Abstract:

Everyone wants more satisfaction, joy, and achievement, right? Then why are so many people feeling, at best, mediocre? The state of the world is one reason, since the news tell us all the bad and none of the good. But it goes deeper than that.

If you chase success just for the sake of it, you’ll only get an initial high from it, before falling back into your accustomed mood. There are, however, simple ways leading to a more sustainable increase.

Your mission today is to learn 3 ways to increase your satisfaction, joy, and achievement.

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Background: The mood thermostat

Studies keep confirming that how happy we feel has little to do with the things that happen to us (this is outside of basic needs such as food, drink and safety). Instead, people seem to have a set mood they tend to return to after extraordinary things happen.

This means, if something happens that makes you very happy, you’ll be very happy for a while, and then your mood will normalise to what it usually is. The good news is, there are way to turn up the “thermostat”.

A great book to read on this subject is Gay Hendricks’s The Big Leap. There are also practices such as daily gratitude that can help – as do the 3 steps I suggest below.

Task: 3 Ways to increase satisfaction, joy and achievement

Here are 3 things you can do that are proven to “turn up the thermostat”.

1. Pause and reflect

This is an upgraded version of the well-known gratitude practices. Instead of just mechanically listing things you’re grateful for, take a moment to pause from your daily activities and take a deep breath. Look around you. Appreciate what you have, where you are, what you do. Do this daily (you can set a daily alarm on your phone for it) and watch your mood improve.

2. Set goals

Actually, I should have said: Write down goals and review them regularly. It has been proven over and over that people who have written goals they regularly update, cross off or drop, are more successful and far happier than the rest.

3. Pursue your passion(s)

There’s a reason why I keep harping on about this. There’s nothing that increases your joy and satisfaction than regularly spending dedicated time on things that make you happy (and fulfil no other purpose). Carve out time; it’s really, truly worth it.

The rub with all the above steps is that they’re easy to do, but just as easy not to do. So set reminders, put it in your calendar, and if you need any help with sticking with it, talk to me. As a coach, I’m trained to help you make it happen.

Transkript

Here follows the exact transcript of what’s being said in the video.

You can improve your life and your mood significantly without winning the lottery.

Hello, welcome to this week's Wild Spirits News. My name is Sibylle, and I help women between 40 and 60 to do lots of what they love and to find their unique life purpose - and if that sounds interesting, then check out my website wildspiritscoaching.com.

Today's subject is 'Three ways to increase satisfaction, joy and achievement'. I mean, who doesn't want to increase satisfaction, joy and achievement, right? But when, if everybody wants it, then why are so many people feeling at best mediocre? Now you could point to the state of the world and that's fair enough, especially since the news are good at telling us all the bad things and none of the good things, right? But it goes a little deeper than that. If you chase success just for the sake of it, you will feel an initial high when you achieve it, but after after that, it will quickly, you will quickly return to the mood that you had before. There are, however, more sustainable ways to increase these things, and your mission today is to learn three ways to increase your satisfaction, joy and achievement.

The background to this is 'The mood thermostat', as I call it. Studies keep confirming that how happy somebody is has little to do with the actual events in their lives - beyond the basic needs, obviously, if somebody lives in a war zone, they're probably not going to be very happy. So as long as you have enough food, drink, safety, these things, these basic needs, so outside of those, how happy you are has little to do with what happens to you. Instead, it seems to be that people have a certain set mood point that they keep returning to. This means if something wonderful happens in your life, you'll be, you'll feel wonderful and be very happy for some time, and then after that, you will return back to your mood point, your set mood point, your thermostat, so to speak. Now the good news is that you can turn up this thermostat, it is possible. A good book to read on this subject is Gay Hendricks's 'The Big Leap', highly recommended book. Other ways to increase it are things like the well-known daily gratitude practice or the three ways that I'm going to introduce you to in a minute.

Your task today is 'Three ways to increase satisfaction, joy and achievement'. Here are three things that are proven to lead to a more sustainable increase and to turn up that thermostat, your set mood point.

The first is pause and reflect. So this is kind of an upgraded version of the gratitude practice where every day you list three things or five things that you're grateful for. So instead of just rattling off mechanically your your gratitude, take a moment, a break in your busy day every day, take a deep breath and then look around you and become conscious of what you have, what you do, and become, appreciate what you have in your life now. Do this daily. You could set a reminder on your phone, for example a daily alarm, and over time, watch what this does to you, what this changes in your mood.

The second way is called 'Set goals', and actually this should be called 'Write down goals and review them regularly'. Because that is another thing that studies find out again and again, is that those folks that have their goals written down and regularly review them are - so, review means cross off what is done, drop goals that are no longer meaningful to them, add new goals, right, but always in writing - and those are the folks that are always more successful and a lot happier than the average, than the rest of them.

And the third is 'Pursue your passion'. There's a reason why I keep harping on about this. There's little that can increase your joy and your satisfaction to such an extent and regularly than regularly carving out time for something that makes you happy, that gives you joy, that lights up your soul. And bonus points if that thing doesn't do anything else in your life, has no practical use, it only, quote unquote only, makes you happy.

The rub with these above steps is that they're very easy to do but they're also easy not to do. So use what I already suggested, use reminders on your phone, put these things in your calendar, and if you need help with this, this is what coaches are trained for. Talk to me, talk to any coach, this is what we, this is literally what we do, we help you make the things happen that you know are good for you but find it hard to stick with or really do regularly on an ongoing basis.

All that remains now is me asking you where you stand on this. Leave me a comment below the video or reply to the email that you got the link to the video with. I'll reply to every comment, I promise. And if you would like some more, then like I said, check out my website wildspiritscoaching.com. You can also sign up for the Wild Spirits newsletter/love letter this. It's 100% spam free, one email per week where I always share some really useful information, so it's not just a marketing newsletter. I'd love to have you. Have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!