How to get the most out of life, or When “I need more” finally turns into “I have enough”?
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Surely today you have much more than you had in the past, but this most likely does not make you happier. When does “I need more” finally turn into “I already have enough”? Scientists have studied the life experiences of successful people. They conducted more than 60 interviews with those who reached incredible professional heights . Analyzing the information received, the researchers were able to find out what we need in life, and determined the best way to achieve the desired .
We are not always sure what exactly we need more. But no matter how much we have, of course, we still do not have enough.
This is an example of how our instincts begin to work against us . What is the problem? The answer to this question was found by two researchers.
In their book Just Enough (“Just Right”) ★ , Howard Stevenson and Laura Nash tried to answer the question that each of us asks: “Do I get the most out of life?”
The problem with many people is that there is no end and end to the search for “what makes us feel good”. It’s like a competition for the fastest pie eating, in which the main prize is another pie.
What in this world of infinite possibilities of choice makes us stop and calmly say "Thank you, I have enough"?
Scientists have studied the life experiences of successful people. They conducted more than 60 interviews with those who reached incredible professional heights.
It turns out that even these people, for the most part, also do not know the answer to this question. But it’s also interesting that they all share the same mistakes. By analyzing these errors, the researchers were able to find out what we need in life, and determined the best way to achieve what we want.
Mistake 1: One cannot be limited to one criterion.
We all know that a happy life cannot be provided with money alone, but none of us can confidently answer the question: what components, in addition to money, are needed for happiness, and how to get it.
Let's admit: money is an essential criterion for a good life. They undoubtedly bring happiness, at least for a period of time.
We all know that the presence of love and friendship in life is also an important fact ... But with this, everything is quite complicated, you can’t just get love or friendship by sending from Amazon Prime. Will not work.
It turned out that an attempt to determine the quality of life using one criterion becomes a serious problem. In the book Just Enough, scientists call this phenomenon "destructive strategy."
We are talking about a person’s desire to rake, figuratively speaking, all aspects into one pile, trying to apply one criterion, and to understand whether he is going the right way through life.
The problem is not that money, which most often acts as a measure of success, is a terrible criterion, and not even that you cannot do with just one parameter to assess the quality of life:
“Sustainable success is not based on the availability of certain resources, but on the ability to use them to achieve various goals!”
We can observe this in our lives. Many are now talking about a phenomenon such as FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out, which translates as "fear of missing something." Even incredibly successful people feel that they have missed some areas of their lives:
“An analysis by Jim Warner of the activities of 200 CEOs, primarily successful members of the International Organization of Business Leaders (YPO), showed that 70% of them feel that they were“ forced ”to achieve financial independence, and 60% realized that they were ready to seriously change their life due to unpleasant circumstances: they felt that they were missing something important ... "
Learning is good, but you also need to spend time with friends. When we try to reduce our whole life to one thing, we inevitably feel inferior.
Researchers realized that a happy life requires a combination of several aspects. For example, to have a good relationship with the family, we must spend time with her. A watch spent together is a parameter that can be measured. But if this time passes in a scream at each other - this also needs to be taken into account. It turns out that we must measure not only quantity, but also quality.
What aspects are components of a happy life? The study revealed four:
- Happiness: Pleasure or satisfaction from life.
- Success: Actions that turn out to be more effective than actions of other people in achieving similar goals.
- Significance: Making a positive impression on people whose opinion matters to you.
- Legacy: Applying your resources or achievements to help others succeed in the future.
Reading this list, much can be understood intuitively.
We all know people who succeeded in the number one aspect, but these people ultimately lost out because they missed the number two aspect. And vice versa.
Interestingly, some of the interviewees understood the importance of all four aspects and did not try to reduce their whole lives to one thing. But they made another mistake : they thought that it was possible to work on these aspects in turn. It turns out that this is also not right.
Mistake number 2: You cannot postpone a happy life for later
“First I will torment myself, make enough money, THEN I will have a family, and BECAUSE I will do what I want and I will be happy ...”
This is what Just Enough calls a “phasing strategy”:
“The phasing strategy brings absurdity to the idea of delayed satisfaction. This is the scheme of choice for most modern young people, especially those who can be called "beginner from the bottom," people who see the possibility of enrichment in the future, with further work ... "
Clay Christensen provides a wise solution to this problem in his book How Will You Measure Your Life? ("How to measure your life?"):
“The relationship that you have with your family and close friends will be the main source of happiness in your life. But you have to be careful. If it seems to you that everything is fine at home, you may be in the grip of the illusion that investments in maintaining and developing family relations can be postponed until later. This is a huge mistake. By the time serious problems arise in the family, trying to change something happens, as a rule, already too late. This means, paradoxically, that the best time to invest in building strong family relationships and close friendship is when outwardly this is not particularly necessary ... ”
This statement is even more relevant in relations with children:
“One of the most common mistakes made by young professionals with high potential is what they think: investments in life can be streamlined. The logic is as follows: “I can pursue my career during the first years of my family life, while the children are small, while I can not engage in their upbringing. When the children grow up a little and become interested in things that adults are interested in, then I will break away from my work and focus on the family. ” You know what? By this time it will be too late. The child needs to start practicing much earlier. He needs to be provided with tools with which he can cope with life's challenges - you need to do this even before you can imagine it ... "
But is this theory confirmed by any research? Such statements are very difficult to analyze from a scientific point of view, but some unofficial evidence was nevertheless obtained through communication with senior citizens.
It turns out that the happiest people of the older generation are those who managed to maintain a balance between all four of the above aspects:
“This theory is best supported by the history of a number of interviewees who have already retired. Those who saved their whole lives, denying themselves happiness and waiting for retirement, in order to finally start to have fun, had no idea what to do and how to live. They had money-making skills, but lacked many social skills, except, of course, those that they developed in the corporate environment. They often drove their spouses crazy. On the other hand, those who tried to maintain their living pace at the same high level did not feel satisfaction from trying to work, creating the following problem for themselves. They began to feel fear that they might have lost their ability to live at their usual pace. .. "
It turned out that those who felt harmonious in retirement, earlier, throughout their lives, invested resources in all four aspects of a happy life .
- We see more and more examples of how people devote all their attention to one area of life and completely neglect the rest. A brilliant programmer usually has zero communication skills.
- Tough business women put off childbirth. The careerist does not find time for his children.
The danger is that we are becoming single-functional, albeit efficient, machines designed to perform one task.
Striving for success is a lifelong process ...
In the book Just Enough, Stevenson and Nash call this strategy “acceleration and connection”:
You must pay attention to all four aspects of a happy life regularly, if not daily.
If you ignore at least one of them, then you are inexorably slipping into the strategy of "destruction", and if you put it aside, then you become a hostage to the theory of "phasing".
A good life is a balance, and it should be so, because the limits of happiness do not exist. Here is one of the conclusions that scientists made:
“If you think like many other modern people, and believe that success can be achieved only if you put off happiness until later, expect that when you reach the top at the final point, you can stop working and find a happy life, then you are unlikely to achieve real success or happiness. All scientific studies prove that happiness has the property to fade: when you try ice cream with fruits and nuts for the first time, you will taste its amazing taste, but if you eat four servings, you are unlikely to experience great pleasure. A feeling of happiness needs to be regularly updated, and not look for a state of endless pleasure ... "
Comedian Stephen Wright once quipped:
“I took the dog with me on a journey from New York to Florida. Then I said: “Well, that's all, you probably have enough ...” ”
Very funny. But this is not the case with dogs, as well as with people.
Strive to work on all four criteria for a happy life every day:
- Happiness: Pleasure or satisfaction from life.
- Success: Actions that turn out to be more effective than actions of other people in achieving similar goals.
- Significance: Making a positive impression on people whose opinion matters to you.
- Legacy: Applying your resources or achievements to help others succeed in the future.
A quote from Warren Buffet summarizes all of the above:
“It’s always strange for me to hear:“ I am going to do this for ten years. Of course, I hate this business, but, nevertheless, I’ll do it ... ”Such an approach is about as reasonable as putting off sex for old age. This is probably not the best idea ... "
PS. We recommend another article on the topic - What is life? Finding the meaning of life using a business strategy .
The author of the translation is Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .