The Ultimate Flywheel

Why is performance important to you? 

You might say:

↳ money
↳ social standing
↳ personal growth
↳ accomplish the mission  

These are all valid. But each is just a means toward one basic goal: enjoying life and being happy. 

What if we could just fast-forward past the hard part and become happy now? 

That’s just a dream. Or is it? 

Muddy Waters  

The devil is in the details on happiness. 

Western culture teaches many of us that happiness is a destination. 

The word itself can mean lots of things, even to people who speak the same language. 

One word related to happiness is contentment. Most of us are aware of the “hedonic treadmill,” where our happiness adjusts down as our situation improves. (E.g. Lottery winners return to baseline happiness within one year on average.)   

But as far as I know, there’s no “contentment treadmill.” So if you practice gratitude and acceptance, then you can indeed “get there.” 

Meanwhile, happiness doesn’t come from stasis. We need growth and evolution as humans.

Happiness isn’t the end of a journey. It is something you can attain on the journey – and may even depend on it. We’re all familiar with stories of senior citizens who retire and quickly become miserable because they lack purpose. 

Practice Makes Nirvana

Most of us can come up with examples of cases where an external situation might cause us to be happy. But in reality, you can still be miserable in these cases. 

Yet the flip side might also be true. Histories from captives in horrific situations illustrate how two prisoners in the exact same situation can have completely different moods. See Viktor Frankl (Nazi concentration camp) and Admiral James Stockdale (Vietnam). 

➡️ Can we choose happiness and increase our ability to experience it? 

DNA and personal traumas certainly play a role in our different mindsets. But the above question amounts to a classic question that philosophers and governments have asked throughout history: Can people change? 

Thanks to a large body of evidence, especially in recent times, we know that you can:

⚡️ rewire your brain
⚡️ alter your mood, and 
⚡️ generate joy even during hard times. 

So if we can control contentment and joy, then how do we get more of that?

⚙️ Build a Happiness Practice in 9 Ways

The first six are straight out of the SEAL playbook. “Shoot, move, and communicate” in particular was drilled into us very early on. 

1. Find a mission: Purpose leads to positivity. 

2. Shoot: Fire bad friends and toxic coworkers. Find your tribe.  

3. Move: Humans weren’t meant to be sedentary. Our mood improves with movement—especially when it’s strenuous.

4. Communicate: Phone a family member or friend who is non-judgmental and always leaves you feeling better. 

5. Cultivate calm: Relax your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) starting with box breathing. Close your eyes and do as follows for 5 cycles: Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 6 seconds, breathe out for 8 seconds. 

6. Sleep like an operator: Rest as if you’re flying a fighter jet tomorrow. Cause you’re piloting something more important: your life. 

7. Walk with awe: What’s better than gratitude journaling? Appreciating a tree or a sunset or a funny license plate with the wonder of a child… where you think “How great is it to be alive?!” 

8. Care less: Read Mark Manson’s Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Then read it again.  

9. Stop the spiral: When you are in a bad spot, ask yourself the killer question: “What would the best version of me do—and feel—right now?” 

If you practice this stuff enough, you’ll start to realize that you can choose to lift your mood.

It gets better (and better). 

First, the ironic thing is that we actually perform better when we’re in a good mood. Across a wide range of studies, test subjects in whom researchers induced a good mood performed 10-12% better on tasks. 

So happiness is a kind of flywheel. A virtuous cycle. 

And, second, remember the hedonic treadmill? Well, the return of lottery winners’ happiness to baseline levels is only half the story. That study was about mood. (Brickman, Coates & Janoff-Bulman (1978))

Later studies showed a demonstrable and lasting increase in well-being and “life satisfaction.” 

In measuring life satisfaction, aka “evaluative well-being,” researchers ask respondents to take a step back and evaluate their life as a whole or “these days” (vs. moment-to-moment mood).  

What this tells us is that we can indeed build up to higher planes of being. 

And it’s true outside of chance winnings like the lottery: 

✅ You can build a family. 
✅ You can build a house. 
✅ You can make art. 

It’s not a destination—but a life worth living. 

 ❤️ Andrew

Coda

I highly recommend the book that the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote on this subject: 

Outro

I fell in love with blues legend Muddy Waters as soon as I heard him. 

Ironically, I think blues musicians are able to conjure joy more than most of us. 

“I Love the Life I Live (I Live the Life I Love)” — Muddy Waters

Cheers

🧠 Let’s talk: Wanna harness more flywheels in your work and life? Grab a free slot to meet with me, and let’s shine a lot on some solutions. 💥 🙌

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