The Path to Purpose

You can improve the quality of your daily life by learning to focus your attention and choosing to filter your experiences through a lens of positivity. But while it might be simple to find happiness in a single day, it can be much more difficult to link a series of days into a meaningful whole. Still, just as we must be active agents in creating our own happiness, we must also take an active role to create meaning in our lives.

“Creating meaning involves bringing order to the contents of the mind by integrating one’s actions into a unified flow experience,” writes Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. To give meaning to life, to achieve this “unified flow experience”, you need a purpose — an overall goal around which your lesser goals are clustered.

The path to purpose is different for each of us. Exercises like those I’ve shared over the past month — the big rocks, the three questions, and the lifeline — can help you identify your personal purpose, but often this process requires many years of experience and soul-searching. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t found your purpose.

And be aware that it takes more than cultivating purpose to make meaning out of life. To make meaning, you must also forge resolve. You must take your goals seriously. If you’re not willing to accept the consequences of the goals you set, or to put in the effort required to achieve them, those goals become meaningless.

Curiously, it can often be easier to find meaning and purpose by limiting your options. The more choices we have, the more difficult it is to maintain our resolve. “Commitment to a goal and to the rules it entails is much easier when the choices are few and clear,” notes Csíkszentmihályi. “When we can imagine only few opportunities and few possibilities, it is relatively easy to achieve harmony. Desires are simple, choices are clear. There is little room for conflict and no need to compromise.”

Because life is complex (and becoming more so every day), it’s vital to keep your psychic energy focused on the things that matter most. Exercising personal restraint and preferring simplicity can help you stay glued to your purpose, on your goals both big and small. Restraint and simplicity reduce the possibility of distraction.

But restraint and simplicity aren’t enough. When life gets busy and you feel overwhelmed, you must do more than just simplify your environment. At these times, action and intensity become your allies. “Harmony is restored to conscious indirectly — not by facing up to contradictions and trying to resolve conflicting goals and desires, but by pursuing chosen goals with such intensity that all competition is preempted,” writes Csíkszentmihályi. “Action helps create inner order.”

Action cures fear; apparently, it also imparts purpose.

The final piece to the making of meaning is self-knowledge, the process by which you sort through conflicting choices. Based on your personal history, preferences, and passions, you must filter the available options to select the goals that truly reflect who you are and what you mean to the world.

Example: At any given moment, I have many options available to me. Do I want to write another book? Do I want to speak at a conference in India? Do I want to continue to write about money? Do I want to study Spanish? Do I want to travel more? Less? And so on. Most of these options are good (by which I mean they’re positive, both for me and for the world). Who I am and what my life means is a product of the opportunities I choose to pursue.

Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to discover our life’s purpose though a combination of simplification, action, and self-reflection, be being true to who we are and what we believe, and be setting goals we find worthy of pursuing for their own sake. Short-term goals provide pleasure and enjoyment. By stringing a series of short-term goals together, life takes on form and structure. We make meaning and purpose.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Twilight of the Idols, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Later in the year, our discussion of Financial Independence will explore this notion in depth.

Before we can talk about financial freedom, however, we have more philosophy to cover. Over the next few months, the next portion of our journey will travel the trail of personal freedom. We’ll learn more about creating a life you love so that you die without regrets, so that you don’t reach your final day on earth feeling like something is missing.

Your Lifeline: A Quick Exercise for Looking at the Past and Projecting the Future

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve asked you to do some exercises to get at the heart of what brings meaning to your life. First, I asked you to find your big rocks in order to prioritize your time and life. Next, I had you answer George Kinder’s three questions to help figure out what you really want from life. Today, I’m going to share a third and final exercise (which I picked from Jim Collins last year in Ecuador).

Before we continue, please grab a piece of paper and a pencil. Ready? Great! Here’s how this works.

Step one. With the paper in “landscape mode” (wider than it is tall), place one dot on the center of the left side. Place a second dot on the center of the right side. Draw a line to connect the two dots. Your page should look something like this:

Place two dots on your paper and then draw a line to connect the dots.

Step two. For the next step, you’ll need to do some guesswork. Based on what you know of your health and your family history, estimate how long you’ll live. I know there’s no way to be sure — you could be hit by a truck tomorrow, or maybe next week scientists will find the secret to living 1000 years! — but do what you can to best guess the date of your death. (If you need help, try one of the many on-line longevity calculators, such as the one at livingto100.com.) Once you’ve calculated your projected date of death, write it below the right-most dot.

Example: As my long-time readers know, the men in my family don’t live long. In fact, they often die on or around their fiftieth birthdays. Also, for strange reasons known only to the universe (or god), many of my family die on or around Independence Day. Thus, I often say that I expect to die on 04 July 2019, when I’m fifty. This may sound morbid, but I like to think of it as hedging my bets. I hope to live longer, but I’m fully prepared to have a short life.

Note your projected date of death at the right side of the line.

Step three. Below the left-most date, note your date of birth. On your paper, you’ve created a visual representation of your lifeline.

Note your birth date at the left side of the line.

Step four. The next step requires a bit of math. You’re going to add a third point to your lifeline, a point that represents today. “Today” will fall on a different point on the line for each person. To find the proper place for you, divide your current age by your expected lifespan. For instance, I’m 45 and expect to live until I’m 50. For me, the point representing today is located about 10% from the right side of the line. If you’re 20 and expect to live until you’re 80, your “today” point would be about one-quarter of the way in from the left. And so on.

Place “today” at the appropriate place on your lifeline

Step five. Finally, choose a handful of major events from your life and place them on the lifeline in (approximately) the appropriate location. You might choose to list your first day of school, your wedding date, or the birthdates of your children. Add three to five major events to your lifeline.

Example: On my lifeline, I’ve included these key events: Writing “The Meanest Inchworm” in third grade, which was the first clue that I’d one day become a writer. Getting married. Writing my first blog. Selling Get Rich Slowly.

Populate your lifeline with important events from your past.

Your lifeline is now complete. On the piece of paper before you, you have a representation of your life, both past and future. But before we’re finished, there’s one final step I’d like you to take. Using an eraser, a marker, or another piece of paper, mask everything on your lifeline that comes before today. Blot it out. Hide it. Make it go away.

Now cover up everything on your lifeline that occurred before today.

All of the time before today is past and does not matter. What matters is the future: today and everything after.

For folks like me, our projected futures contain just a small amount of time. Knowing that, I cannot wait to do the things that I want to do. If your projected future is short, you shouldn’t wait either. Don’t dwell on the past. You can’t change it. Focus instead on making the best quality tomorrow you possibly can.

On the other hand, if your projected future is long (say you’re 20 and expect to live another 60 or 80 years), cultivate patience. Take time. Make smart choices. Do what you can to set yourself up for future success. And don’t get down on yourself just because you’ve made a few mistakes in the past. The past is the past. Look how much tomorrow lies before you!

How to Figure Out What You Want from Life

In order to get things done, to be productive, to achieve greater meaning and happiness in your life, you need to make sure you’re spending more time on the big rocks and less time on the “sand” of everyday life (such as errands and email). But how can you determine which things are most important?

George Kinder is a Certified Financial Planner who divides his time between Massachusetts and Hawaii. Unlike many CFPs, Kinder isn’t just about the nuts and bolts of money. He moves beyond the numbers in an attempt to address the goals and values of his clients. “Without life planning,” he says, “financial planning is like using a blunt instrument on the organism we call the human being.”

Near the beginning of his work with each client, Kinder challenges her to answer three questions. These questions are designed to lead the client deeper and deeper into her desires until they reveal her goals and values, the things that bring her meaning and purpose. Kinder shared these questions in his book, The Seven Stages of Money Maturity.

Imagine you’re financially secure. You have enough money to take care of your needs, both now and in the future. How would you live your life? Would you change anything? Let yourself go and describe your dreams. What would you do if money were no object?

Now imagine that you visit your doctor. She reveals you only have five to ten years left to live. You’ll never feel sick, but you’ll have no notice of the moment of your death. What will you do in the time you have remaining? Will you change your life? How will you change it? (Note that this question does not assume unlimited wealth.)

Finally, imagine your doctor shocks you with the news that you only have 24 hours to live. Nothing can be done. At this time tomorrow, you’ll be dead. What feelings arise as you confront your mortality? What did you miss? Who did you not get to be? What did you not get to do?

Answering the first question is easy (and fun). There are many things we’d do if money were no object. But as the questions progress, there’s a sort of funnel. They become more difficult to answer, and there are fewer possible responses. Life planning is all about answering that final question.

Note: For years, I’ve assumed these questions were original to Kinder. Recently, however, I discovered that in 1973 time-management guru Alan Lakein proposed a similar set of questions in his book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life. As part of his “Lifetime Goals Exercise”, Lakein asks readers: (1) What are your lifetime goals? (2) How would you like to spend the next three years? (3)If you knew now that you’d be struck by lightning six months from today, how would you live until then?

The Big Rocks: How to Prioritize Your Life and Time

You lead a busy life. There never seems to be enough time to do the things you really want to do, the things that make you happy. You’re too preoccupied with work, errands, and other demands placed upon you by the outside world.

In Work Less, Live More, Bob Clyatt argues that you can make time for the important stuff. The secret, he says, is to prioritize, and he offers an analogy. (I’ve learned recently that this idea may have originated with Stephen R. Covey in his book First Things First.) Here’s how it works:

Imagine you have a jar. You want to fill this jar with some rocks and some sand. What’s the best way to do it?

One way is to add the sand to the jar first and then add the rocks. If you did this, however, you’d quickly find that it’s impossible to make everything fit. With a layer of sand at the bottom of the jar, there’s no room for the rocks.

On the other hand, if you begin by putting the rocks in the jar, when you pour in the sand it will sift downward to fill in the gaps and the cracks between the rocks. Everything fits.

Here’s a video that demonstrates this idea in action:

This same principle applies to your personal life. You can achieve well-being by prioritizing the Big Rocks in your life. This may sound elementary, and you may be tempted to ignore this advice. Don’t. This one idea revolutionized my life. It made me happier and more productive. By focusing solely on the things that were most important to me — by making room for the Big Rocks — I was able to reclaim my life and time.

A few years ago, after first reading about this idea, I sat down and drafted a list of the things that were most important to me. I decided that my Big Rocks were fitness, friends, writing, Spanish, and travel. If these weren’t in my jar, I wasn’t happy. So, I made sure to squeeze these in before anything else. Once these rocks were in place, once these things were on my calendar, then I’d fill the remaining space with the sand — television, email, errands, and so on.

During the past year, I allowed the sand to squeeze out some of my big rocks. For instance, I stopped exercising. I used to say that “fitness is job one”. I grew complacent, though, and fell out of the habit of going to the gym. Fitness was no longer a job at all! Instead, I put more sand in my jar.

Last week, I sat down to re-examine my schedule and my priorities. I realized I wasn’t spending any time on Spanish or exercise. I immediately made changes. I returned to my Crossfit gym (which has been humbling) and I set aside time to study Spanish.

How can discover your Big Rocks? To construct your ideal schedule, you have to become clear on what your priorities are. We’ll explore a couple of ways to do that in the weeks ahead.

John Steinbeck on Good, Evil, and the Power of Choice

I’ve recently returned to the world of reading after many years away. For one of my first books back, I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and I loved it. It’s very much a “J.D. book”.

East of Eden tells the storis of three generations of one family, and of the people in their lives. (Most of the book takes place in California’s Salinas Valley.) Steinbeck paints one of the characters as pure evil and one as pure good, but most are flawed masterpieces. Then he sets the wheels of the plot in motion to demonstrate his worldview, and to argue that the power of choice is the greatest gift that humankind possesses.

