One of the best gifts you can give to yourself is surrounding yourself with loving and kind people.
This is advice that I have always followed and when I set up my first business in 2008 my vision was to work on ‘lovely projects with lovely people’. The people we spend our time with, whether at work or for fun, can have a huge impact on our lives.
I was reminded of that vision again recently when listening to the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs programme with my favourite Psychologist, and the Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman who was interviewed back in 2013. One of the pieces of wisdom he dispensed was that an “under utilised resource is friends” and that we should “spend a lot of time with friends”.
The idea behind Desert Island Discs is that the interviewee shares the soundtrack of their lives. I was delighted when amongst his collection was Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles (it’s always a treat to hear your own name in a song) and American Pie by Don McLean as it contains my favourite line in a song “pink carnation and a pick-up truck”.
Among his many publications and books Daniel Kahneman distinguishes between emotional happiness (how you feel about your life while you are living it) and life satisfaction (how you feel about your life while you are thinking about it).
Life satisfaction
Step 1 of our Making Change Happen online programme shows you one way that you can use to think about your current life satisfaction.
Draw a circle and then place each of the aspects of your life that are important to you around the circle. You can have as many or as few segments as you like, although we recommend about 4-8. Imagine that the centre of the circle is zero satisfaction and the outer edge as completely satisfied. Draw a line where you currently feel your life is at in that area. Work through each in turn and don’t overthink it but go with your gut instinct response.
Now look at the gaps between how satisfied you are with each aspect of your current situation (the lines you drew) and where you want to be (the outside of the circle).
Think about why you want it to be different and why it is important for you to change your situation for each aspect. Think and imagine what’s the worst that could happen if things remained how they are now? What will you lose if a year from now, two years, five years, ten years from now if things get worse? How painful would that be and how would that make you feel?
Understanding the why builds clarity and the purpose gives meaning to your actions.
Support
Before you take any action to change your life satisfaction in any of these areas identify who could support you? As Daniel Kahneman suggests - who are your under utilised resource of friends?
Think about
• Who can help you commit what you are trying to change?
• Who might you need help from?
• Who is around to support you?
• Are they family, friends, work colleagues or someone else?
We have put together a short video that goes into more detail about the life satisfaction circle (Step 1 Clarify). You can watch it for free by clicking the link below and then scroll down to the bottom of our homepage.
Best wishes
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Behaviour Works aim is simple. To help make change happen in your personal, family or working life. Every week we help people across the world with their own change journey with our ‘Making Change Happen’ online training. Check us out at Behaviour Works.
Sunset cycling Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash
Friends Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash
