Monthly Archives: August 2014

We all tend to think about the future in an over-simplified way, both in terms of our own responses and the situation itself, whether we’re anticipating dealing with bosses, spouses, friends, acquaintances, or strangers. We don’t take into account that we might feel ambivalent in the moment, or that the situation might end up being less straightforward than we anticipated.

When you think about how you’ll feel once you’ve quit that relationship, paint a picture that includes feelings of sadness and regret, not just the joys of liberation and starting over. Ditto on that job you’re so sick of; you’ll probably feel some relief but it’s likely to be mixed in with anxiety about where you’re going next and how you’re going to get there. The bottom line is to do what you can to imagine the future in a nuanced, in-depth way; just thinking positively or being overly optimistic will actually leave you unprepared for how difficult the transition is likely to be.

2.  How conservative am I?

This question isn’t about politics but whether or not you focus on what you’ve already invested in whatever it is—your work, a relationship, an endeavor, a long-term goal—you’re thinking about quitting. Even though we all like to think of ourselves as creative risk-takers, the truth is that, as the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Twersky showed, human beings are universally loss-averse and far more motivated to avoid a loss than they are enticed by the possibility of gain. If you tend to think in terms of what you’ve sunk into the situation (that’s why it’s called the  “sunk-cost fallacy”), the likelihood is that you’re going to have a lot of trouble leaving it and, if you do manage to get your foot out the door, you’ve going to be stewing about what you’ve lost. Know this about yourself to begin with, and work on reframing your thoughts to focus on the possibilities inherent in the future you haven’t yet encountered.

3.  How do I define myself?

Studies show that the more central whatever it is that you’re planning to leave is to your sense of self, the greater the recovery time and uncertainty once you do quit. According to the work of psychologist Patricia Linville, the people who handle stress best and do better in times of transition are those who have more complex definitions of self; they are more buffered from negative emotional fallout when they have to quit something or are fired because they have other positive and continuing definitions of self which sustain them during times of stress.

Getting a bead on how you define yourself needs to be done first so that you can better anticipate the sense of upheaval you may experience. This profound sense of dislocation can happen even when you’ve chosen to switch paths, as the late William Bridges, author of the book Transitions, discovered after he willingly gave up his career as a college professor and could no longer answer the question “What do you do?” directly. It doesn’t matter whether the definition you’re relinquishing is professor or sales manager, stock trader or lawyer, Dan’s wife or Susan’s husband; what matters is how central it is to your sense of self. The closer what you’re leaving is to your core, the greater your sense of free fall will be.

4. How do I manage uncertainty?

Whether you are motivated by approach or avoidance is going to determine how sanguine you’re going to feel and how well you’re going to do when you’ve quit or have been fired from one thing and there’s no plan B in sight. It could equally be in the area of work or relationship.

You need to take an honest inventory of your motivations. If the arc of your career or love life has been distinguished by avoiding failure—choosing the most reliable path, or the least challenging, or the one that involves the least amount of risk—starting over is going to be harder for you than it will for someone who is comfortable with making mistakes. The work of Andrew J. Elliott and Todd M. Thrash suggests that “approach” and “avoidance” are key aspects of personality. Avoiding failure will, for example, keep you persisting at a task that is doomed to failure, as one study by Heather C. Lench and Linda J. Levin showed. After testing people for approach and avoidance motivation, the researchers gave the participants three sets of seven anagrams to solve in a timed test; the first set was unsolvable. People motivated by approach quit working on the set when they realized persistence wouldn’t pay off; those motivated to avoid failure kept going, and got both stuck and more agitated.

Try to assess yourself honestly; you’re not helping yourself by overstatement or fudging. What motivates you: Fear of failure or the possibility of success? When you hit a snag or obstacle, how flexible are you? Can you change directions or is your default always to stay the course? Take some time and look back over your past experiences and analyze what motivated you and when; you will learn a lot about yourself and how skilled you will be during a transition.

5. How do I manage stress?

The playing field isn’t level, alas, and some of us are better at coping with stress and pressure than others. Make no bones about it: Leaving one thing you know and directing your energies to the unknown future are very stressful. Psychologists have determined that there are two kinds of coping styles, one called “action-oriented” and the other “state-oriented.” These traits may explain why two people with similar goals, talents, and abilities may experience very different outcomes—with one flailing and the other successfully navigating his or her way through the inevitable twists and turns of life. If life were a simple upward trajectory, human beings wouldn’t need to be able to manage their thoughts and feelings.