Steinbeck doesn’t seem to find pure evil or pure good particularly interesting. Both states are hollow, one dimensional. People like this lack something that’s essentially human. He’s much more fascinated by the typical person, the one who possesses elements of both good and bad. If you’re all good or all bad, you don’t really have a choice about what you do. You’re simply controlled by your character and moral compass (or lack thereof). But when you have a bit of both, who you are and what you do is determined by the things you choose to do.

The core idea in East of Eden is centered around the meaning of a single word from the Biblical story of Cain and Abel: timshel. Different translations of the Bible translate the word in different ways:

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel — ‘Thou mayest’ — that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

For Steinbeck (and his characters), this ability to choose is a revelation. It’s what makes humans human.

“There are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.

Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?”

“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man.”

If you’ve been reading More Than Money this year, you know that I’ve written a lot about choice. And you can probably imagine how I feel about these passages. It’s exciting to read a novel with a plot specifically designed to showcase the consequences of choice. It’s nice to see an author create flawed characters who make bad choices but whom we can nonetheless call “good people”. We can forgive them, just as the characters forgive each other. People make mistakes. It’s how they react to those mistakes that defines who they are to become.

East of Eden contains lots of other great bits. For one, Steinbeck himself appears as a minor character (he’s just a boy when the events of the story take place). Plus there are dozens of throwaway gems scattered in the pages. Gems like these:

“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” Steinbeck wrote this in reference to how the Salinas Valley felt about its paltry river. But I think this applies to education, experience, and more. At the time I read it, I thought of how the more a person travels, the more they see that their own country isn’t particularly unique or special.

“The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path or a breath caught at sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.”

The first section in Chapter 13 is a wonderful meditation on “man and glory”. It also compares the pros and cons of collaboration and individualism. It’s good stuff. And the first part of chapter 24 has some great thoughts on aging, dying, and memories.

“There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”

“In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip be being in a rush.”

“A miracle once it is familiar is no longer a miracle.” This is in reference to an electric coffeepot, but could apply to any sort of technology.

There’s lots of other good stuff in East of Eden. Perhaps the most important passage for me was this bit about storytelling:

People are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule — a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting — only the deeply personal and familiar.

This made me think of my own writing at Get Rich Slowly. When I started in 2006, I was writing about getting out of debt, about being lost and searching for a path out of the darkness. Many people could relate to my story. But the more money I had, the less relatable my experience became. People could not see themselves in me, and readers drifted away. I knew this at the time, but could never put it into words. East of Eden eloquently states the idea.

Later in the book, Steinbeck has more to say about the importance of story — specifically about the stories that make up our lives. Here’s a conversation between two of his characters:

“When we were children we lived in a story that we made up. But when I grew up the story wasn’t enough. I had to have something else, because the story wasn’t true anymore.”

“Well –”

“Wait — let me get it all out. Aron didn’t grow up. Maybe he never will. He wanted the story and he wanted it to come out his way. He couldn’t stand to have it come out any other way.”

“How about you?”

“I don’t want to know how it comes out. I only want to be there while it’s going on.”

What a lovely passage.

I think Steinbeck highlights an important divide between people. Some have written a story and they want to see it come to pass. Others are active participants, but they’re not committed to a specific ending. And still others experience the story of their lives passively. No one way is “right” — although I’d argue that passive participants allow their stories to be written by other people — but those who attempt to control the direction their life takes often end up frustrated. (They’re trying to move beyond their Circle of Influence to their Circle of Concern.)

Note: Reading this section, I was reminded of the famous opening to Dickens’ David Copperfield: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” I believe we should all strive to be the heroes of our own stories, but we shouldn’t be so committed to an ending that we don’t allow the story to twist and turn in new and unexpected ways.

The key, of course, is to remember that each person is living a separate story. We’re ultimately each the protagonist in our tiny tale, but our stories intertwine to weave a greater tapestry. And in the grander scope of things, we must learn to give and take from each other.

