Re-Thinking

Today's session is less of a practice and more of a thought-provoking talk for the New Year. Adam Grant is inviting us to contemplate on our pursuit of happiness. There are few things that take priority over happiness. At the same time, psychologists found that the more people valued happiness the less happy they often become happy with their lives. So how can we tackle this paradox? Adam's advice: be open to re-think.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to day 9 of Insight Timer's Building Healthy Habits Challenge.

Let's take a moment to get settled.

Close your eyes,

Take a deep breath in,

And exhale out.

Let's dive into today's healthy habit.

Hi,

And welcome to the Building Healthy Habits Challenge here on Insight Timer.

I'm Adam Grant.

I'm an organizational psychologist and author,

And I study how we find motivation and meaning.

Today,

Instead of a practice,

I want to introduce you to a concept,

The idea of rethinking.

We normally see intelligence as the ability to think and learn.

But in a rapidly changing world,

I've found that there's another kind of intelligence that matters just as much,

If not more.

The ability to rethink and unlearn.

Changing your mind is not a sign of losing integrity.

It's often a mark of gaining wisdom.

It doesn't mean you've abandoned your principles.

It usually means you've learned something.

Your opinions are what you think today,

But growth comes from staying open to revising those views tomorrow.

And there's good evidence that letting go of ideas,

Goals,

And habits that are no longer serving you well can improve your mental health and your success.

The start of a new year is the perfect time to rethink and unlearn old assumptions.

So what's one thing about your life that you'd like to rethink?

Good luck with the challenge.

♪ When we think about how to plan our lives,

There are a few things that take priority over happiness.

The Kingdom of Bhutan has a gross national happiness index.

In the United States,

The pursuit of happiness is so prized that it's one of the three unalienable rights in our Declaration of Independence.

If we're not careful,

Though,

The pursuit of happiness can become a recipe for misery.

Psychologists find that the more people value happiness,

The less happy they often become with their lives.

It's true for people who naturally care about happiness and for people who are randomly assigned to reflect on why happiness matters.

There's even evidence that placing a great deal of importance on happiness is a risk factor for depression.

Why?

One possibility is that when we're searching for happiness,

We get too busy evaluating life to actually experience it.

Instead of savoring our moments of joy,

We ruminate about why our lives aren't more joyful.

A second culprit is that we spend too much time striving for peak happiness,

Overlooking the fact that happiness depends more on the frequency of positive emotions than their intensity.

A third potential factor is that when we hunt for happiness,

We overemphasize pleasure at the expense of purpose.

This theory is consistent with data suggesting that meaning is healthier than happiness and that people who look for purpose in their work are more successful in pursuing their passions and less likely to quit their jobs than those who look for joy.

While enjoyment waxes and wanes,

Meaning tends to last.

A fourth explanation is that Western conceptions of happiness as an individual state leave us feeling lonely.

In more collectivistic,

Eastern cultures,

That pattern is reversed.

Pursuing happiness predicts higher well-being because people prioritize social engagement over independent activities.

Last fall,

A student stopped by my office hours for some advice.

She explained that when she chose Wharton,

She had focused too much on getting into the best school and too little on finding the best fit.

She wished she had picked a college with a more carefree culture and a stronger sense of community.

Now that she was clear on her values,

She was considering a transfer to a school that would make her happier.

A few weeks later,

She told me that a moment in class had helped her rethink her plan.

It wasn't the research on happiness that we discussed,

The values survey she took,

Or the decision-making activity we did.

It was a comedy sketch I showed from Saturday Night Live.

The scene stars Adam Sandler as a tour guide.

In a mock commercial advertising his company's Italian tours,

He mentions that customer reviews sometimes express disappointment.

He takes the opportunity to remind customers about what a vacation can and can't do for them.

Quote,

There's a lot a vacation can do,

Help you unwind,

See some different looking squirrels,

But it cannot fix deeper issues,

Like how you behave in group settings.

We can take you on a hike.

We cannot turn you into someone who likes hiking.

Remember,

You're still going to be you on vacation.

If you are sad where you are,

And then you get on a plane to Italy,

The you in Italy will be the same sad you from before,

Just in a new place.

