progress: the foundation of happiness

 

This weekend I'm traveling to a friend's wedding in South Carolina, but I'm pleased to share with you today a guest post by Kevin Incorvia. He's been a monk, a track coach, and a successful businessman and blogs daily about the topics of spirituality and personal development. Kevin is also working on a book and you can learn more about that, as well as pick up a copy of his free eBook Escape from Paradigm Island, by visiting his blog. You can also follow him on Twitter @kevinincorvia.

 

The phone rings, and you get a tense feeling in your stomach. "This is it," you think to yourself. You knew you'd get a call about the job and in a few moments you are going to know whether your life has changed forever, or not. Maybe years from now you will tell people that this was the best day of your life! Hold on a second.  Does anyone really want the best days of their life to be behind them?

 

When I was living as a monk around the age of 21, there was a period of 2 months or so when every subsequent day was the new best day of my life. It's a time when most kids are celebrating their coming of age with nights out at the bar. I was living with a relatively small group of men on 1,500 acres of forest. No internet, no tv, no computers, for a year. I went to bed and woke up early ever day, did daily meditation, and got lots of vigorous exercise. Inside, I didn't just feel in-tune and in-touch, I was. Every day my heart grew in love and appreciation. Life was bliss.

While I still enjoy those kind of days, that was a remarkable time for me, and the fact that I was growing every day was of no trivial point. Psychologists have generally come to a consensus that successfully attaining goals (think progress) is the key to developing a sense of well-being. If we can say that happiness depends on progress, so does life. When we look around us we see that life is constantly evolving. Plants grow out of the ground towards the sun, animals seek nourishment that will sustain and enrich them, the planets move quietly in their orbits leaving behind whatever existence they knew before. It seems that no one or no thing would be happy knowing that their best days were behind them.

 

The point is that if we want to be happy (this is after all our goal) we must be constantly progressing in our happiness. But, making progress isn't always as easy as we want it to be. Humans have a remarkable ability to maintain a relatively stable level of happiness even through major goal accomplishments and difficult times. Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation. We've all experienced this. Maybe you got a raise and you were thrilled. Then a few months later you realized that you were in the same boat mentally and emotionally as you were before the raise. If we are serious about our happiness we have to make a serious commitment to progress.

There are several ways that we can commit to progress. Here are some tips, not "tips on how to be happy," but rather three practical things you can do that will unlock happiness in your life:

1. Recognize that it's easier to handle your internal growth than your external growth. It's important to progress, but if we are to make a commitment to progress we have to know in what direction we want to grow. When you answer that call about the new job you have no control over what the other person is going to say. What we can control is our self mentally, physically, and spiritually. By prioritizing internal progress over outer progress we are picking the quickest route to the destination of happiness.

2. Develop your creativity. Even though we've decided we want to commit to internal growth we still have to be smart about how we do that. I'm a firm believer in the fact that lack of happiness comes from the lack of the ability to fulfill one's desires. In order to more quickly and effortlessly fulfill our desires we need to become more creative. When we are more creative we develop a broader vision capable of seeing past the obstacles that impede progress. How do we develop creativity? One way is to continually make an effort to try new things. Research has shown that people that are more open minded are more readily able to take advantage of life's opportunities as they present themselves to us; some call this luck. My business professor in college felt so strongly about the value that life experience plays in solving problems that he went as far as giving business ideas to the students for business plan writing classes.  He knew that we ourselves were inadequately prepared to guess what challenges businessmen would face on the road ahead.  With this in mind, develop a habit of trying the new dish or taking the different route. Taking art or dance lessons are also fabulous ways to exercise the creative side of your mind.

3. Find ways to remove stress from your life. Whether it be meditation, yoga, or whatever, you need to find a way to remove stress from your life. Maybe it's a daily walk in the park to get some fresh air, or a nap time. Stress has a way of limiting our ability to see opportunities that arise, preventing us from progressing. It clouds our vision, narrows our focus, and limits our ability to have meaningful relationships.

When we do these three things, several things happen:

• We attend to the moment. Yes we may have some long term goals that we are working with but when we focus on progress we attend to the short term requirements. We become process rather than goal orientated.  This is being in the present.

• We realize repeated successes. We quickly develop the habit of being more successful. Being more successful means greater positivity. And I don't have to tell you the virtues of being Positively Present, do I? Make these three things a priority in your life and you will be on your way to being more progressive and therefore fulfilled.