Here’s another quote:

When you’re a child you’re the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They’re only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you’re you own shape and size. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It’s worse, but it’s much better too.

I’m gratified to have read East of Eden, and to have resumed the reading habit. I’ve already started Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley (about a months-long cross-country drive similar to the one I plan to do next year), but that’s just light reading. I’d love to find another book that’s filled with a strong story and interesting ideas. I’m thinking maybe Siddartha. Any suggestions for other books I ought to read?

The Search for Meaning

Note: This article was supposed to appear on Monday, but I forgot to hit “publish” when I finished it last week. My apologies!

Shifting from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control isn’t just important for happiness, but also for making meaning in your life, for obtaining personal (and financial freedom). Freedom comes from focusing no on your Circle of Concern, but exclusively on your Circle of Influence. As long as you allow yourself to dwell on the things you can’t control, you are not free.

We’ll discuss freedom at length in the months ahead; for now, let’s take a closer look at how you can create purpose in your life.

Victor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Nazi death camps during World War II. The extreme suffering and harsh conditions caused many inmates to lose their will, to choose death.

To be sure, prisoners often had no control over whether or not they died. But Frankl observed, “A man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him — mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.”

When treated like an animal, Frankl said, a person can choose to be an animal — or she can choose to be “brave, dignified, and unselfish”. According to Frankl, the way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails…add a deeper meaning to his life.”

In the classic Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl states his thesis thus:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Frankl’s experienced served as a crucible for his theory of personality development, which he called logotherapy. Before him, Alfred Adler had argued that people possessed a Nietzschean “will to power” (more here), and Sigmund Freud had argued that we’re all motivated by a “will to pleasure” (more here). Frankl, on the other hand, believed that humans are born with a “will to meaning”, a fundamental need to find meaning in life.

The three basic tenets of logotherapy are:

The search for meaning is the primary motivation in each of our lives. This meaning is unique and specific to each individual. (If you’ve read me for a while, you’ll recognize hints of this in my maxim: “Do what works for you.”)

Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones. What matters most isn’t the meaning of life in general, but the meaning of each person’s life in each moment.

Humans are self-determining. That is, we don’t just exist, but choose what our existence will be. We have freedom to find meaning in what we do and what we experience — or at least in how we respond to each situation.

Frankl’s argument that you’re always free to choose your attitude is echoed in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi‘s statement that “how we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experience”. It also echoes Johnstone’s Impro: “People with dull lives often think their lives are dull by chance. In reality everyone choose more or less the kind of events that happen to them.”

Accepting responsibility for your own fate and attitudes can be uncomfortable and intimidating. There’s a kind of solace when you can attribute your situation to the winds of fate, the will of god, or the workings of the universe.

But recognizing that you’re a free agent can also be liberating. When you take matters into your own hands, you shed your fears, create your own certainty, and discover that you’re freer than you ever imagined possible.

Three-Blog Meetup: J.D. Roth, Mr. Money Mustache, and Tyler Tervooren this Thursday

Just a quick note to say that if you live in Portland, you ought to make your way to Sellwood Park this Thursday evening. You’ll be glad you did!

Pete (better-known as Mr. Money Mustache) will be in town, and while he’s here, Tyler (from Riskology) and I have banded with him to host a three-blog meetup.

Here are complete details about the gathering.

And here’s a summary:

Join us from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. on Thursday, 29 May 2014.
We’ll meet at picnic sites B, C, and D in Sellwood Park.
We’ve rented the picnic spots and paid for the alcohol permit, but you’ll have to bring your own food and drinks.

If you need to pick up food, the park is just a few blocks from the local New Seasons, The Portland Bottle Shop, Jade Teahouse, and other Sellwood restaurants. There’s a small cart pod nearby too, although many have short hours.

This is a great way to spend a casual evening with a group of like-minded folks. There may be a dozen of us or there may be 200. Who can say? No matter how many show up, we’ll have fun. Won’t you join us?

