We know many of you read and enjoyed Gretchen Rubin’s memoir, The Happiness Project (for those unfamiliar, it is a recent best seller recounting a year spent in pursuit of happiness, following what Gretchen describes as the “wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy”). As part of that year, one project she undertook was creating an often-illuminating, generally entertaining blog. In a recent post, Gretchen takes a look at how important it is to make goals concrete if we really want and expect results from ourselves. She gives a particular insight we thought worth sharing, especially in light of the recent work we have been doing trying to separate CONTENT from CONTEXT.
I repeat my Secret of Adulthood: I can choose what I do, but I can’t choose what I like to do.
We talk about CONTENT as what happened, and CONTEXT as how you respond, how you hear or receive something, or what you make it mean. Sometimes when we don’t like something, that feels like a problem. And we can spend a lot of psychic energy wishing we liked it or finding fault with ourselves or with the object of our dislike. We really appreciate Gretchen’s suggestion to have some compassion for ourselves and understand that we can only exercise CHOICE in certain places and ways.
This is not an easy one and solving it once certainly does not banish us from the pitfall. What do you think? Do you accept the idea that you can’t always control or choose what you like and how do you manage the consequences of having to choose doing things you DON’T like? Does it create any freedom to remind yourself that liking something isn’t a prerequisite to taking action and drawing satisfaction from a commitment?
And, we still don’t like doing what we don’t like! Do you have any ideas for motivating or rewarding ourselves when we get into action and out of complaint mode?
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I think we can shift some of what we don’t like by thinking about it in a more open minded way. I used to think I didn’t like getting up early or exercising but actually have come to realize that i do like them in many ways. Exercise makes me have more energy, feel healthy, and be able to eat what i want – i like those aspects. I don’t often get up early but I really like it when i do because I get quiet time to myself, I get to get a jump on the day, etc. To me the question is not how do i change what i like but rather, how do we get ourselves to DO the things we like. Sometimes i find myself doing things i don’t like and which also offer no benefits (eg getting upset with someone). i’d love to not do that! Maybe the bigger challenge to us is not to change what we like but discover how we can more often DO what we like and not do what we don’t like?