Healthy for a Happy Life

It is that time of year again when we should probably pull out our New Year’s Resolutions and conduct a mid-year review. If you are like most of us, you may have fallen short of what you had hoped to accomplish by now.  While it is admirable that so many of us strive for self-improvement, it is also important that we are kind to ourselves and set realistic expectations.  Lofty goals may lead to inevitable moments when you feel like you are not living up to your own expectations.

We live in a world that reinforces this feeling. Though most people won’t admit it, in the back of their minds, they often equate material possessions with success.

It is a shame that many of us fall prey to materialistic thinking because we certainly know better. A study by Strayer University found that 90% of Americans believe happiness is a greater indicator of success than power, possessions, or prestige. Digging a little deeper, 67% defined success as “good relationships with friends and family,” and 60% said that success is achieved when you love what you do for a living. Only 20% believe that monetary wealth determines success.

Unfortunately, our heads don’t always follow our hearts. When it comes to defining success, our eyes often deceive us. Many of us feel like the most successful people are those with the nicest homes, the fanciest cars, and the most exotic vacation pics. Regardless of what you achieve, there’s always someone with more, and this may make one feel inadequate. The problem is not a lack of toys; it is the belief that toys indicate success. 

Real success is about who you are and how much determination and grit you exhibit in your life journey. For more information on the power of grit, see my review of this article on Sisu, the intensive grit invented by the Finns.  (Insert link here.) If you ever worry that you are not as successful as you think you should be, you may be evaluating yourself against the wrong criteria. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of all that we have accomplished in life.  The following success indicators may help you to more effectively evaluate your success factors. 

You’re no longer the center of the universe. We all know “successful” people who act like they’re the center of the universe. It’s their world and the rest of us just live in it…right? That’s not success. True success requires the ability to feel empathy—to realize that other people’s feelings and dreams are just as important as ours, and we cannot succeed without them.

You stay positive. Hope and optimism are essential components of a happy life. If you dwell on the things that go wrong, you become bitter and resentful. When that happens, you fail—no matter what you may have achieved. Real success means always seeing the bright side and believing you have the power to make even the worst situations better.

You know that failure isn’t forever. You’ve learned that the only people who never fail are those who don’t try. When you fail, you don’t automatically assume that you’re a failure. Instead, you embrace each failure as an opportunity to learn something—and then you move on. If you still struggle with this at times, know that you’ll never experience true success until you learn to embrace failure. Your mistakes pave the way for your success by revealing when you’re on the wrong path. The biggest breakthroughs typically come when you’re feeling the most frustrated and the most stuck. It’s this frustration that forces you to think differently, to look outside the box and see the solution you’ve been missing.

You keep things in perspective. Sometimes bad things happen. It’s part of life. For most of us, however, our very worst day would seem like a vacation to somebody who has real problems—like not having enough to eat, or trying to survive a civil war. Locking your keys in the car—or even getting passed over for a promotion—isn’t that bad once you learn to develop perspective. If you’ve mastered the ability to keep your problems in perspective, mark it down as a huge success.

You ask for help when you need it. Refusing to ask for help, no matter how much you’re struggling, is a sign of emotional immaturity. Asking for help means that you no longer feel like you have something to prove by being perfect. It shows you aren’t afraid of people discovering your weaknesses and you understand no one succeeds alone.

You realize that life isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s not a see-saw, either. Just because somebody else achieves a big success, that doesn’t mean you suffer a loss in equal proportion. You just didn’t win that particular time. One sure sign of success is the ability to celebrate others’ achievements with sincere enthusiasm.

You can tell the difference between drama and excitement. Remember the days when stable relationships were boring, and you quickly got tired of anyone who treated you as they should? If that kind of “drama” is a thing of the past, congratulations. If you prefer stability and depth to drama, you’re succeeding.

You no longer care what other people think. You only worry about what other people think when you still feel like you have something to prove. Conversely, you know you’ve “made it” when you don’t worry about that anymore—when you’re true to yourself and your principles, and satisfied with your life. You know you’ve made it when you understand that other people’s opinions are just that—opinions. They have no effect on reality. They don’t change who or what you are.