Becoming Proactive

Julian B. Rotter developed the locus of control concept in 1954 as part of his social-learning theory of personality. Stephen R. Covey popularized the idea in 1989 with his best-selling The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Like Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Covey believes that we filter our experiences before they reach our consciousness. “Between stimulus and response,” he writes, “man has the freedom to choose.” Our self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and independent will give us the power to select how we’ll respond to each situation in life.

Covey says there are two types of people: proactive and reactive.

Proactive people recognize that they’re responsible for how they respond to outside stimuli. In Rotter’s terms, they have an internal locus of control. They don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their state. They believe their existence is largely a product of personal choice derived from personal values.
Reactive people believe their condition is a product of their physical and social environments. They have an external locus of control. Their moods are based on the moods of others, or upon the things that happen to them. They allow the outside world to control their internal existence.

To illustrate the difference between proactive and reactive people, Covey discusses how we focus our time and energy.

We each have a wide range of concerns: our health, our family, our jobs, our friends; world affairs, the plight of the poor, the threat of terrorism, the state of the environment. All of these fall into what Covey calls our Circle of Concern.

Within our Circle of Concern, there’s a subset of things over which we have actual, direct control: how much we exercise, what time we go to bed, whether we get to work on time; what we eat, where we live, with whom we socialize. These things fall into what Covey calls our Circle of Influence, which sits inside our Circle of Concern.

Graphic by James Clear after Mr. Money Mustache.

According to Covey, proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They spend their time and energy on things they can change. This has two effects. First, proactive people actually do affect change in their lives; and as they do so, their Circle of Influence expands.

On the other hand, reactive people tend to focus on their Circle of Concern. They spend their time and energy on things they’re unable to influence (or can influence only with great difficulty). They try to change other people, to correct social injustices, to shift thought patterns of states or nations. Their efforts are largely frustrating and futile. What’s more, as they focus on their Circle of Concern, their Circle of Influence begins to shrink from neglect.

Any time you shift your attention from your Circle of Influence to your Circle of Concern, you allow outside forces to control you. You place your happiness and well-being in the hands of others. If you don’t act for yourself, you’re doomed to be acted upon.

But what about about luck? Aren’t there times when we really are at the mercy of the world around us? Of course. But our responses are always our own. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can hurt you without your consent.” Covey agrees:

It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character.

Shit happens. Shit happens to everyone. Ultimately, who we are and what we become is determined not by the shit that happens to us, but how we respond to that shit. Remember Reinhold Niebuhr‘s famous serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Most people are reactive. It’s likely that you’re reactive too — at least to some degree. Don’t fret. I’m reactive also. But with time and effort, I’ve managed to shift from an external locus of control to one that’s primarily internal. You can too.

Focus on the things you can control. Use that control to remove constraints and complications from your life. Strengthen and stretch your Circle of Influence. This is the only path to changing your Circle of Concern. You have no control over the hand you’re dealt, but you can choose how to play the cards.

Here’s a simple exercise from Seven Habits: For thirty days, commit to working only on your Circle of Influence. How? Keep your commitments, to yourself and others. Don’t judge or criticize other people, but turn your attention inward. Don’t argue. Don’t make excuses. When you make a mistake, accept responsibility and fix it. Don’t blame or accuse. When you catch yourself thinking “I have to…” or “If only…”, stop yourself and choose to reframe the thought in a more positive light. As far as possible, accept responsibility for your circumstances, actions, and feelings.

Permission and Control

As children, we’re conditioned to ask permission whenever we want to do something. You need permission from your parents to leave the dinner table or to go outside and play. You need permission from your teacher to use the bathroom.

Even as adults, we feel compelled to request permission. You need permission from your boss to leave work early. You need permission from your spouse to grab drinks with your friends instead of weeding the garden. You need permission from the city to build a shed in the backyard.

As a result, most of us have developed an external locus of control. That is, we subconsciously believe we need permission to do anything.

In personality psychology, the term locus of control describes how people view the world around them, and where they place responsibility for the things that happen in their lives. Though this might sound complicated, the concept is actually rather simple.

