Fit for Life: Are You Happy?

Fit for Life: Are You Happy?

How do we benchmark happiness when it fluctuates so dramatically?

I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast about finding happiness this week and wanted to share my takeaways from it.

 

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Hopefully, this will resonate with you and help you find a higher level of happiness, because isn’t that what we all work hard and strive for?

Happiness is like hunger; it’s always there but goes in and out, that was one of his analogies that hit home because we get hungry for different things at different times.

Sometimes we get hungry to eat, and when we do, the hunger subsides.

Sometimes we get hungry for love and affection, and when we get that, the feelings also subside to a lesser degree.

Hunger for knowledge exists until we find answers or solutions, then, we get satisfied and the hunger diminishes.

The same goes for happiness.

 

We get happy when we eat ice cream, but when it’s gone, the happiness goes away.

We get happy when we acquire money, but that doesn’t last, and neither does the thrill of acquisition.

We get happy to see someone, then we get comfortable and the happiness gets a little less intense.

 

So the comparison of happiness to hunger seems pretty accurate because there are very few people that walk around in a blissful mood 100% of the time. Therefore we ride the wave of happiness every day we are alive.

So what are some ways we can enhance our own happiness?

Figure out what makes you unhappy and remove it from your life, is a great way to reverse engineer the quest for happiness. Sometimes we don’t need to add anything, but removing something toxic will work even better.

Things like eliminating interactions with negative people can help improve happiness because negative, cynical people will suck the life out of you

If you surround yourself with people bitching, complaining and always whining, you will fall to their level of happiness because those people are the opposite of inspiration.

Being around them is like walking through mud. The wind will be in your face as opposed to being at your back, and that makes it extremely difficult to be happy around them.  

When you are around happy, healthy successful people, it makes you feel inspired. People are fuel, and you get energy and positivity from the right people.

 

This is the reason why I have cautiously selected, and work hard to keep the right network of people I associate with in close proximity. I only get to see some of them when I travel for conferences, however, they are just a zoom or phone call away when I need to have an uplifting conversation.

Challenging yourself to do difficult things will also help elevate your level of happiness.

 

I know what you’re thinking right now…….here we go, the fitness guy is going to tell me to workout.

Damn straight I am, because nothing makes us happier than the fulfillment of accomplishing a difficult task

We are all embedded with this notion that we need to seek comfort, however, a life of fulfillment is just the opposite.

We were meant to be challenged. Human reward systems are built into our DNA, and doing things that justifies a sense of gratification stimulates us with huge hits of dopamine.  

You think you would want to sit around and do nothing, yet that creates a negative state of mind, a feeling of worthlessness, which will lead to depression.

We need stimulation, and that comes from challenges.

 

We learn from struggle, our animal instinct is to survive, hunt, and gather so when we overcome struggle, we become happier, and when we are protected from challenges, it does the opposite and diminishes our sense of worth.

When I watch my members struggle in the gym, I just tell them to think of the outcome at the end of the workout, and the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing.

 

EVERYONE leaves with a smile, because they know they just conquered a task that knocked them out of their comfort zone, and the sense of accomplishment shows when we pass out the high fives.  

 

The conclusion of the podcast talks about losers in life, (the 40-year-olds living in their parent's basement doing nothing with their lives) and how they hate the world around them, and why. We were all babies at one time and what determines the outcome of a person is the nutrients we were fed throughout our lives.

 

Nutrients that don’t only come in the form of food, but thoughts, ideas, and actions we were brought up on, have a significant impact on how we turn out.

If you were fed shitty nutrients all your life, you will acquire a shitty attitude towards life, and likely be an unhappy person. If you were fed well, and surrounded with positivity and encouragement, you are more likely to be a happier person.

This is why it is so important to control your environment and the people in your network. You have the right to choose and when it’s a family member that you have no control of, you can edit your relationship and the amount of time you spend with these particular people.

You can’t fix them. You can try, yet a week later they are doing the same thing. You are wasting your energy on people that won’t waste any on themselves; therefore, it’s best to control your interactions with them and focus on the things you can do to make yourself happier.

Life is complex, and can get discouraging at times, yet if we are conscious and aware of the things we can do, or better yet, eliminate from our lives, we have the capacity to control our state of mind and create a happier existence for ourselves.

Stop seeking comfort, challenge yourself every day, reward yourself for your accomplishments, and remove as much toxicity from your life as possible, and watch yourself not only survive, but thrive.

 

Committed to your success,

Coach Matt