Often throughout my coaching profession, I have asked a client or potential client what their goal is and they will say “to be Happy”. As admirable as the confession is, it is equally vague, confusing, and ambiguous. In coaching, we want to be able to anchor our programs and processes to things we can measure, so we can see progress. We want to be able to help our clients attain the habits and goals to make them successful. This requires us to ask: How do you want to be happy, in what circumstances, and to what end? What makes you happy and how will you know you have reached that place? Is “Happiness” qualitative or quantitative and how do you measure it? Further, how do you know if you haven’t arrived, as if you had simply missed your flight?
The quandary comes when we realize that happiness means different things to different people. For some it is a spouse, and family including children, for others it is advancement in career, or helping the community or being famous, or being single or traveling or making millions or living simply and minimally. Furthermore, happiness is different things at different times in our lives. I may ask a client to define happiness for themselves and it will be completely different 10 years later.
All of this knowledge begs me to question the validity of happiness as a goal!
To me Happiness is not a goal to reach like a trophy or income level. Happiness is an emotion or state of being, not to be obtained but to be lived.
I am a big believer in the seven Universal Laws and one, in particular, comes to mind here… The Law of Relativity proves that you only know the qualities of 1 thing when you compare it to another. Consider the size of a baseball or the color blue. You only know the size of the ball or the blueness of a blue when you compare the ball to another ball or the blue to another blue. If we use this law when it comes to our happiness, we devalue the whole emotion.
Happiness should not be used as a measure of ourselves against another because happiness does NOT come from the outside. Happiness is a state of being, purely and honestly derived and cultivated inside.
I have had clients that have said so-n-so doesn’t “make me happy”
I’ll say this… NO ONE is responsible for your happiness but you. It’s not their JOB to MAKE you happy. It is their job to exist, just as they are. If you chose or choose them, then that’s all they have to do or be. It’s your seed, YOU are responsible for planting, watering, protecting, and harvesting it! If you are in an everyday situation where you find yourself unhappy (note: you are taking responsibility for your emotion here) then you either need to remove yourself or work on the inner dialogue that is happing inside. If you are unable to reach a place of happiness, find joy and gratitude around you, then there is work to be done inside… not outside.
I have known clients that have been through traumatic life events, and through significant work have found happiness, joy, gratitude, love, and passion. So, if your goal is happiness, first look to your own mind and heart because the seeds are there waiting for you.
