How Happy Is Reasonable?
I’ve been enjoying Gay Hendrick’s book The Big Leap. There is so much ‘fluff’ in the personal development space but he’s an older guy who has done his time. He’s earned the right to speak. He writes simply, directly and from extensive personal and professional experience.

He makes the core point that we have a kind of inner thermostat that sets the level for how much happiness we allow in our lives. So often we can fall into a belief system where we let life just happen to us. Hendrick’s is making the point that we need to be more deliberate about setting our own standards for what we will tolerate.
This has been something I have slowly been becoming more aware of over the last year or so. We cannot simply just expect that things will get better in our lives just because we vaguely hope they will. We have to be deliberate. We have to be regular and constant with the practices and habits and thinking that make up our days.
You don’t have to accept that positive feelings and positive mental states are something that just come along like the weather. You also don’t have to set semi-conscious and unhelpful criteria like making rules for happiness. For example, most people have a rule like, “If I win the lottery then I can be happy.” or, “If people approve of me then I can be happy.” What if you changed some of your own internal rules about when and how you could be happy and feel positive states?
This is work. It’s not a nice sentiment. I am lying here on my back again after four weeks of chronic pain. I’ve been awake since 2am and the day is stretching out ahead of me. However, what if I truly accept that I am responsible for creating my own positive states? What if I refuse to let the pain dictate to me? What if I choose to raise my own internal thermostat about how good I can feel?
I just want you to know that you are not a victim. You are not a victim of your circumstances. You can choose to allow more joy, light, life and positivity into your life but please understand this — you are going to have to be deliberate about it. You are going to have to show up in your own life and change your standards about what’s possible and your behaviours about how to make it happen.
Make sure you come and join the Achiever’s Forum HERE