You accept what you can’t change and change what you can. There’s a difference between pessimism and practicality. If there’s a hurricane headed your way, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But once you accept that the hurricane is coming, you can start working to mitigate its effects. If your company downsizes and you get laid off, every moment you spend in denial just delays whatever is waiting over the horizon. You’re able to move on only when you start exploring your options and making plans to change what you can. Taking responsibility for changing the things you don’t like about your life is one of the biggest indicators of success.

Bringing It All Together

There’s no sense in feeling like a failure just because you think you should have a better job, a bigger house, or a nicer car. Real success comes from the inside, and it’s completely independent of circumstance.

*Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, TIME, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

 

An expert on grit and motivation, James Clear wrote a book about the Finnish version of grit -- one of the best predictors of success in the world.

On November 30, 1939, the Finnish began a campaign of fierce resistance against incredible odds that would soon stand as an enduring, global example of stoic determination, grit, bravery, resilience and hardiness.  Without warning, Soviet Union planes came roaring over the city of Helsinki as Finland was about to receive a violent thrust into World War II.

The Soviets dropped more than 350 bombs during the raid. Innocent civilians died. Entire buildings were turned to dust. And it was just the beginning. Three hours before the air strike, more than 450,000 Soviet soldiers began marching across the Finnish border. The Soviet soldiers outnumbered the Finnish army almost 3-to-1. That was not the worst of it. The Soviets also commanded more than 6,000 armored tanks and almost 4,000 aircraft. Finland, meanwhile, had just 32 tanks and 114 aircraft.

It was the beginning of what became known as the Winter War. For the Finns, there was no question whether some of them would die. The question was whether any of them would survive.
The Winter War

The winter was brutal that year. In January, temperatures dropped to 40 degrees below zero. Furthermore, at that time of the year and with Finland being located so far north, the soldiers were surrounded by darkness for almost 18 hours per day. Vastly outnumbered, fighting in a brutally cold darkness, and facing near certain death, the Finnish soldiers relied on a concept that has been part of Finnish culture for hundreds of years: Sisu.

Sisu is a word that has no direct translation, but it refers to the idea of continuing to act even in the face of repeated failures and extreme odds. It is a way of living life by displaying perseverance even when you have reached the end of your mental and physical capacities. During the Winter War, the extreme mental toughness of Sisu was all the Finnish soldiers could rely on.

The Finns would suffer more than 70,000 casualties during the Winter War. However, that number would pale in comparison to the 323,000 Soviet casualties inflicted by the Finns during the same time. By the end of winter, the Soviets had seen enough and the Moscow Peace Treaty was signed in March 1940. In all, the Soviets attacked with over 900,000 soldiers during the Winter War and 300,000 Finns managed to fight them to a standstill.

Sisu

Emilia Lahti, a PhD candidate at Aalto University in Helsinki and former student of Angela Duckworth at University of Pennsylvania, studies the concept of Sisu and how it applies to our lives. According to Lahti, “Sisu is the concept of taking action in the face of significant adversity or challenge. It is not so much about achievement as it is about facing your challenges with valor and determination.” She goes on to say, “Sisu provides the final empowering push, when we would otherwise hesitate to act.”

In many ways, Sisu is similar to grit, which has been shown to be one of the best predictors of success in the real world. For example, Angela Duckworth’s research on grit has shown that…

• West Point cadets who scored highest on the Grit Test were 60% more likely to succeed than their peers.
• Ivy League undergraduate students who had more grit also had higher GPAs than their peers — even though they had lower SAT scores and were not deemed as “smart.”
• When comparing two people who are the same age but have different levels of education, grit, not intelligence, more accurately predicts which one will be better educated.
• Competitors in the National Spelling Bee outperform their peers not because of IQ, but because of their grit and commitment to more consistent practice.

But Sisu runs even deeper than grit. It is a type of mental toughness that allows you to bear the burden of your responsibilities, whatever they happen to be, with a will and perseverance that is unbreakable. It is the ability to sustain your action and fight against extreme odds. Sisu extends beyond perseverance. It is what you rely on when you feel like you have nothing left.

Failure is an Event, Not an Identity

Joshua Waitzkin, a martial arts competitor and champion chess player, says, “At a high level of competition, success often hinges on who determines the field and tone of battle.” It is your mental toughness—your Sisu—that determines the tone of battle.