When we pursue happiness,

We often start by changing our surroundings.

We expect to find bliss in a warmer climate or a friendlier dorm,

But any joy that those choices bring about is typically temporary.

In a series of studies,

Students who change their environments by adjusting their living arrangements or course schedules quickly return to their baseline levels of happiness.

As Ernest Hemingway wrote,

You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

Meanwhile,

Students who change their actions by joining a new club,

Adjusting their study habits,

Or starting a new project experience lasting gains in happiness.

Our happiness often depends more on what we do than where we are.

It's our actions,

Not our surroundings,

That bring us meaning and belonging.

My student decided not to transfer.

Instead of rethinking where she went to school,

She would rethink how she spent her time.

She might not be able to change the culture of an entire institution,

But she could create a new subculture.

She started doing weekly coffee chats with classmates and invited the ones who shared her interests and values over for weekly tea.

A few months later,

She reported that she had formed several close friendships and was thrilled with her decision to stay.

The impact didn't stop there.

Her tea gatherings became a tradition for welcoming students who felt out of place.

Instead of transferring to a new community,

They built their own micro-community.

They weren't focusing on happiness.

They were looking for contribution and connection.

To be clear,

I wouldn't encourage anyone to stay in a role,

Relationship,

Or place they hated unless they had no other alternatives.

Still,

When it comes to careers,

Instead of searching for the job where we'll be happiest,

We might be better off pursuing the job where we expect to learn and contribute the most.

Psychologists find that passions are often developed,

Not discovered.

In a study of entrepreneurs,

The more effort they put into their startups,

The more their enthusiasm about their business is climbed each week.

Their passion grew as they gained momentum and mastery.

Interest doesn't always lead to effort and skill.

Sometimes it follows them.

By investing in learning and problem-solving,

We can develop our passions and build the skills necessary to do the work and lead the lives we find worthwhile.

As we get older,

We become more focused on searching for meaning,

And we're more likely to find it in actions that benefit others.

My favorite test of meaningful work is to ask,

If this job didn't exist,

How much worse off would people be?

It's near midlife that this question often begins to loom large.

At around this time,

In both work and life,

We feel we have more to give and less to lose,

And we're especially keen to share our knowledge and skills with the next generation.

When my students talk about the evolution of self-esteem in their careers,

The progression often goes something like this.

Phase 1,

I'm not important.

Phase 2,

I'm important.

Phase 3,

I want to contribute to something important.

I've noticed that the sooner they get to Phase 3,

The more impact they have and the more happiness they experience.

It's left me thinking about happiness less as a goal and more as a byproduct of mastery and meaning.

As philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote,

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness,

On the happiness of others,

On the improvement of mankind,

Even on some ardor pursuit,

Followed not as a means,

But as itself an ideal end.

Aiming thus at something else,

They find happiness by the way.

Careers,

Relationships,

And communities are examples of what scientists call open systems.

They're constantly in flux because they're not closed off from the environments around them.

We know that open systems are governed by at least two key principles.

There are always multiple paths to the same end,

Equifinality,

And the same starting point can be a path to many different ends,

Multifinality.

We should be careful to avoid getting too attached to a particular route or even a particular destination.

There isn't one definition of success or one track to happiness.

At work and in life,

The best we can do is plan for what we want to learn and contribute over the next year or two and stay open to what might come next.

To adapt an analogy from E.

L.

Doctorow,

Writing out a plan for your life is like driving at night in the fog.

You can only see as far as your headlights,

But you can make the whole trip that way.

We don't have to upend our entire paths to rethink some of our plans.

Some people are perfectly content with their fields of work but dissatisfied with their current roles.

Others may be too risk-averse to make a geographic move for a job or a partner.

And many don't have the luxury of making a pivot.

Being economically dependent on a job or emotionally attached to an extended family can limit the options available.

Whether or not we have the opportunity or appetite for major changes in our lives,

It's still possible to make smaller adjustments that breathe new meaning into our days.

My colleagues Amy Resneski and Jane Dutton find that in every line of work,

There are people who become active architects of their own jobs.

