Why are you interested in financial independence? Do you hate your job? Are you always stressed out? Do you feel like you never have any time for what truly matters? Do you think that when you become Financially Independent and Retire Early (FIRE) you will finally be happy?
This was how I felt when I first started down the FI road. I wanted to reach FI so that I could be happy.
It turns out that I had the steps backwards!
In the book, The Happiness Advantage, author Shawn Achor talks about a fascinating sub-field of psychology that is studying happiness.
Shawn sites a number of interesting studies in the book, but the most interesting one to me was a study that asked a number of questions to determine how happy people were, and they paired that with data about how successful people were in their career and in other areas of their life.
As you would expect, the people that were more successful tended to be happier. No surprise there. The surprise came when they studied these people over time. The people who went from the “not yet successful” category into the “successful” category did not necessarily become happier; however, the people who were already happy were much more likely to become successful!
Happiness predicts success, not the other way around!
This is great news! You don’t need to suffer for 10 grinding years while pursuing financial independence just to be happy. You can be happy now! … and as a side effect you will reach the success you are looking for.
Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) notes that happiness is the only logical pursuit. The things that actually make you happy don’t have to cost a lot of money.
How much does it cost to go to the park with your kids and get to watch them have a blast on the play structure? How much does it cost to go for a trail run on your public lands? The best things in life are free! f
I am posting this on Black Friday. One of our happiest family holiday traditions is something we do on this day every year. We buy a $10 Christmas tree chopping permit, and head up into the mountains like Clark Griswold to cut down our own Christmas tree! $10 plus a little gasoline to get to the mountains is what it costs our family of 6 (2 parents, 2 kids, and 2 dogs) to have one of the best days of the year.
MMM’s main advice for reducing excess spending is to judge every potential purchase by whether it will increase your true happiness. If it will, then buy it. If it won’t, then don’t.
When you start looking at your spending this way, you discover that most of the things you have been spending your money on won’t actually increase your long term happiness.
Using this technique you can cut your consumption without actually sacrificing. Getting to FI through happiness . . . Pretty cool!
Well being happy sounds great, Mr. DS, but what do I do if I’m not happy???
One of the great secrets to life that many people miss is that you are in control of yourself. You cannot control the world around you, but you can control how you react to it. If you are unhappy, it is because you choose to be unhappy.
So let’s look at some ways to choose to be happy!
Tips for Being Happy Now
Be a Perfect Pineapple Picker
When I was a kid, my mom told me a story about 3 pineapple pickers:
There were 3 folks who worked in a factory in Hawaii. All the pineapples that had been harvested would come along in front of them on a conveyor belt. Their job was to sort the pineapples into 3 categories:
- Perfect Pineapples: These were the pineapples that would fetch top-dollar. They only went to the very best grocery stores like Whole Foods and Gelson’s.
- Average Pineapples: These pineapples weren’t perfect, but they weren’t terrible either. They were just OK. These would go to your standard grocery store.
- Rotten Pineapples: These pineapples were ugly and rotten. They could not be sold and went straight to the compost bin.
Joe’s job was to watch the pineapples come by and pull off all the rotten ones. These would be thrown directly into the compost bin. All day he would watch the pineapples come by and look for rotten pineapples.
When Joe went home he would usually say something to his roommate like, “I don’t know what’s wrong with all the pineapple farms these days, it seems like all the pineapples they send us are rotten!”
Sally’s job was to pull off the average pineapples for delivery to the normal grocery stores. All day she would watch the pineapples come by and look for average pineapples.
When Sally went home she would usually say something to her husband like, “I don’t really understand why they hire me to sort these. It seems like every pineapple that comes by is average.”
Mike had worked at the factory for a while and had a keen eye. His job was to pick off the perfect pineapples. The best of the best. All day he would watch pineapples come by and look for perfect pineapples.
When Mike was enjoying a hoppy beer with a friend after a hard day of work, he said, “I really can’t believe how many perfect pineapples there are in the world! You would think that if something was perfect it would be rare, but no! There are a ton of them! These pineapple farmers really know what they’re doing!”
All three pineapple pickers were staring at the same conveyor belt with the same pineapples, yet they had very different perceptions of the quality of the harvest as a whole.
“OK Mr. DS, there are a bunch of people sorting pineapples. What’s the point?”
The point is this: You notice what you focus on. Focus on the negative things and the world will seem like a dismal place. Focus on the good things and the world seems great!
You have control over your focus. Therefore you have control over whether the world seems terrible or great.
Now that’s power! . . . but it’s also responsibility. This means that if you are unhappy, it is your own doing. That’s the harsh truth. Accepting responsibility can be difficult, but it’s the only way to give yourself the power to change things for the better. After all, if you had the power to make things the way they are, then you have the power to change things too!
“But Mr. DS, life is hard, and sometimes it feels good to vent about all the things I am frustrated about.”