Many people let their battles define them. They see failure as an indication of who they are. Mentally tough people let their perseverance define them. They see failure as an event. Failure is something that happens to a person, not who a person is. This is the attitude that helped carry the Finnish soldiers through the Winter War. Even when surrounded by failure, by death, and by insurmountable odds, their Sisu did not let the soldiers see themselves as failures.

This same attitude helped carry Dwayne Johnson out of a life of poverty and despair into the Hollywood limelight, where he has recently been deemed the highest paid actor and the Sexiest Man Alive.  Dwayne Johnson credits his grit on the gridiron as his life’s definition and serves as the basis for the cover story in a recent edition of Sports Illustrated.  Johnson and his family lived a tumultuous life, existing on the fringes, dogged by eviction notices, constantly on the move, and plagued by violence.  The teenaged Dwayne had an acute affliction with authority, raking up frequent trips to the principal’s office and brushes with law enforcement.  He had just moved to his fourth high school in three years when he had an experience that would frame his future and help him develop the grit that would eventually make him one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.  In his second week at Freedom high in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Dwayne decided he did not like the smell of the boys’ bathroom and nonchalantly strolled through the teachers’ lounge to the attached restroom.  He was at the urinal when a stout, barrel-chested man informed him that he was in the wrong place.  Johnson ignored the teacher, lackadaisically washing his hands while the man impatiently pounded on the wall and yelled, “You need to get the f--- out of here!” 

Something about the confrontation affected Dwayne and caused him to track down the teacher, Jody Cwik.  I went to his office and “apologized for being such a punk,” Johnson said.  “I didn’t want to be that kid.  He shook my hand and woundn’t let go.  Crushing handshake.  And he looked in my eyes and said, ‘Son, I want you to come out and play football for me.’ That was the day everything changed.”  Football gave Dwayne the structure and discipline his life lacked and provided the positive role model that Dwayne needed. Johnson fell in love with the game and, he says, “It gave my life purpose.”  Coach Cwik mentored Johnson and encouraged him to pursue a football scholarship, the ticket that would later enable Johnson to be the first member of his family to go to college. 

Dwayne received dozens of offers, including Clemson, Florida State, Penn State, and UCLA, and eventually decided to go to Miami.  In quick order, he made such a great first impression that he was about to be the only true freshman on the Hurricanes’ roster.  Then, on one of the last practice sessions before the start of the regular season, Johnson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury that necessitated the first of several other surgeries that would hamper his college career.  The coach replaced Johnson with Warren Sapp, and Dwayne spent the rest of his college career in Sapp’s shadow.  After graduation and unable to garner interest from any NFL team, Johnson signed with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League.  In less than two months, he was cut.  Johnson moved home with his parents with a heavy heart and just seven dollars in his pocket. 

 Within a year, Johnson rebounded and joined the World Wrestling Federation.  In less than five years, Johnson was well onto his way of becoming a Hollywood phenomenon.  Today, Johnson is the highest paid actor in Hollywood, raking in $64.5 million in 2016.  When asked about his perseverance, Johnson invokes the actor Kurt Russell, who played second base for the Angels’ minor league team until a rotator cuff injury killed his athletic dreams.  “So much of his drive comes from failing as a baseball player,” Johnson says of his mentor.  “We’ve had great philosophical conversations about how you make sense of your failures.  And you know what the simple answer is?  I was in the wrong game. And now I’m in the right one.” 

We all experience failure, but by employing a sense of Sisi, we can better understand that failure is an event, not an identity.

