How I Quit Looking for Happiness and Found Something Better
I don’t want you to be happier.
I know that might sound weird coming from someone with a specialization in positive psychology — but hear me out.
Everywhere I look there is a coach, magazine, course, diet, or lifestyle guru selling their map to greater happiness. Like happiness is at the top of a mountain and they all have their own ‘special’ pathway to get there. There is a minimalist pathway (but also a maximalist pathway); a diet pathway and an exercise pathway; a ‘secret pathway’ (with only 5 easy steps!); there are even coaches who will do the hard work and guide you to the top. Others who have taken that pathway have proven that it can be done and they appear, at least outwardly, to be ‘happy’.
The thought of being able to buy a map to happiness is incredibly appealing. Especially right now when everything feels a bit…‘meh’, at best. I get it, I have bought more than one map to happiness, and they’ve all gone the same way.
I follow the map to the top of the mountain and they’re right, I do feel happier — for a bit. Then something inevitably happens, I am unable to steadfastly follow the map, and BAM! I am right back to where I started. Sometimes even worse off than before. Not only no longer happy but also ashamed because clearly, the problem is me. I didn’t try or work hard enough. I didn’t follow the steps correctly, or worse I’m just not meant to be happy. This feeling is often reinforced by the ‘community’ on that pathway. ‘Encouragement’ to stay on that path felt a bit more like coercion as I continued my free-fall down the mountain. I’d feel this way until another map came along and the whole process started again.
I did this routine over and over and over again for years. Restlessly dreaming of another way of living but never finding the right map to happiness.
And that’s why I don’t want you to be happier. Because if happiness was a destination and you could buy a map there — then anyone who had ever started a new lifestyle, tried out the 5 secret steps or worked with a coach would be experiencing ‘more’ happiness — and that’s just not the case.
After yet another tumble down the happiness mountain, I sat back and decided that I had to be missing something. That’s how I realized what was happening. I took some time and reflected on the times in my life when I had felt what I was looking for; freedom, confidence, integrity, purpose.
I realized two very important things:
- They were all times when I stepped into the unknown without a map and relied on myself to get me through, and
- ‘Happiness’ wasn’t even on the list.
When I looked at my personal quest for ‘happy’ I saw that I was doing to myself what I have always told my clients NOT to do. I was adapting and trying to change myself to fit a methodology or framework. Not only was I letting whatever map I was following at the time dictate the steps that I had to take — but I was letting it determine the outcome that I was aiming for too.
What I pride myself on doing for the people that I work with is using my education in the neuroscience of mental wellbeing to adapt programs to fit them, instead of the other way around. Using their own constellation of unique experiences, strengths, and resources and building on that foundation to get them to where they always wanted to be.
When I started doing that for myself — everything changed.
I focused on understanding what I wanted out of my life, and what my unique set of strengths and resources could help me to achieve. I looked at the relationships in my life and how we could combine our powers so that we could all get further together. I was no longer beholden to a map but instead was able to start taking more confident agile steps. I was able to move forward, even if I wasn’t feeling limitless happiness. Not only did I end up feeling more confident and freer, but I was able to feel more connected, to my husband, my children, my community, the earth, and most impactfully — myself.
Now I can look back and see where I cut my path and how I landed where I am, and I can promise you that no one could have plotted that journey out on an easy-to-follow map. It certainly hasn’t been easy and at times it has felt almost impossible, there have been incredible moments of happiness, and excruciating moments of despair. But throughout it all, I have felt incredibly grounded in the knowledge that come what may — I will be able to handle it.
Four years ago I chose to stop dreaming about what could be and start exploring what is. What I have found is not greater happiness — but a deep-seated feeling of wellbeing and confidence in my ability to navigate uncertainty and challenge.
And that’s what I want for you — for everyone.
I don’t want you to be happier.
I want you to be sustainably well.
Listen to the musical inspiration for this piece here:
