The truth about happiness is that it’s not about getting to a destination. It’s about growing more into the person we’re meant to be. Growing often involves change, and this isn’t easy. This blog looks at some of the ups and downs I’ve experienced over the last 18 months and what I’ve learnt about growth.
Many people daydream of giving up their salaried jobs to be free to spend their days doing what they love. I was one of them, and actually did it. What most people don’t realise, is that your life suddenly goes from pre-determined to self-determined.
Without a nasty boss and heavy workload to blame, you become solely responsible for your happiness with no excuses allowed.
How does this work?
Most people’s lives in the typical work-a-day existence are largely pre-determined. They work 40+ hours per week and any extra time is spent on chores, family, catching up with friends and other personal needs. There is very little time to create your own destiny for 40+ years.
It’s the modern script written by society and nearly everyone follows it.
However, once you step outside of this, you no longer have the script and have to write a new one yourself. This can be exciting, but more often than not it’s plain scary. You’re responsible for your day and more importantly your happiness.
Rather than your days being automatically scheduled with tasks so you have little time to think, you’re forced to face your own personal issues.
Depending on your personality type and personal history, this can either be exciting or a burden.
Leaving didn’t fix all my problems
I left my scripted life working in the construction industry, with the aim of setting up as a local artist, and spiritual life coach. I wanted to do the two things I love – making art and helping people – for a living. Boosted by the contents of the life coaching course I’d been taking one evening a week, I would quit daydreaming about another life where I could work towards the things I love and care deeply about, in this life. Newly qualified as a Life coach, and bursting with a desire to help people and simultaneously make art, I was raring to go. However, the years of busying myself ‘hustling’ for money was a habit hard to kick. Instead of focussing on making this happen, I ended up filling up my days making money the same as before but just in different ways.
About 6 months ago, I realised that I hadn’t actually even started achieving what I set out to do, and cut back on a bunch of things to make some space in my life. I managed to free up about 20 hours per week to focus on setting myself up. At first I, remember feeling ecstatically joyful at having time to figure out my own direction and be the driver of my own destiny. But then there were times when the fear and guilt would about not earning/not finding any clients/no-one buying my art would set in.
Our thoughts can be our own worst enemy
In retrospect I realise that deep down I thought that painting and helping people live their best lives for a living was just a bit too good to be true. Who did I think I was to be ‘good enough’ to aim for such ‘silly’ goals? Sooner or later I should figure out what I was really going to do next.
Contributing to the sense of guilt, was the pressure I’d put on myself to be feeling happy all the time now I’d made the shift. Instead of a 1.5 hour commute and staring at a screen all day I could spend my days painting as I’d daydreamed of for so long. I started to think that if this couldn’t make me happy then maybe there was just something wrong with me, or that humans could never really be ‘happy’, and that it’s just the way we’re wired. To a certain extent, this is true as the human mind does appear to have a negativity bias, perhaps to help with survival when we were living as hunter gatherers. Our biology has yet to catch up with the shift to civilization and so this ‘natural’ pre-disposition is no longer needed.
The good news is we can rise above this. As conscious, sentient beings with free-will, we have the choice to move beyond our natural impulses. We can re-wire our brains in a way that is more supportive for our growth. This includes re-evaluating stories we’ve been fed by society that no longer serve us.
Some things have a simple answer. Other things are less clear cut
Often, there’s a simple change/action we can make which solves a problem in our life. If our car’s broken, we get it fixed or when the doctor tells us our cholesterol is high, we get on a healthy diet and join the gym. If we want to get out of renting and own a place of our own, we start to budget and implement a saving plan. Taking action is clearly all that’s required for some problmes. But modern western society will have us think that there is an external ‘fix’ for everything. If you’re feeling insecure, you can buy better clothes and have some cosmetic surgery. You hate having to work everyday just to pay your bills, then the answer lies in obtaining financial freedom. If you’re bored in a relationship, then you should upgrade to a ‘better’ partner.
Essentially, we are fed the fallacy that there is a destination where we’ll be happy. We just have to make this change, buy that thing, move to that place. This is the classic trap which many people fall into, including myself. I believed that if only I could only get out of being stuck working for someone else and have more time to do my passion, then I would be happy. The truth is, that even if the change is the right thing to do, in and of itself it won’t provide us with lasting happiness. It’s usually just the first step, and once the honeymoon period has worn off it’ll shine a light on the interior things that need working on too.
How does change help reveal the patterns which aren’t serving us?
Sometimes when we make a big change, we can relapse into old patterns without realising it. As mentioned earlier, after I made the shift from working full time in architecture to being a self-directed creative, initially I just swapped one type of work for another. By saying yes to too much, I was unable to honour my intial intention of focusing on my art/life coaching business.
Once I recovered from the ‘relapse’, I realised that part of the reason for my procrastination was that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Fear of not having enough money had shrunken my available time to the point I was working 40 hours a week. I needed focus. Art would be something I would always do – but mainly for my own therapy, my own enjoyment. Yes I would sell them if people wanted them, but in my heart I knew I wanted to help people develop, In order to have any chance of ‘succeeding’, I first needed to rethink my idea of success in the first place. I had internalised the idea that success meant making lot’s of money from something, and I didn’t truly believe this would be possible for me through making art or coaching people.
