The Big Lie
I know I should be happy, but I’m not.
What’s wrong with me?
How often do you feel something is wrong with you because you aren’t happy?
When I wasn’t happy, I used to make it mean more than it was because I believed…
I SHOULD BE HAPPY.
Everyone else seems to be happy.
Isn’t the goal in life to be happy most if not all of the time?
All my friends look like they’re having a great time, especially on Facebook and Instagram.
Everyone on TV and in the advertising I see seems very happy.
So, if I’m not happy right now, then something must be wrong.
Worse yet, if I’m not happy right now, something must be wrong with me.
Why don’t I feel happy right now?
The situation around me can’t be the problem because the people around me seem to be happy.
I make about the same money as they do.
I live in the same town as they do.
I do almost the same things as they do.
How come they’re happy, and I’m not?
It must be me.
(Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash)
Something is wrong with me if I can’t feel happy with what I have and where I am in my life.
I used to take a single not so great day or event and turn it into a personal problem that meant I was broken.
I would compound my problem by not feeling good about not feeling good.
I would feel ashamed for not being happy.
Why do we believe happiness is the goal?
Why do we believe not only is something wrong, but there is something wrong with us if we’re not happy?
Where does this idea come from?
The answer is… everywhere.
We see it every day in almost every place that is vying for our attention.
Wherever you see advertising, you’ll find someone trying to market you the promise of happiness.
Happiness is what you want, and this is what you need to buy to have it.
If you’re not happy because you have this problem, then you need to buy this thing.
Drink this brand of beer, and you’ll be with all of your friends smiling and having fun on a beach.
Happiness is used for marketing every product in existence, from cars to cheeseburgers to whiter teeth.
(Photo by Enis Yavuz on Unsplash)
You name it.
Happiness is used to sell it.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we believe happiness is the goal when we are constantly bombarded all day, every day with this message.
Not only are we taught the goal is to be happy, but we’re also taught being happy is the norm.
Something must be wrong with you if you feel a negative emotion because happiness is what your normal feeling state should be.
Happiness is what you’re supposed to achieve and always feel.
Wait a minute.
I know what it is.
I know why I’m not happy.
Look at all the wealthy people out there on TV and in the ads.
Yeah, that’s it.
All those rich, famous people are happy all the time.
That must be it.
I could be happy all the time too, I just need to be successful and have more money.
When I have enough money, I can buy all the stuff they have.
That would fix it.
If I could get more money, I know I could be happy all the time.
(Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash)
We’re programmed to believe that true success is achieving a constant state of happiness.
When you’re wealthy and successful, you’ll be happy all the time.
This belief goes hand in hand with the idea that you can buy your happiness or things can make you happy.
Another way to state this misguided belief is we incorrectly believe that the circumstances of our lives determine how we feel.
Most of us do not recognize that in between the circumstance (a new car) and our emotion (feeling happy) is a thought that we get to choose.
Yes. That’s right.
You get to choose the thoughts you think and, therefore, the emotions you feel.
In other words, it’s not the new car that makes you feel happy.
It’s the thought that you choose to think about the new car that causes the emotion of happiness.
So what? You may wonder why this matters.
Well, there’s a lot more to talk about that makes this truth more powerful than you might be able to appreciate at this point.
But it would be a mistake to look past the extraordinary significance of this simply stated fact without taking just a bit more time to emphasize its importance.
Once you truly believe it’s the thoughts you choose to think about the circumstances you encounter in your life that cause your emotions, and you’re free to think whatever you want whenever you want to, you’ll begin to understand you get to determine how you feel 100% of the time no matter what’s going on in your life.
You have complete and total control of your feelings all the time, independent of anything or anyone.
I don’t know about you, but I had always felt I wasn’t in control of anything.
I always felt like a victim of circumstance.
Whether it was my childhood, my empty bank account, or what somebody said to me, I always believed that how these life events affected me and how I felt about them was completely out of my control.
Learning there was a thought I could choose between these circumstances and my feelings changed everything about my life.
I discovered I was in complete control of how I felt every single second of every day.
No matter what the outside world brought into my experience, I could choose my thoughts and feelings about it.
But wait. There’s more!
The whole truth is that not only does the thought you choose to think determine how you feel, but that feeling drives your actions, and your actions determine your results.
So, in other words, the thoughts you choose about every circumstance you experience determine the results you’re getting and the life you’re living.
This truth is the foundation of everything I believe in coaching and life.
You and I have COMPLETE CONTROL OF EVERYTHING!
We’ve been programmed to believe obtaining certain material things in our lives will bring us the happiness we must and should have.
You’ll be happy when you make enough money to buy this house or this car, just like the person in the commercial or ad you see.
This just isn’t the truth.
Life brings everyone the same extraordinary array of experiences, and how we choose to interpret and think about these experiences determines how we feel.
Sometimes we choose to believe our experience was good.
Sometimes we choose to interpret our experience as bad, and sometimes we choose to think our experience is just neutral.
It’s supposed to be this way, and it is for everyone.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to interpret an experience we’ve had as negative.
Bad, negative, unhappy thoughts and feelings are a part of life for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with you because you have them in your life.
Wealthy, famous people experience all the same emotions as everyone else because they’re human beings.
Life brings them the same array of experiences as everyone else, and they have the same freedom as everyone else to interpret those life experiences as they wish.
As a result, they have the same variety of feelings as everyone else.
Money, success, and fame can’t insulate you from experiencing life, interpreting that experience, and then feeling an emotion as a result.
And you can be sure that alcohol, drugs, or overeating won’t insulate you from experiencing life, choosing thoughts, and experiencing emotions either.
What I didn’t realize before was the false belief that I should be happy all the time and that circumstances determine how I feel led me to a life of avoidance.
I developed an unwillingness to engage in any activity that might have led to a negative experience.
Not only was I limiting the negative by avoiding it, but I was inadvertently limiting my positive experiences too.
I dramatically shrank my life and what I was willing to do by living in fear of uncomfortable experiences.
Living in fear of experiencing the bad kept me from experiencing both good and bad.
The more willing you’re to experience any feeling, the more the whole world opens up to you.
One of the things I feared the most was the feeling of embarrassment.
Avoiding a potentially embarrassing experience dramatically limited my life more than any other fear.
I was unwilling and afraid to express myself when I was in an unfamiliar setting with people I didn’t know well.
I would keep quiet and just listen because I didn’t want to say or do something that would lead to embarrassment and other people’s judgment.
Staying introverted protected me from the unwanted experience of feeling embarrassed.
If you don’t do or say anything, it’s pretty hard to embarrass yourself.
I didn’t realize how many positive experiences being introverted caused me to miss out on.
How many meaningful conversations and how many close friends did I not end up having because I was afraid to share who I was with the new people I met?
The belief I had that I should be happy all the time transformed itself into a fear of experiencing anything negative, and as a result, I was missing out on huge chunks of life.
I also now see how these faulty belief systems kept me from setting big goals and chasing after my bigger dreams.
I believed the achievement of my goals would require experiencing what are usually perceived to be unwanted emotions like discomfort, fear, or the risk of embarrassment and failure.
I convinced myself feeling these emotions was a bad thing that needs to be avoided at all costs.
The result is I didn’t even try to achieve my big goals and dreams.
I failed before I even began.
When we allow ourselves to experience a painful emotion and process it all the way through, we learn that it’s manageable and can’t do any harm to us.
It is just a temporary feeling we experienced.
It was a momentary state of being that passed and caused no permanent damage.
It was an uncomfortable, unwanted feeling.
We felt it, and now it’s gone.
End of story.
Knowing you are in control of the thoughts you choose that cause your emotions, and knowing that there isn’t any emotion that can hurt you, frees you up to experience anything, and everything life has to offer.
You get to decide if not achieving your goal was a “failure” or a “growth experience.”
Both thoughts are available to you, and you get to decide which is true for you.
But it doesn’t matter what you decide to believe.
You know that the feelings from either of those thoughts are temporary.
You know you can allow yourself to feel them without fear because they’re just feelings.
They can’t hurt you.
There is NO RISK!
The only risk is to not set the goal and not try to achieve your dream.
Set the goal.
Go for it.
Fall and get up like it’s all one motion.
Be willing to feel embarrassment, failure, victory, and success.
It’s up to you to decide what everything means and what you want to think and feel.
(Photo by the blowup on Unsplash)
I’m learning that this is what life is.
It’s being willing to feel everything.
It’s knowing that I get to choose the thoughts I want and create my experience.
It’s learning that I do want the contrasting experience of good and bad, happy and sad.
It’s learning what the value of a full spectrum of experience, thought, and feeling brings…LIFE!
Expand your life.
Expand your willingness to feel any and every emotion.
I think I can, and I believe you can too.
Believing that you have to be happy and that you need to avoid painful feelings is no way to spend your life.
I’ve let this belief determine my actions for too long.
I’m doing my best to put an end to it and begin living, and I want you to come with me.
Hanging on to the belief that you “should” be happy limits your life.
Protecting yourself from the possibility of feeling negative emotions guarantees you’ll miss out on experiencing positive ones.
Take the chance.
Expand your life.
Once you realize there isn’t a feeling in the world you can’t experience, live through, learn from and grow, there’s no excuse to choose not to live your fullest life.
Take the chance. Choose to LIVE your life.
You’ll experience more happiness than you thought possible.
Click here to learn how to experience every emotion,
choose your thoughts, and create your life.