Have you ever started a new year promising yourself that this will be the year you finally feel happy? Most of us have. And most of us have watched that promise fade by February.
On a recent episode of the Joyful Mate podcast, I caught up with my friend JoAnna Ferrari, known to most people as JJ. JJ is a mentor, speaker and author who runs a mentoring business called Active Mentor and a web design company for speakers and professional services. We have an annual catch-up on air, and every year she leaves me with something to think about. This year it was a simple idea with big consequences: you can't set a goal to be happy.
Here's what she means, and what you can do instead.
What happiness looks like once the chase stops
JJ was candid that a year earlier, her answer to "what is happiness?" would have been very different. It would have been about making more money, nights out with friends, or simply being at peace.
Today, she finds most of her happiness in two places. The first is taking care of business, which for her means building a great reputation and earning the rewards that follow. The second is relationships. She sorts the people in her life into groups, from her VIPs to her wider circle, and says those relationships are where most of her wealth lies.
What struck me is that both of these are things she builds over time through how she shows up. Neither is something that arrives once a target is hit.
Four ways to make work a happier place
I work with a lot of corporate teams, and disengagement and burnout come up constantly. People turn up every day feeling disconnected from what they do. So I asked JJ what she'd say to someone who was unhappy at work last year and wants a better year ahead. She offered four ideas.
- Do work you love. Think about how much of your life you spend at work. If you don't love your job, JJ suggests building a side hustle you do love, while keeping a good reputation in the work you already have.
- Find role models. They don't have to be people you know. Books and YouTube are full of people who are happy in what they do and can show you how they got there.
- Build mad skills. Not just skills, mad skills. JJ wants to be known as a skilful problem solver, and her clients call her "the experimenter". She points out that you can only experiment with confidence once your skills are strong.
- Know what you want to be known for. Once you're clear on that, you can build your reputation in the office, online and among friends.
In JJ's experience, a strong reputation makes you valuable, valuable people get referred, and that's where better rewards come from.
The two biggest thieves of happiness
When I asked JJ what steals our happiness, she didn't hesitate. Money is number one.
Not money itself, but the chase. "More money" becomes a mantra, and it crowds out everything else. JJ has seen people reach their financial goals only to find they've lost their health, their direction and their relationships along the way.
She speaks from experience. About ten years ago she lost everything and had very little coming in. That forced her to learn to manage money in two ways. The practical way is looking at what you actually need to spend and setting a little aside. She's not talking about saving 50 per cent of your income. Even 5 per cent, she says, adds up to a meaningful sum over a few months. The second way is mindset: moving towards a prosperous mindset, which she describes as having a healthy relationship with money rather than an obsession with more.
The second thief is neglecting your health. As JJ puts it, all the money in the world won't make you happy if you're unwell. Her point is that it isn't outrageous things that rob us of happiness. It's the everyday areas we want the best of, such as money, relationships and our physical and mental health, and how little attention we give them.
The 30-30-30-10 life
This is the idea that has stayed with me most.
JJ says the best athletes are taught to expect a 30-30-30 split. Roughly 30 per cent of the time is incredible: personal bests, feeling unstoppable. Another 30 per cent is good, and "those were good" is about all you can say about it. The next 30 per cent is crap, when things hit the fan and you have no idea what to do.
Then JJ adds something most people miss. There's a final 10 per cent where things completely fall apart and you have to start over. And as she says, most people aren't even good at starting, let alone starting over.
The key insight is that you never know when each part will show up. That's why setting a goal to be happy doesn't work. You can't plan for something that unpredictable.
Decisions, not goals
Instead of goals, JJ makes decisions about how she'll meet each kind of day.
When things are great, enjoy it, and take notes. What did you do? How did you keep your energy up? What was going on in your mind, your body and your world? Those notes become your own reference point. Over time you start to see your patterns, and you compare yourself only with yourself, not with someone else's highlight reel.
Then, when a crap day arrives, you can look back and remember the days that started badly and turned out well because of what you did. That knowledge is what turns a crap day into a good day, and a good day into a great one.
JJ also starts every morning with the same mantra, one she has used for more than ten years: "I wonder what great things are going to happen for me today?" It sets her mind to look for the best. Even on a crap day, she says, it's her best crap day.
Try this with your team
JJ took the same reflective process into her businesses and her clients' businesses, with a twist. She moved the daily team meeting from the morning to 4.30 in the afternoon.
Her reasoning is simple. In a morning meeting, you're asking people to guess what will happen. At the end of the day, they can actually reflect. Her team discussed what kind of day it was, what made it that way, what they could have done differently, who they affected and how to have more awesome days. She says productivity went up, client response improved, and the next day became "infectious" because everyone knew they'd be reflecting again at 4.30.
If your days are filled with back-to-back meetings, this might be the most useful change you make this year.
The inner journey
JJ's next level of happiness is the inner journey. She describes us as having an internal and an external self, with the external one often trying to dominate. Working on the inner self, she says, is like gardening with your eyes closed: you have to get a feel for the soil, the leaves and how much water is needed.
Her view is that when you tend the inner world, the outer one changes too, through more resilience and persistence. Take care of only one, and like any relationship where only one person is cared for, the other drifts away.
Key takeaways
You can't set a goal to be happy, but you can decide how you'll meet each kind of day. Keep notes on what makes your great days great. Watch out for the chase for money and neglected health. And try a short end-of-day reflection, on your own or with your team.
You can find JJ at jjferrari.com. Listen to the full conversation on the Joyful Mate podcast, and share it with a mate who could use a better day. Until next time, continue to discover your joy.