Overview
We all have things we’d like to change about our lives. Sometimes they are small things and sometimes they may seem so monumental that there’s no way we could actually do it.
After going through the Self Assessment your brain should be starting to think of ideas a little more easily.
We’re going to take the 1 THING idea and go a little deeper. We’re going to come up with 1 THING for each Area Of Life.
Break it down
Step 1: What I Would Change About My...
For each area of life we are going to think of 1 THING we’d like to improve.
When I do this I write down the 1 THING for each area and then loop through them again to write down the WHY.
You can do the 1 THING and the Why at the same time or you can do all the 1 THINGs and then circle back to answer the Why. It’s up to you. I’ll be honest… I switch it up from time to time. Depends on my mood. I don’t find an advantage to doing it one way vs the other.
Step 2: Why
I know a lot of people who like to skip this part. I was one of those people for a long time. I really didn’t think I needed to know why I wanted to change something. I just knew it in my gut so I did it.
A mentor of mine convinced me to give it a try…
I. WAS. BLOWN. AWAY!
The first time I did it I didn’t really dig deep to find the root cause for my desire to change something. When I wanted to get a better job my why was because I wanted more money. If I wanted to learn a new skill it was because I was bored with my current hobbies.
My mentor asked me one simple question that shook my thought process to the core…
Why do you want more money?
Why are you bored with the hobbies you currently have?
The short answer is because I was searching for a deeper purpose in life and I was just blindly jumping from one thing to another without knowing why I was done with the last thing.
The why is more important than the what
You can get really good at making changes in your life, but if you don't understand why you have the deep desire to make a change you will waste a lot of time on things that won't help you achieve your ultimate goal.
Step 3: The 1 THING... again
In the Self Assessment we just randomly choose 1 THING.
Now that we have 1 THING for each Area Of Life which one would you choose if you could only choose a single one?
Is it the same as your 1 THING from the Self Assessment? Probably not… And that’s a good thing. We’re already learning something about ourselves even if we don’t fully understand it yet!
Step 4: The most and least happy AOL
Which area of life are you the MOST happy and LEAST happy?
This is another one of those hidden gems in The Happiness Plan. It might seem obvious, but, to me, the hidden power behind the MOST and LEAST happy gives me the ability to balance focus at the extremes.
Any time I want to work on something in my LEAST favorite area of life, I try to balance it out with something in my MOST happy area of life.
Imagine if we only focused on the two LEAST happy areas of life… All that potential negativity can cause a bit of a downward spiral.
Even though it makes logical sense to work on the LEAST happy Areas Of Life, we should strive for some balance.
CONGRATULATIONS!
At this point you should really give yourself a huge pat on the back. Or, maybe, go celebrate with a friend. They don’t even need to know why you’re celebrating. Just invite them out to do a fun activity.
You truly deserve it!
At this point you should have a much clearer idea as to where you are in life. What things you are hoping to improve and, most importantly…
WHY!
Take a break. When you’re ready we’ll jump into creating some ideas on how we can improve life and really see your Happiness Plan take shape.