our work or a personal friend who breaks our trust in an unforgivable way. In these moments, we feel completely justified to hold a grudge - we've been wronged and we deserve justice.

I was recently reading Oprah's The Wisdom of Sundays and she mentioned the following lesson she learned that really stuck with me:

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past can be any different. . . it is accepting that it has happened to you, not accepting that it was OK for it to happen."

The idea that our inability or reluctance to forgive is because we want the impossible (changing something that can't be changed) to happen is one that can only keep us stuck.

Although we have the reason and the right to withhold our forgiveness, there is a good chance that your grudge is bringing you down more than it is bringing the other person down. In many cases, the other person may not even be aware or care that you feel the way you feel. Even if they were, it doesn't impact them as negatively as it impacts you.

That's a long-winded way of saying, forgive others not because you're letting them off the hook but because you're letting yourself off the hook. Don't stay stuck because of what someone else did to you. Your present time is precious - don't waste it reliving the past.

Below is a Zen story that brings this point home:

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.

The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.

The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.

Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

(Source: KindSpring)

What can you let go of right now to help you make the most of your present time?

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

-Gandhi

 

Photo by Felix Koutchinski

The post When you find it hard to forgive someone … appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

7 continents,

49,599 miles later,

I'm home.

This trip around the world was amazing in many ways - the food, the sights, the people ...

but all of that was to be expected from a trip like this.

What I didn't expect was to learn a few life lessons that have changed the way I look at both the world and life.

Here are the realizations that I've brought home with me from this trip:

The World Doesn't Stop Turning

Before going on the trip, I was nervous. Being away for 2 months, many times without internet, scared me. I thought to myself,

...my blog is going to lose readers, my business is going to lose momentum, what is my family going to do if something goes wrong. Maybe I shouldn't go...

Now that I'm back from my trip, I realized that the world didn't end. I actually had more readers on my blog while I was away than when I was actively writing articles. That's when I realized that the world kept on spinning and will continue to do so with or without me.

This was both a relief and a bit unnerving.

Do I really matter? (This question also came up after reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything)

If my absence didn't make a difference, does my presence?

I thought about this for a while and concluded that ...

... it does.

It does to those who are around me. My family, my friends, my readers and all the people I have and will come into contact with in my life.

We often want to see ourselves as the linchpin holding everything together. It makes us feel important when other people depend on us. This is why it is so common for us to use the excuse - "I can't step away or (fill in the blank) is going to end up in catastrophe". Perhaps it's ego or maybe it's a deep sense of responsibility but more likely than not, we're just making excuses for something we are scared to do.

So what was my takeaway from all of this?

First, know your priorities and what is really important to you.

Next, do what is most important to you no matter what. 

Last, periodically check to make sure you are still doing what matters the most to you.

If you think your company is going to go bankrupt because you decided not to work overtime and spend that time with your family, you're probably wrong. They'll be fine with or without you. If you love working and you'll rather do that than spend time with your family, then by all means, do so.

There is no right or wrong. There is only your choice (and of course, your consequences). Life is what you make it so make it your own.

There is Only the Present

(Walking around Sultanahmet in Istanbul thinking to myself)

... I should've gone to the Blue Mosque this morning. Where should I go tomorrow? What should I do when I get to Budapest ...

When you take a long trip like this, it's easy to constantly think about what is next and forget to enjoy the present moment. I was guilty of this several times during my trip.

What's crazy is that if I didn't catch myself, I would have spent the full two-months worried about where to go next instead of actually enjoying the incredible experience right in front of me. Since I was also the photographer, I was especially susceptible to this.

Having returned from my trip, I realized that I spend a lot of time in the present thinking about what I'm planning to do tomorrow or what I did in the past. I rarely get to enjoy what's happening in the present. Knowing that, I've tried to focus more on the present through meditation. I now meditate 10 minutes every day and I notice the difference. I am more self-aware and attuned to my thoughts.

Living in the present doesn't mean you shouldn't plan or reflect on your past. Both of these activities are very important. Just make sure that you're consciously carving out time to do it so it becomes an activity in the present. What you don't want is to drift into the past or future when you really should be living your life in the present.

So how do you know when you are wasting your present thinking about the past or future? Just pay attention to what you say to yourself and others. Here are some words that usually signal past or future thinking:

Past: Would've, Should've, Could've, Next time, Why didn't I ...