Obviously it is possible to make money from both of these things. But if it’s the money that’s motivating you, then you’ll probably end up giving up before it’s even got started. It can take years to establish yourself as an artist or as a life coach, and clients can tell if it’s coming from the heart or whether it’s something you’re just doing to make money. For me, my whole reason for choosing these two things to focus on is because I’m passionate about both. With my bills being covered by my part-time job, I know that all I need to do is allow myself to follow my passions and not get distracted by other things.
The way I see it is this: at the very least I will be spending my days doing something I love and am 100% motivated by. The challenge of waking up each day and figuring out how I can best use my energy and creativity to help others, of keeping going desite inevitable failures, gives a deep sense of fufillment no amount of money could buy. I will want to do it even if there’s no financial reward at the end. The truth however, is that when you’re in alignment with your gifts, calling, passions – the likelyhood of making money is much higher – the difference is it’s more of a by-product that an end-goal.
Some people choose not to take the hard path of growth in favour of comfort and security, other people think that they have to make a big life change to grow, and because of financial restraints or caring duties, they can’t. The truth is, whatever situation we can always learn from it, and hence grow as people. If we’re in a situation we can’t change, we can learn patience and learn to surrender. We can change our thoughts and attitudes even if not the external things. When we do change the external things, we also can’t expect that to fufil us in and of itself either. Outher change usually helps facilitate inner change.
A summary of what I’ve learnt about change, happiness and growth so far
1: Growth is not about reaching a destination. It’s about the journey
True spirituality says that growth is the purpose of life, not getting to a destination. Growth doesn’t mean getting more for yourself, it means growing more into the person you were always meant to be. All humans come from the Divine Source which is loving in nature. Growth is becoming more like our Source. We don’t end when our physical bodies die, and our growth isn’t limited to the small window of time we’re on this planet. From this perspective, growth is how we treat ourselves and others, shifting from egoic ambition to service to others, and living each day with kindness and gratitude. Many people say that happiness is the purpose of life – which is true to a certain extent. Happiness is a by-product of living a life centred around growth.
2: In order to grow, sometimes something has to die
As discussed, sometimes we have to let go of something in our lives which is no longer serving us. This could be a friendship which is toxic, a company which makes you feel disrespected and small, or it could be a religion which you’ve grown up with, which you’ve simply outgrown. Leaving these familiar structures is hard. As humans, most of us deep down crave predictability and security. Naturally, we choose the option of least resistance, which means following the crowd.
However, if we take the time to listen to ourselves, we usually know when there’s something blocking our growth. Once this thing is no longer there, there is space for something new to take root. Just as seeds take time to grow into plants, so it will take time for us to understand where it’s all leading. It can be tempting to impatiently demand answers. If the change we’ve made aligns with our values, then we can rest assured that our Higher Power/God, is supporting us and will provide us with what we need at the right time.
3: Death is painful. The only way to grow is to go through the pain
When we say goodbye to something – a belief, attitude, person, career, or place, we can feel like we have lost part of ourself. Grief isn’t just something that happens when someone we love dies, it happens when we lose something in our lives. Even if we choose that thing, it’s still loss and if it’s something we cared about then it’s normal to grieve. If we’re to get into a space where the conditions are right for growth, then we have to actually feel our pain, which isn’t easy. Often, when we say goodbye to something/someone, we want the new straight away ‘out with the old, in with the new’ is the mantra we tell ourselves. But things don’t always pan out like this – God doesn’t operate on our timescales.
4: Old patterns will linger on. It takes time and effort to overcome this
Often when we’ve been living in a system/relationship/job which hasn’t been serving us, we become conditioned to endure and survive rather than thrive. Sometimes we survived – and maybe even felt good – by keeping ourselves constantly busy. This false feel-good factor we get when we’re constantly busy ‘earning money’ is because society has said it’s the most worth-while way to spend time because you’re supporting your family/building your future etc. Not only do we never have to think deeply about our lives, but there’s a ‘legitimate’ reason why we ‘can’t’.
We might have a wake-up moment when we see that whilst we might be busy doing loads of things, we are no longer growing. Sensing there’s a better way to live, we leave this frantic way of life, in search of deeper meaning. But old patterns can still persist. This is because neural networks in the brain can become ingrained over time, and to change them takes a lot of conscious effort and consistent practice.
When something in our lives has to be let go of, it can be painful and disorienting, as well as exhillarating. We might need a break but ultimately we aren’t meant to stay still. In my case, whenever I become complacent, my inner voice tells me ‘you’re more than this, your purpose is to use your gifts in service of others’. Sometimes the inner voice that makes us feel uncomfortable is actually serving a purpose and shouldn’t be ignored. I’m grateful for my inner ‘get up and go’ voice because it has brought me to this point in my life. We learn through experience how to discern whether the voice is motivated by ego or whether it comes from the Source.
Ultimately we don’t need to stress about our decisions. If we’re playing our part, staying open to opportunities, and doing what we can, we can surrender the rest and simply enjoy the process.
“Cultivate the root; the leaves and branches will take care of themselves.”
Confucius