Action-oriented people manage their emotions effectively, don’t get easily sidetracked, don’t rely on external cues for motivation, and are able to act decisively. If things start to so south, the action-oriented put thoughts of failure out of their minds and focus on what they can do to get their goals met and the obstacles overcome. The state-oriented need structure and deadlines to get going, are sensitive to and need external cues, tend to procrastinate, and have trouble managing negative thoughts. When things go wrong, they tend to get swept up in rumination and second-guessing.

There are ways of improving how you manage your thoughts and emotions but knowing whether you fall into one category or the other will help you prepare for the inevitable stress and strains of transition. Keep in mind that all of life is just a series of transitions. And that, as Lao Tzu put it, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Copyright © 2014  Peg Streep

I can guarantee that if we focus on what we don’t have, we’re going to be unhappy, and we’re going to suffer. Our unhappiness can stem from anything that we’re focusing on. Maybe we think we’ll be happy when we lose those extra 50 pounds. Maybe happiness will come when we reach a certain financial level. Maybe when we get that promotion. Maybe we’ll finally be happy when we meet our soul mate and begin a new life together. Or maybe, when we have a child, then we’ll finally be happy. The list can become endless because the moment we fulfill one of our desires, a new one takes its place, and we just continue to suffer. We may want to be healthy, we may want to get a better grade at school, we may want our first car—the list can be endless.

In many ways, our lives are like that of the mythological king Sisyphus, sentenced to the eternal punishment of rolling a large boulder up a hill. But every time he reached the top, the boulder would roll back down, and he would have to start all over again; it never ended. I think sometimes our minds are like that—they just don’t stop. No matter what we desire or wish for, at any age, something else will come along and we’ll say, “Now I want that.” It’s almost shocking if you think about it, and it can continue throughout our lives.

Young children, for example, can’t wait to get presents on their birthday or Christmas morning. But often, and shockingly fast, they tire of their new toys and move on to something else. Does this really ever change? As we get older, our new toys become bigger and grander—a car, a home, a spouse—and yet we can still tire of them and move on. We want something different, something more.

We’re unhappy with what we have, and we’re always yearning after something different.

How do we get off this continuous and debilitating treadmill? Is there any freedom from our Sisyphean task? Yes—and it’s actually shockingly simple. All we have to do is be happy with what we have.

Again: All we have to do is be happy and be focused on what we have right here, right now.

But how do we do this in our daily life, when our minds so quickly tend to want to focus again on what we don’t have? A lot of it has to do with realizing that this type of thinking is not going to help us. We have to really believe that focusing on what we don’t have is going to cause us suffering. We have to believe that focusing on what we do have right now, what we’re blessed with, is going to put a smile on our face. In many ways, this is as powerful as E=MC², and just as beautiful and simple. All we have to do is focus on what we have and not focus on what we don’t have. We have to be happy with what we have and not think about what we don’t have.

It’s that simple, that elegant, and that beautiful.

We have to realize that this changed philosophy isn’t going to make the marketers and advertisers of the world very happy. They spend billions of dollars trying to get us to be unhappy with how things are now, so that we’ll want something different, so that we’ll feel “less than.” Otherwise, we’re not going to spend money to buy what they’re selling. I don’t want to blame it only on the marketers, though. We’re just as guilty because we do the same thing to ourselves: We think about what other people have—success, possessions, love, whatever it may be. And because we’re thinking about what they have and what we don’t, we become unhappy. What if, instead, we focused on all the beautiful things that we have in our lives? Some of us may have less than others, but we can all still have a beautiful life.

If you don’t know this about me already, I really love to spend time at monasteries. When you choose to live a monastic life, you give up just about everything. Yet the people who live these simple lives are often the happiest people I have ever met in my entire life. They can have virtually nothing, as we know it, and still focus on what they do have. They may not have material possessions, but they have a love of life, right here, right now—and they’re very happy.

Why can’t we do the same? Why can’t we focus on what we do have? Maybe we have a beautiful family, even though we might not have the nicest house in the neighborhood. Maybe we don’t feel very well physically sometimes, but we are free and able to go for walks in natureand can enjoy being outside. Maybe we haven’t yet found the love of our life, but we have friends who care about us whom we get to spend time with. The list of things we do have can go on for a long time if we start focusing on them and celebrating them it. Again, it doesn’t have to be much: Just going for a walk in the early morning, when everything is peaceful and still, can bring us happiness beyond our wildest imagination. Just connecting with friends can be more valuable than staying at the world’s grandest hotel. The list of what we do have and what we can focus on can go on and on. By realizing what we have instead of focusing on what we don’t, we discover one of the key secrets of happiness.

Once we do this, then we can live a beautiful, happy, fulfilled life.