I’ll start this post with a simple question: Do you see better results in your life when you set out to do something you want to do, or when you’re doing something because of what someone else wanted?
Spoiler alert – it’s probably doing something you wanted to do. That’s the tl;dr version, but if you like reading words I type, keep a-reading.
The wheels got turning last night when my wife asked me how my contentment mission was going. She asked if I’d found it difficult to resist the urge to buy new things, but my honest answer was, no, it hasn’t been as hard as I’d expected. I’ve found myself enjoying the things I do have, and being more intentional about spending time on those things. Then she followed up, “Do you think it’s because you’re not distracted by ‘new-ness’?”
My answer to that question was also “No”, but was harder to articulate why. There’s always a chance of hating whatever new thing you set out to try. In fact, I even talked a couple of weeks ago about trying to play to one of the games on my “incomplete” list and having so little fun that I went on to do something else with my time. The best explanation I could come up with for why this mission wasn’t very difficult was because this was something that I personally decided for myself that I wanted to do. As I said to my wife, and later my therapist, it’s the difference between someone saying you could stand to lose a few pounds, and you telling yourself you want to be more fit and active. While both options technically have the same goal in mind, one is an objectively terrible way to go about things.
I think we can all find examples of this in our own life. The things that we choose, that we set out to do, that we internalize, are easier to stick to. Two huge examples in the past few years of my life have been going into therapy and going into graduate school. In both cases, the idea was suggested by someone else. However, they were both things that I did want to do for myself. My wife may have suggested therapy (based only on the fact that her husband hadn’t been acting like himself for months and had called her sobbing in the middle of her work day… pretty lackluster evidence, but whatever), but it was up to me to actually make the commitment and stick with it. Similarly, when the idea of graduate school was brought up over dinner with her boss, I could have said no, or feigned interest then never applied, or any number of options. No matter who or where the ideas come from for change in your life, it’s up to you to follow through.
We all hear stories on a seemingly daily basis about how peoples’ lives change in unexpected ways once they make a commitment and stick with it. Therapy began as a way for me to sort through the months of stressful and traumatic life changes I’d undergone, but ended up also teaching me new skills and new ways of thinking that have saved my life. On a much smaller scale, committing to my mission of contentment has not only led me to appreciate what I already have in this life, but has made me more intentional – and much more aware – of how I spend my free time. Now, instead of going into autopilot and sticking to the same after work relaxing I’d normally do, there’s a little voice going, “Hmm, I’ve been playing games with my time for a few days now. Maybe I should make more of an effort to read this week”. It’s not because I’ve become some enlightened person for deciding not to buy all the shiny things in a 5-mile radius for a couple months; it’s because the decisions I’ve made for myself are positively impacting how I think about my free time.
You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.
As with a lot of psychology-related revelations, all of this probably seems like common sense; to an extent, it is. But this is the sort of thing that can be very rewarding if you open your mind to it. Think back to your least favorite classes in high school or college. The ones where you barely scraped by, or maybe just loathed the material to your very core. In my case, my psychology GPA was a good deal higher than the GPA for my gen-ed classes, or the ones I only took to fulfill some arbitrary requirement for my college.
You see, there is a reason why so many TV and movie characters have stories that involve them resenting their parents for making them go into a certain field of work. “This isn’t my dream”, they shout through tears, “it’s yours!!”. As with most things in my life, this entire topic reminded me of a Christopher Nolan movie, a little underground project called Inception. In describing how difficult it is to plant an idea in someone’s mind, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character uses the example of telling someone not to think of something, which then makes the person think about it. The solution to this problem – spoiler warning for a 9 year old movie – is for the team to frame the idea in such a way that their target internalizes it and wants it to happen.
There are 3 questions we can all ask ourselves when it comes to the things we want, illustrated with my personal example of grad school.
- What do I want?
It can be broad, or it can be specific, but what exactly is it that you want? Get fit, or lose a specific number of pounds? Move into a specific career, or work for a different company in any capacity? Again, it seems like a “duh” exercise, but defining your goal is the best start to achieving it. Perhaps most importantly, focus on the “I” in that sentence. Not “What does he/ she want for me”. That can absolutely be a starting point, but lasting change won’t happen because of what someone else wants.
When I decided to look into grad school, I had to know what type of program I wanted to get into. For this first step, that was about all I needed: the overall goal of getting a Master’s degree, and the sub-goal of knowing what field I wanted to study.
- How do I get it, or make it happen?
Is there a gym in your area, or even a park with a good walking trail? Is the job you want an entry-level position, or will you need to obtain some sort of license or certification before you can apply? Maybe your goal is doing some renovation or remodeling around the house, in which case, what materials will you need, and how much will they cost?
Spreadsheets were my best friend, and they can be yours too. I looked at any graduate program within a reasonable distance that had an applied behavioral field of study; this was one column. In other columns, I had the price of tuition, the exact field of study, the degree requirements (for example, thesis vs. no thesis, number of credit hours, etc.), application deadlines, and the recommended or required GRE score. I knew the GRE would be needed one way or the other, so I gave myself a few months to study, and got a fancy schmancy study guide.
- What’s my alternative, or what do I do if this will take longer than I’d like?
It sucks, but there’s always a chance things won’t turn out the way you want. This can be incredibly disappointing, so it’s a good idea to make a backup plan. If you’re having trouble getting fit on your own, for example, an alternative could be finding a trainer at your local gym. Alternatively, for fitness as well as many other goals in life, change doesn’t happen overnight. It can be beneficial to give yourself a generous timetable; if I’ve tried for _____ weeks/ months to achieve this goal with no results, then I will _____.
This was a big one for me in my grad school process. Thanks to therapy, I was able to chase down the more negative thoughts with a mental pitchfork and chase them out of town. But, it was by no means easy, and those thoughts often came back disguised as something slightly different. For the GRE anxiety, I had to remind myself that the test could be retaken after a certain number of weeks. For applying in general, I had to remind myself that there were other options besides my first choice. And, if all else failed, I could try again for a different field of study entirely.
This time… it’s personal.
I hope this has been helpful for someone out there. As with anything I talk about on this blog, I write these things from a place of experience. If I had a dollar for every time I found myself frustrated about school or work or my dad bod not being the way I wanted it to be, I could’ve bought an island by now. But all of my progress and accomplishments over the past few years have taken time, effort, and most importantly, a personal stake in the outcome. So, this is it. This is the third act twist. Your goal has just kidnapped the living being most dear and precious to you in the whole world. It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do that led up to this moment; what matters is going out there and showing that goal it made a big mistake by underestimating you.
The Antidepressant Dad 