Wondering how to seek happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction in life? 🧐
Holding on to too many good things often stop us from becoming the best at one thing to be happy, fulfilled and satisfied.
Do you know what a Malay monkey trap is?
Monkey hunters in Malaysia use a pot with an opening slightly bigger than a monkey’s hand, and the other side of the pot is attached to a string. They would put the monkey’s favourite food in the pot, such as peanuts.
When a monkey sees one of the pots, he puts his hand inside the pot and always tries to grab the handful of food, which turns into a fist and locked his hand within the pot.
He could easily take out the food bit by bit without being stuck or can let go of the food to be free of this trap. However, he never does that and always gets trapped by the hunters.
According to National Geographic, scientists have sequenced the chimpanzee’s genome and found that humans are 96 per cent similar to the great ape species.
Therefore, our default behaviours are the same, and fear of missing out (FOMO) is our monkey trap, the most significant cause of our unhappiness, unfulfillment and dissatisfaction.
How to get out rid of the monkey trap or a FOMO?
“Be like a postage stamp; stick to one thing until you get there.” – Josh Billings.
First, say to yourself what you want in life and then do what you have to do to get that. Taking one step at a time to get what you want in life is the key to staying sane while seeking happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction in life.
How to seek happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction in life
If everyone has the same number of hours in a day, why do some people seem to get so much done more than others?
According to Gary Killer, the author of The One Thing, they go small. “Going small” is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.
Going small is a simple approach to extraordinary results, and it works.
Following three steps formula is helping me seek happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction whenever I’m applying to solve any problem.
Three steps formula to seek happiness in any life situation is:
- Simplify
- Automate
- Continuously optimize
Here is how it helped me to take control of my life in general.
Step 1. How to simplify your life
Simplifying your life is the first step in seeking happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction in life.
Decide what you actually need in life. If you review the main categories of your life, you’ll most probably find that your life falls under the following seven categories.
- Health
- Family and free time
- Relationships
- Personal growth
- Business/Career
- Financial Goals
- Community/Legacy/Give back to the world
When I reviewed my life, I realised that the following things are causing most of the stress and anxiety.
- How to stay healthy
- How to spend quality time with family and friends
- Am I doing enough to nurture my relationships
- How to balance personal growth with day to day demands of life
- How to grow the business without sacrificing other areas of life
- How to manage financials
- How to live a life to leave this world in a better place than I found
I created a Dropbox paper document (my favourite minimalistic word processor) and included these seven areas of my life as main headings to simplify my life.
I call this document Rana’s world, which is the gateway to all my life’s work.
Step 2. How to automate your life
Automating your day-to-day action steps build habits, and your success often is the by-product of your daily routines.
To automate all areas of my life, I ask the following question to myself every Monday morning:
What is the one thing I can do in these seven areas of my life this week which can have the most significant impact on my life this week?
It is not necessary to have one thing for each area of your life every week. Some weeks you will be able to do great in every area of your life; however, in other weeks, you might be able to do one great thing in only one area of your life, which can positively impact all other areas of your life.
For example, one week, you concentrated only on closing one big contract to improve your business, which can undoubtedly positively impact all other areas of your life.
Another example could be going on a family holiday for a week, leaving everything behind, which helps family bonding and improve your mental health, which helps to improve all areas of your life.
Here is what my areas of life look like:
Health
What are the minimum three things from the list below I can do every day this week to manage my health?
- Stay positive, happy and foolish – no matter what (every day)
- 50 Push-ups each day
- Daily 30-minute walk
- 8-10 Glass water minimum
- 40 KM Cycling (once a week)
- Reduce rice and bread intake
Family and free time
What is the one thing I’m going to do this week to close my day by 4.00 PM so I can spend more time with family?
For example, time blocking for most daily tasks stops you from achieving this target.
- Checking your inbox at certain times
- Fix the time block for doing social media
- Following checklists to do routine tasks to save time and improve quality
Relationships
What is the one thing I can do this week for my:
- Wife
- Kids
- Family
- Friends
- My team
Personal growth
What is the one thing to learn and implement this week to improve my game?
- Personal beliefs
- Mindset
- Religion
Business/career
What is the one thing to learn and implement this week in one of the following business categories to improve my game?
- Leadership
- Communication
- Marketing
- Sales
- Finance
- Administration
Financial goals
What is the one thing to learn and implement this week to improve the chances of achieving short, medium and long-term financial goals?
Community, legacy, give back to the world
What is the one thing I can do this week to contribute to my community?
- Writing
- Playing my part in the local community
- Sharing WordPress knowledge to help young people improve their careers
- Supporting my favourite charitable work
Step 3. How to continuously optimize your life
This part should be easy if you have done the simplification and automation right.
How can I do this 1% better than last time?
Asking this question each time you do the automated daily/weekly things will give you plenty of chances to continuously optimise your life to seek happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction.
For example:
- Health. How can I improve my cycling progress every Sunday by at least 1%?
- Family and free time. How can I be more present than yesterday?
- Relationships. How can I do better than last week to nurture my relationships?
- Personal growth. How can I improve my learning material to grow personally at least 1% better than last week?
- Business/career. What can I learn from last week’s decisions to do at least 1% better this week?
- Financial goals. What can I do in this week to increase the chances of better financial returns?
- Community/legacy/give back to the world. How can I spend my time, energy and funds better than last week to make the world a better place?
The most significant difference between professionals and amateurs is that professionals do things as required, not as per their mood.
Conclusion
Before the internet, it was hard to find options to do most things in life. However, in today’s world, too many choices create stress, unhappiness and fear of missing out.
Following things should help you get the most out of three steps formula to seek happiness, fulfilment and satisfaction in life.
- Get really good at saying no. This is the first defence to protect your world.
- Follow the time blocks. We all have only 24 hours in a day.
- Never miss twice. We are humans; things happen, but don’t let them slip through for long.
This process has changed my life for good recently and keeps working for me to solve any problem I’m facing or needs to improve anything in my life.
