A little over a month I posted an article about chasing meaning. I wanted to follow up with how I assess my happiness on a daily basis.
As a refresher, my strategy for finding happiness boils down to three steps:
1) Identify your seven primary values in life
2) For each value, identify an action that you could do several times a week
3) Schedule as many actions as possible as recurring calendar events so they just happen, over and over again, without any planning
I have a spreadsheet that I review every night before going to bed. I look at each value and ask myself if I executed the corresponding activity today. Did I exercise to exhaustion? If so, I mark an X and write down a small reminder of how. Rinse and repeat through all seven values.
Them I ask myself three simple questions:
1) On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy was I today?
2) Will I remember today tomorrow?
3) Were there any moments that made me noticeably unhappy today, and if so, how long was I upset?
The first question is the easiest and generally corresponds to the number of values met. As long as I executed one activity, I'm probably at least fine, a 3. Two activities usually maps to a 4 and three or more usually means a 5. But not always. If nothing else, it's good to look back at the previous week for any negative trends, or be thankful for a load of high-scoring days.
The second question, "will I remember today tomorrow," seems like a ridiculously low bar. Not next week. Not next year. Simply tomorrow. And it is. But you'd be surprised by how often our days are uneventful. So much so that they won't even survive a soft reboot of the brain. If the answer is "no," it's worth thinking about that for a second. What choices might I have made differently in hindsight?
Lastly, the question, "were there any moments that made me noticeably unhappy today," and the corollary, "how long was I upset," are useful for two reasons. First -- are there any interactions that I find myself writing down over and over? "That's the fourth time I've written about my boss this month, maybe I need to do something about it?"
Secondly -- how resilient am I to frustrations? If I find myself angry all day about something, it's probably a Really. Big. Deal. and needs to be dealt with. Alternatively, if it's objectively not that important, something else in my life must be really throwing me off my game.
Every coach, guru and thoughtful individual has their own format for daily self reflection. Consider this just one more strategy on the path towards self-awareness and enlightenment ;)
#happiness