Pausing to make a plan for coping with stress can help you feel more calm, balanced, and effective. You usually cannot plan for a stressful event, but you can plan for how to deal with it.  To get you started, here are 10 coping strategies to triumph over stress—in the heat of the moment and beyond:

1. Pause – Unless it is a life-threatening emergency, don’t react immediately to stress. Instead, take a few moments and some deep breaths to let things settle and allow you to form a more objective point of view.
2. Be in the moment – Experts say the ability to live in the moment -- and reacting to the situation based strictly on what is present -- is among the most important factors in handling a crisis of any type. "Being in the moment does not mean being unaware of the consequences of any actions you take; it means you do not have a prejudgment about those consequences," says disaster expert Anie Kalayjian. This, she says, keeps you from panicking over what could happen, and keeps a person focused on what is happening.  Likewise, Al Siebert, PhD, says the best survivors are the ones who are able to "read" the new reality rapidly, focus on problem solving, and take practical action -- all within the moment.
3. Be flexible -- "There's a fair amount of flexibility needed -- the personality who can adapt quickly to changes and feel certain about their ability to do so is usually the type that handles a crisis well," says Siebert, author of The Resiliency Advantage and founding director of ResiliencyCenter.com.
4. Remain calm -- Ladany says the ability to keep emotions under control is also key. "You can't be plagued with ruminative anxiety. You can't agonize about the consequences of a decision. Those who function best in a crisis are those who can be comfortable with ambiguity in a heightened sense," says Ladany.
5. Have a solid value system – Experts say that the more emphasis we put on material goods, the less likely we are to cope when the threat of losing those goods becomes a reality. "If the meaning of your life is wrapped around material things, then you will be shattered at the thought of losing everything, which can happen in 10 seconds when disaster strikes," says Kalayjian.
6. Learn to cope – If you think that some people are born with survivor qualities, think again. Experts agree that the ability to champion a crisis is a learned behavior and not the result of your genetics. In fact, the crisis behaviors we exhibit as an adult are often entrenched in what we learn as children, often causing us to react without even thinking.  "If a child is in a car accident and the entire family becomes hysterical, then the child learns that this is how you react to crisis," says Kalayjian. "At a young age, we don't have a psychological sorting process to reason out that our parents are going overboard."  Experience this kind of family reaction to crisis enough times, she says, and it will cause this reactive behavior to be hardwired into your brain.  "As a child you have no experience, no comparison, no judgment -- so you just think, 'Oh, this is what I am supposed to do in crisis,' and that can lay down the groundwork for how you will react as an adult," says Kalayjian.
7. Embrace experience -- How well you weathered the storm of a previous crisis in your life is also important. "My 40-some years of research into the nature of life's most resilient survivors shows that experience in coping with and surviving previous emergencies and tragedies is the best preparation for handling new ones," says Siebert.  In fact, nothing prepares one for a crisis like a crisis -- even if the incidents are radically different.  "The very act of surviving one crisis helps us survive another," he says.  Maurice Ramirez, DO, relates the concept back to a phenomenon known as "plasticity" -- a desensitizing of sorts that occurs as we are exposed to adversity.  "If you become desensitized to one type of crisis, you will function better in all crisis situations, even if the crisis is different and requires different things from you. Science shows it carries over from one area of life to another," says Ramirez, founding director of the American College of Disaster Medicine and founder of High-Alert.com.  Conversely, Siebert says, if you're the classic 'drama queen' with a history of emotional outbursts, this will also impact your crisis reaction.  "If you are someone who 'awfulizes' things, focuses intently on losses ... If you have a tendency to act like a victim, these are the kind of characteristics that can keep you from coping with a crisis, and often cause you to make things worse for yourself and for others," says Seibert.
8. Prepare for future crises -- Any type of disaster training program will help train you for any kind of disaster. "There are deliberate education programs -- disaster life training courses -- that can provide the kind of repetitive, psycho-motor activity that helps enforce good response behaviors. Knowledge is power and practice is what sets it in concrete," says Ramirez. "Even doing something as simple as taking a first aid course or learning CPR can teach you how it feels to intervene in a crisis situation and give you some extra measure of confidence going into a real crisis -- even if it has nothing to do with CPR," Ladany says.
9. Prepare yourself emotionally – Accepting the fact that “@#$%” happens and accepting the idea that things are going to happen that are out of your control will help prepare yourself emotionally for the unavoidable crises of life. "If you can accept the fact that nothing except your breath is under your control, you'll be far less likely to panic during any situation in which control must be surrendered," says Kalayjian.
10. Build resiliency -- The following long-term strategies can help strengthen your resilience to stressful events. Being physically fit, spending time with people you enjoy, and community involvement are healthy ways to reduce stress, distance yourself from stressful situations, and help you see life from a fresh perspective.