The fantastic post you just read was a guest post by Kevin Incorvia. If you liked what you read here, you should check out his site, where he blogs daily about the topics of spirituality and personal development.  For even more Kevin, follow him on Twitter @kevinincorvia.

Comments

[Eduard @ People Skills Decoded]

I think progress is an important source for happiness. At the same time, it's not the only one. Sometimes, you can be happy without making real progress, because you enjoy the process. It's a yin-yang thing :)

[positively present]

Eduard - That's a great point! Progress is important, but it's always good to find happiness with in the process of progress.

[Kevin Incorvia]

Thanks for commenting on my writing Eduard. Your thought is a great one and something I encourage you to think more about. Certainly you can be happy without making progress. Can you continue to be happy without making progress? Research seems to indicate we become adapted to levels of happiness and eventually require more.

The wonderful thing about this blog is the emphasis of progress in terms of growth of appreciation, gratitude, positivity and happiness. Like there being many different sources of happiness, there are many different ways to progress.

[A.D]

This is such a great post! All of the tips are very useful, and I definitely can put them to good use in my life!

[Tania]

I think everyone should live with the reason of being persistent on things that bring happiness "to myself, to the others and to world". This is what means being successed on work, on relationships and on some kind of sport, on some hobby... Progress and happiness are related always, but happiness comes first, because I think it is the begining of a journey to achieve something. On that line, I guess, before we had been created by our parents we were just pure HAPPINESS! What do you think?

This is so true and simple! We are living when we are on the same flow of the Earth because "planets move quietly in their orbits leaving behind whatever existence they knew before". I really liked when you said that "It seems that no one or no thing would be happy knowing that their best days were behind them"!
I find this article very interesting because it's based on your own experience and I really understand that.

[Greg Blencoe]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the post.

It's great to hear about your experience as a monk. Very interesting.

I'm glad you mentioned meditation. I started meditating a couple of years ago and absolutely love it. At least for me, the difference has been like going from living in black and white to living in color.

I'm the same person that I was before, but I'm a better version of myself as a result of meditating. It feels like a whole new world has opened up.

[Jacqueline Johns - Your Happy Life Mentor]

I am The Happiest Person I Know, partly because I do all of the above.
I realized many years ago where happiness comes from:

Happiness is snuggled up in a quiet spot within you.
You need only be still and silent and allow it to unfold until it eventually engulfs you.

Live Life Happy!

[vikum]

Hi Kevin,
You have laid a good foundation to happiness.I think being creative shows the way to being open minded, and being open minded gives us the strength to feel the life better and live it without loosing our happiness. Because when you are open minded, you can see the life from different angles and find the happiness in it, at any situation.

Thanks a lot for the great post Kevin !

[Catherine]

Kevin, I like this post very much!

When we live in the moment by doing what makes us feel good it makes it so much easier to handle the tough stuff.

Thank you

[positively present]

Kevin - Thank you for writing this post and for responding to comments. I also wonder if you can continue to be happy if you don't make progress... It's a good question. Thanks for your comments about Positively Present!

A.D. - I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed Kevin's post. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Tania - Thank you for sharing your insights. You've brought up some great points, and I really appreciate you sharing them with us here on Positively Present!

Greg - Thanks for your comment on Kevin's post. I also really enjoyed reading about his experience and I'm glad you could relate to what he wrote about meditation. I've been meaning to try it because it sounds like it's such a great, positive outlet.

Jacqueline - I agree that happiness comes from within and it's one of the most important things we can realize if we want to be happy people. It can be hard to access it at times, but once we do, we realize that we always have it with us.

Vikum - Great point about open-mindedness. That's really an important element to creating happiness in one's life and I'm glad you highlighted that point in your comment!

Catherine - I'm happy to hear you liked Kevin's post! I agree that when we focus on what makes us feel good and really do our best to live in the moment, we're in a much better position to handle difficulties that may come our way.

[J.D. Meier]

I really like your point on making internal progress.

[positively present]

J.D. - Thanks for your comment on Kevin's post. Like you, I also really enjoyed the point he brought up about making internal progress. It really is a foundation for creating happiness.

[Syd]

Nice post Kevin. I have removed a number of stressful things from my life over the past year.
Dani, you will be nearby in SC. Enjoy the weather. It has been nice here in Charleston.

[positively present]

Syd - Thanks for your comment on Kevin's post! It's really important to remove as many stressful things from your life as you can. I've found that's one of the best ways to make progress in the areas of your life that matter most to you. Charleston is beautiful! How lucky that you live there!