If you have an internal locus of controL, you believe that the quality of your life is largely determined by your own choices and actions. You believe that you are responsible for who you are and what you are.
If you have an external locus of control, you believe that the quality of your life is largely determined by forces beyond your control, by your environment or luck or fate. You believe that others are responsible for who you are and what you are.

Most people respond to the system of rewards and punishments that has evolved in the culture that surrounds them. If your culture prizes material gain, wealth becomes important to you. If it emphasizes familial relationships, family becomes important to you.

But when you live like this — when you make decisions based on your social environment — the only happiness you can obtain is fleeting. As a result, many people suffer some degree of angst, of anxiety or dread. “Is that all there is?” we wonder, when we pause to reflect upon our lives. “Isn’t there something more?”

There is something more.

Lasting happiness can be achieved, but not by being a puppet whose strings are pulled by situation and society. To achieve long-term happiness (and meaning), you have to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of your external circumstances. You have to create a system of internal rewards that are under your own power.

Like most folks, I grew up with an external locus of control. I thought my fate was largely at the mercy of the people and events around me. This wasn’t a conscious belief, but the notion was always there, underlying everything I thought or did. I waited for things to happen. I needed permission to take risks or try new things. As a result, I felt stuck. I was trapped in a world I did not enjoy. I wanted something more, but something more never arrived.

In time, I realized that if I wanted something more, it was up to me to obtain it. Gradually, my locus of control shifted from an external focus to an internal focus. I decided that I am responsible for my own destiny and my own happiness. It’s up to me to live a life I love.

I am responsible for my own well-being, and you are responsible for yours.

If you’re unhappy, nobody else can make things better for you. You must make things better for yourself. Focus on the things you can control, and use that control to fix the other things that are broken. In this way, you’ll gradually gain confidence and greater control of your future well-being.

You live in a world of your own design. You have the power to choose. You create your own certainty. Life as you want to live, and do so without regret. Give yourself permission to do so.

Caveat: It’s okay to seek happiness by changing jobs or moving to San Diego. It’s not okay to steal your neighbor’s television or to drive on the wrong side of the road. Remember the Golden Rule. Enjoy your life without diminishing the ability of others to enjoy theirs.

What’s Your Very Best Life Advice?

Over the last couple of months, I’ve begun to use Reddit as my morning wakeup site. Over a cup of coffee, I scroll through pages of funny photos and interesting links until I’m fully functional and ready to work. One popular feature at Reddit is the AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview series, where famous folks (and not-so-famous folks) answer questions from the Reddit community.

A Reddit user named uberlad always asks the same question in these interviews: “What’s your very best life advice?” Many of the answers sound as if they’d fit perfectly with our current year-long exploration into fear, happiness, and freedom.

Here are some notable responses to “What’s your very best life advice?” (Apparently, uberlad likes to ask this question of comedians.)

Norm Macdonald: “Let what you have make you happy. But never let what you don’t have make you happy.” In other words, be happy with what you have, and don’t covet what others have.

Alex Filippenko: “Find a profession that you really love, that you’re passionate about…To the degree possible, do something that brings you happiness and fulfillment.”

Skrillex: “You are the company you keep. If you surround yourself with creative, hungry, and productive people, it will make you step up your game. If you’re around lazy people who complain, then you’ll never grow as a person. Keep good people close!”

Ken Burns: “This [too] will pass. Get help from others. Be kind to yourself.”

Geoff Rowley: “Always get back up.”

Piper Kerman: “Know that you can learn more from your failures than your successes.”

Jon Lovitz: “Happiness is a choice…Are you willing to do what you have to do to get what you want?”

Drew Carey: Learn how to set goals. That’s the key to everything. That includes designing your own success. You define what the goal is, it’s not somebody else’s goal, it’s yours…All goal setting is figuring out what you want to do with your life.”

I shared my own “very best life advice” with you last month:

Now it’s your turn. What is your very best life advice? If a young person were to come to you and ask bout the keys to success and happiness, what would you tell her?