They rethink their roles through job crafting,

Changing their daily actions to better fit their values,

Interests,

And skills.

One of the places Amy and Jane studied job crafting was in the University of Michigan health care system.

If you visited a certain floor of the hospital,

It wouldn't be long before cancer patients told you how grateful they were for Candace Walker.

Her mission was not only to protect their fragile immune systems,

It was also to care for their fragile emotions.

She called the chemotherapy center the House of Hope.

Candace was often the first one to console families when their loved ones went through treatment.

She showed up with bagels and coffee.

She would make patients laugh by telling stories about her cats drinking her milk or showing them that she had accidentally put on one brown sock and one blue sock.

One day,

She saw a patient on the floor of an elevator writhing in pain,

And the staff members nearby weren't sure what to do.

Candace immediately took charge,

Rushed the woman into a wheelchair,

And took her up in the elevator for urgent treatment.

The patient later called her my savior.

Candace Walker wasn't a doctor or a nurse.

She wasn't a social worker,

Either.

She was a custodian.

Her official job was to keep the cancer center clean.

Candace and her fellow custodians were all hired to do the same job,

But some of them ended up rethinking their roles.

One cleaner on a long-term intensive care unit took it upon herself to regularly rearrange the paintings on the walls,

Hoping that a change of scenery might spark some awareness among patients in comas.

When asked about it,

She said,

No,

It's not part of my job,

But it's part of me.

Our identities are open systems,

And so are our lives.

We don't have to stay tethered to old images of where we want to go or who we want to be.

The simplest way to start rethinking our options is to question what we do daily.

It takes humility to reconsider our past commitments,

Doubt to question our present decisions,

And curiosity to reimagine our future plans.

What we discover along the way can free us from the shackles of our familiar surroundings and our former selves.

Rethinking liberates us to do more than update our knowledge and opinions.

It's a tool for leading a more fulfilling life.

Reviews

Very interesting and inspiring. Thank you 🙏

Adam, such great insights and real life leasons shared to understand the messages/concepts being offered. I really enjoyed this, recently I was listening to you on The Imperfects, hearing you there gave me a more personal touch of YOU. You are turning up in my ‘spaces’ which makes me think we are doing something good for ourselves. Thank you.

Excellent! What a understanding of a critical tool on our toolbox as a human. As someone who has lost the person I used to be forever, rethinking needs to be part of me. Thank you for the lesson. Happy New Year!

I remember being so interested in this in the challenge a year ago and registering now interests me even more I realise I applied some of what was said into my life and now I shall relistdn a few more times and find how to apply more to my days Thank you I would love to see more from this teacher

Great info - I’d re-categorize as talk in lieu of meditation

Adam Grant summarizes a lot of interesting research on happiness and well-being in a sussicnt and playful way by weaving in stories with research.

Wow…one of the the most profound talks I’ve listened too. 🙏🙏

Not a meditation, but a good talk for having perspective on happiness goals.

I’m so glad this was part of the challenge. Thank you. More to come.

More great perspective and insight from Adam Grant. Tks for featuring AG.

Great concept of re-thinking! Definitely something to think of and apply in life- love it- thanks!

This has really hit home on various levels. Heartfelt thanks 😊

I love this one, I will return to it again and again …

Really nice! I was just talking about this with my boyfriend earlier. I just sent this meditation to him. ❣️

he. made. me have an epifany, thank u, u are my saviour

A new tool for my toolbox!

Loved it! I’m a Spiritual Counselor and we fondly refer to re-thinking as the “undoing” process of thought that doesn’t serve us. If awakening were a math formula it would be represented as a subtraction problem - not an addition problem +.
Thanks for getting the word out on Insight Timer🙏🙏🙏

I was reminded that happiness is a natural byproduct of living a purposefully and fulfilling life in whatever I do in my day. A message and concept I draw upon daily. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience 🙏❤️

I have been rethinking my life quite a bit lately. This topic reinforces my thinking and gave me helpful ideas how to implement some of them…thank you for the tips and encouragement.

This was very thought provoking. I'm 78 yrs and not working but maybe rethinking how i think of myself and what i can do might lead to more happiness.