On this last day of 2014 I’d like you to consider a very personal and powerful question; how happy are you now? On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you – with you – and with your life, right now, TODAY? Reflect for a moment, get a number in mind and hold onto it.
With that in mind, I’d like to tell you about a friend of mine that I asked that same question of just this morning. He responded that he’s very happy now, perhaps an ‘8’ on a scale of 1 to 10. I also asked him how that compares with how happy he was one year ago today. His response; he is in fact much happier today than on the last day of 2013.
Now let me provide a little context on his last 12 months:
- He’s still in the same job he was in a year ago, same boss, same primary responsibilities, same business conditions, yet he is happier today than a year ago
- 2014 brought him the ‘3Cs’ – cancer, combat and calamity; first a cancer diagnosis and full course of treatment, then a son in law deploying to Afghanistan for the year, and then add tearing his ACL just days before undergoing the first cancer surgery – just after his own son suffered a horrific leg break at school…yet still happier today than 1 year ago.
- Finally, he is of an age at which we tend to consider what we’d like to do with the rest of our life. He has the whole ‘success’ thing down and now wonders what he can do that matters…he’d like to figure out what his ‘passion’ is in life (sound familiar?). He hasn’t found the answer to that…but he’s still happier today than he was 12 months ago!
He has had a year that would send most of us into a tailspin of misery and self-pity. He didn’t even have the time or mental shelf space to reflect and experience the proverbial epiphany of his purpose here on earth. But at some point, probably several smaller, less noticeable junctures, he became happier across the board. Without trying or working at it, he became more satisfied and comfortable at work, at play, and even at rest.
What might you take away from this story?
1. The greatest single indicator of job or life satisfaction is positive core self-evaluation. The greatest single indicator of likely satisfaction with your work, primary relationships or even your significant other – is your core self-evaluation…how happy you are…with you. It is ‘all about you’.
2. Core self-evaluation is a constant. This running personal satisfaction scan is unconscious and ongoing. We are always grading ourselves, and always viewing ourselves in every facet of our lives, in the shadow of that grade.
3. We can bring the personal satisfaction index to a conscious level. We can light up this on-going assessment in the intentional arena where we can see it – and shape it. If you can measure it, you will change it.
Reflect on the 12-month transformation I described above, of someone becoming happier against all odds, without conscious intent. What then could you do? At the beginning of this blog I asked to you imprint a number between 1 and 10 to indicate how happy you are right now. What was it? What do you want it to be? Do you dare to change it?
I wish you blessings and happiness, abundance and contentment for 2015.