Future: Next week, Next year, Tomorrow, I plan to, When I ... 

If you hear these words or phrases, stop and focus on what is happening around you. Ask yourself:

Where am I?

Who is around me now?

Am I breathing in or out?

What should I be doing?

Did I intend to reflect about the past or plan for the future?

Asking yourself these questions may seem strange and a bit extreme but if you don't become sensitive to where you are focusing, you'll probably spend most of your life thinking about the past and the future and not living any part of it.

Here are three quotes that sum it up beautifully:

"One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us."

-Michael Cibenko

"Forever is composed of nows."  

-Emily Dickinson

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now." 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's Normal for Things to Go Wrong

Despite this subheading, our trip went rather smoothly despite all the logistical issues that could have gone wrong. We even had great weather. So what did I learn from this experience? 

Things tend to go wrong when you don't want them to go wrong

This is Murphy's law. 

I believe our trip was smooth because we expected something to go wrong. When you expect things to be rocky and they are, you become more resourceful because your mind is not clouded by disappointment. You knew something was coming.

Don't confuse this type of thinking for pessimism. You're not expecting only negative outcomes. You're just being flexible enough to allow room for things to go wrong. 

The passenger that gets sick on the train.

The computer that crashes right before you saved your work.

The rain that crashes your wedding.

We can't control the world around us but we can control our reaction.

Although contingency plans are helpful, you can never fully prepare for the unexpected. The best way to get ready is to practice being flexible.

How do you react when things don't go as expected? Do you just get mad or are you thinking about what to do next?

Follow Bruce Lee's great advice to "be water, my friend". Water doesn't stop when there is an obstacle. It will go around, over, under, or any other way until it gets through. It persists until it reaches where it needs to go. 

So here are my lessons learned in a nutshell:

1. Do what makes you happy and stop using the "I'm a linchpin" excuse to boost your own importance and to hide your fear of failure.
2. Always be in the present moment even when thinking about the past and future.
3. Allow room for things to go wrong so when they do, you'll be thinking about next steps and not how unlucky you are.

What are some lessons you've learned while traveling?

For those interested, here are some pictures from my trip:

You can see more pictures at robertchen.com.

The post What a Trip Around the World Taught Me appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

I'm having a bad day

I'm having a frustrating month

I'm having a terrible year

I have been guilty of saying all of these and so has Albert Einstein.

After Einstein graduated from college, he spent two frustrating years looking for and failing to get a job as a teaching assistant. During this time, he had a child out-of-wedlock and a girlfriend his family disapproved of greatly. For all his efforts during this time, he was only able to secure the lowest position at the patent office, which was really attained by help from his friend's father.

I'm sure Einstein wasn't too thrilled about his life during that period but this setback is one of the main reasons why Einstein's image has become synonymous with genius. His job as an assistant patent examiner gave Einstein real world training on visualizing the ideas in the patent proposals he examined and at the same time nurtured his skepticism which is inherent to deciding the feasibility of the patents being proposed and a skill necessary to challenge the accepted scientific theories of his day. Both these skills and the free time Einstein had due to the easy work load at the patent office allowed Einstein to conduct thought experiments that led to his four groundbreaking papers which included his theory of relativity and E = mc². If Einstein had been successful in landing a teaching assistant's position right out of college, he would not have had the time or mindset to create the foundation to modern physics that he is famous for today.

"Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit".

-Napoleon Hill

Setbacks create opportunities ... (if you don't believe me, just look into the lives of most successful people)

... but not if you overwhelm yourself with self-pity.

The key is to focus on the positive and to be aware of opportunities created by the situation.

It really doesn't help to ask yourself: Why me? What If I had? Why didn't I? 

Instead it is better to ask yourself: What did I learn? What's next? What can I do now?

When the New York Stock Exchange switched to an electronic system and short-term traders like myself became increasingly obsolete, I had a terrible year but this setback opened up an opportunity to work in China and learn about management in the world's fastest economy. After a while, I began having many bad days due to the long hours and stress of working in China and being away from my family so I decided to return to the United States. The general lack of real fulfillment in my previous careers led me to think more about finding the "right" job and I ended up reading two books that have changed my life (click here to read more about me). Now I am pursuing my passion to help others reach their full potential and I believe I got here because of all my setbacks.

I can't wait until my next setback. How about you?

The post What Albert Einstein Can Teach Us About Handling Setbacks appeared first on Embrace Possibility.