Yes, it can feel good to “vent” about the bad stuff. I still do it (nobody’s perfect). However, contrary to what people think, venting doesn’t “get it off your chest”. Instead, after venting about 1 bad thing, you will usually think of something else that you “need” to vent about. It’s a downward spiral.
If you are constantly “venting” about the bad stuff, then you are constantly paying attention to the bad stuff. You are training your brain to scan the world for bad things. Since you can only pay attention to one thing at a time, that means you are missing the good stuff. You are being a rotten pineapple picker.
Try this instead: Next time you are talking to someone about your day, instead of immediately going to the story of the person who cut in front of you in line at the grocery store or your coworker who said something mean, tell them about the best thing that happened that day.
I bet that as you tell that person about the best part of your day, you’ll think of something else good that happened. The person you are talking to may think of something too. Positive thoughts breed more positive thoughts. All you have to do is get them started.
It is a fact that there will always be bad things that happen. They will never go away. However, the other side of that coin is that there will always be good things that happen too. It’s not about getting rid of the bad thing, but about which side of the coin you choose to look at.
Be a perfect pineapple picker. Choose to focus on the good stuff.
Daily Gratitude
Other than in conversations, how do we “focus on the good stuff”? We can’t just wait for this positive focus to happen. We have to be deliberate!
One great tip that I read in Shawn Achor’s book is to write down 3 things you are grateful for every evening before bed. This only takes a couple minutes and has a huge impact.
This exercise trains your brain to scan for positive things all day.
When you are writing, try to get very specific. It doesn’t matter if they are big things or small things. As an example, here are my 3 items from last night:
1. I am grateful for getting to see my son have have so much fun at the Lion King Musical today.
2. I am grateful for awesome neighbors! They invited us over for dinner – souvee chuck roast, MMMmmmm….
3. I am grateful for a really peaceful and beautiful walk with the dogs this morning. The fall leaves were amazing!
Spend QUALITY Time with People You Love
Spend quality time with people you love. By quality I mean be present and focused while you are with them. Turn off the phone, and don’t spend the whole time complaining about your day.
Instead, smile and listen. As Steven Covey said, seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Admittedly, I could be better at this category and am working to improve. I have a strong tendency to check my phone when I should be focused on the people I’m with. What may have just been a momentary silence while my wife chews her dinner can then turn into me being distracted and not even noticing when she tries to continue the conversation.
One trick I’ve been trying lately is to turn my phone on silent and put it away in another room when I am with people I care about. This seems to work well when I remember to to do it*. When my phone is not there we usually have a great time chatting about the day, discussing our goals and dreams for the future, or listening to my son describe what he learned that day.
*As I was typing this it occurred to me to create a daily reminder in my GTD (Getting Things Done) system so that I won’t have to remember to do this. Hopefully that will be what I need to spur this action every evening. I’ll touch more on GTD in a later article.
Just Smile
I got this trick from an ultra running podcast.
Running an ultra marathon involves entering a race that is longer than a marathon. I’ve run races ranging from 31 up to 100 miles.
Late in an ultra marathon you are usually hurting pretty badly. Your legs are throbbing, and you are exhausted from running all day, and maybe all night too! All I usually am craving at this point is a beer and some sleep. However, just the act of forcing on a smile when you see onlookers actually makes you happy and makes you feel better. It’s not that the pain goes away, but your focus shifts away from it.
Try it out! When you are leaving the office after a stressful day, instead of just storming out, smile and say goodnight to your coworkers. When you are walking out the door and other people are coming, pause, hold the door for them, and give them a smile and warm hello.
It’s the times that you don’t feel like doing this that it will make the biggest difference. Force that smile on anyway and see if you all of a sudden don’t feel just a little bit better.
Wish for Someone Else to Be Happy
Think of someone else and wish for that person to be happy.
I got this idea from the Tim Ferris podcast. Instead of focusing on a way to make yourself happier, think of someone else you know and wish for that person to be happy. Even doing this for 10 seconds will end up making you happier!
Help Someone
Even better than wishing is doing.
Help a friend in need. Bring a slice of pizza to the homeless person on the street corner. Shovel the snow on your neighbor’s walkway. Do something nice for someone else.
Helping other people is often thought of as a selfless pursuit; however, it’s not really selfless. You get a benefit too. It turns out that helping other people is a very powerful way to boost your own happiness and feeling of self worth.
Do you notice something in common with all of the above tips? None of them cost much, if any, money.
If you limit your spending to things that are absolute necessities, and to things that will bring actual happiness, you won’t need to spend much money at all. By focusing on the things that make you happy you will: save money (happy things are inexpensive), earn more (be the person that people want to work with), and have better relationships! . . .
Oh yeah, and you’ll be happier too!
Financial Independence is a great goal. It will give you more time to focus on the things that are important to you (like happiness). FI won’t make you happy, but being happy will help you get to FI!
What about you? Do you have any deliberate practices that you do to be happy? Please share them in the comments below!
🙂