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Assertivism: Live to Your Fullest Capacity

So we're on day 10 assertivism. We've learned a lot today. And actually I'm gonna wait till the end, since it's our last day to review what we've learned. And I'm just gonna dive right into our goals today. It's time for some Moxie. We're gonna add some spice to some of the happiness we've learned. I've been keeping it tame for you guys. But today, we're going to spice up, bring up the heat a little bit. I wanna put some power behind your happiness. This class is after all called the power of happiness. Let's put some of that oomph behind it. I'm also gonna be talking about your happiness plan. We've been talking about a lot of ideas, how are we gonna prioritize? What are we gonna prioritize? How do I want this class to last forever for you? Of course, I have a warm up. As always at home I'd love you to bring out your workbook. Or if you don't have the workbook yet just bring out a blank piece of paper. Cause the warm up today is a fill in the blank. And this is a fill in the blank tha...

t I try to ask myself at least once a year typically on New Year's actually I asked myself this question. This is a way to kind of access our hidden dreams. So a lot of the times we talk about big goals, we talk about things we've always wanted. But I think underneath it all, sometimes we get these little seeds of desires, seeds of wants, hidden dreams that drive our decisions. And this is trying to unearth some of those. Okay, so this warm up is specifically for today because we're gonna be talking about quests. One of the things, one of the most interesting parts of the research that I found, and this is actually one of the first kind of takeaway points that I learned, was the opposite of happiness is actually not unhappiness. So the opposite of happiness is also not anger, which we talked about last time. Can anyone guess what the opposite of happiness is? Indifference (audience cheering) Oh, oh, that was a really good (Vanessa laughs) because she did not, you did not see those slides beforehand, absolutely right. So the opposite of happiness is not unhappiness, It's not depression, It's not anger, it's indifference. Timidity, passivity, letting life happen to us. Every single day throughout this course I've tried to give some new way of telling you, grab life by the hair. (Vanessa chuckles) And take it where you want to take it. Like it's about having a more assertive lifestyle. It's about telling people what we want and what we need. It's about having people in our life who truly nourish us. It's about asking for the things we need, setting up boundaries that we need. That's where happiness comes from. So today, I'm going to be fighting timidity, passivity and apathy. And I love this quote, "happiness begins at the end of our comfort zone," which is also about that strength, that power and you cannot separate happiness without talking about power. I think the best way to end this course is with a very big idea and this is the idea of a quest. So a quest is a life adventure with a clear mission and goal driven by purpose. So this is not a mission statement, this is not a career goal, It is a life adventure. And I borrow this idea from my good friend Chris Guillebeau. So he wrote, I don't know if anyone's read the book, "The happiness of pursuit." But he is a big fan of quest, this is part of your happy reading list. And I'm gonna give you some of the steps for a questing lifestyle. So quick, quote, "courage comes through achievement, "but also through the attempt. "As I worked my way through country after country," this is Chris Guillebeau talking, "regrouping at one of the many stops along the way "that felt like second homes, "I become more optimistic about my chances of success. "In the final year of the journey, I felt unstoppable." One of the things I've been trying to teach in this course is that the means is more important than the end. So when we quest, it's not about achieving that life goal. It's not about writing that book or finishing that career or retiring. I want us to enjoy the actual process. The way that we do that is by having an adventure in our daily life, by working towards some kind of goal that fuels just our happiness, not our career, not our income, not our bank account. Just us, that is the goal of the quest. I also believe that quests create momentum. So when I talk about upward spirals, we've been talking about little moments. Wow, having, using your mastery skills, feeling capable of feeling responsible. I think that every day we get up and we know that we're working a little bit towards a bigger goal. It creates momentum in other areas of our life. And that's what I want us to create here, this bigger kind of momentum. All of these things have already happened, mastery, small wins, experiments, Sangha, anticipation. I've been leading you up to trying to pick this one big goal. So what kind of quests am I talking about here, and this could be anything. Here are some examples, learning to cook one meal from every cuisine. Learning how to speak perfectly five different languages, this is a good one. Reading the different Wikipedia entry every day for a year, that would count as a quest. Photographing 200 different types of birds. Walk every block in New York City there are 121,000 of those. Take a vow of silence every year. That's my quest actually, so I do a vow of silence every year. I'm a talker, obviously. So it's very challenging for me to do a vow of silence, that's one of my many quests. In the workbook, I have what I call a questing worksheet. So if you wanna pull out your workbook for me and turn to the area that says questing worksheet. This is where we're gonna actually start the process of trying to develop your big quest. The very first thing that we're gonna learn, is your drive. So when you're trying to think about this big quest, this big life adventure. We wanna start just looking we talked about, your cause champion. And by the way your cause champion in your quest can be very similar or tied together. I want to start with those kernels of excitement. That's why we started with "Someday I'll" at the very beginning of this warm exercise. What if you've been waiting to do? What if XYZ happened? What if I had all the money in the world? What if I had all the time in the world? I want you to start with those values or those drives. I love this quote by John Shedd, "a ship is safe in harbor "but that's not what ships are built for." We were built for much more. Think about your quest everyone, think about your quest. So you can start going to the activities if you want. This is the big question that we're trying to answer for quest. What are you waiting for? I already asked that question one today during the warm up, when he said that you wanted to skydive or jump out of a plane specifically. We are often waiting I asked us early Are you waiting or are you looking? What have you been waiting for? What have you been tapping off into the future? When I finished school when I finish, when I have a family when, you know all these whens' No more when then mindset. Assertivisim is about getting rid of that. So in your workbook I have under your drive we have fill in the blank. So what excites you? What have you been waiting to do? as well as a couple fill in the blank areas in your workbook for you. This is an intensely personal deep dive by the way. I want you to take some time with these. So fill in the blank, we're gonna have a couple of different verbs here that might spur on, some ideas for quests I have, collect, champion, write, read. Those are gonna help you get specific about your quests. The second thing I want you to think about, is your mission. So this could be a happened to do with your cause champion. Actually, day number six, when we talked about that, was a warm up for this day. What do you want to accomplish? What's your goal? How will you know when it's achieved? So I do want you to pick something that's not necessarily career related. Like I think this is different than your mission statement. A quest should be an adventure. However, I think that your quest can have to do with your success. So me taking a vow of silence every year, allows me to be more introspective, makes me a better listener, and that makes me a better teacher, that makes me a better writer. It's not specifically to do with my career, but it makes me better at what I do. So I when think of, what you think about what are your legacy goals? We talked about eulogy building activities. How does that tie in here. And specifically, the most important part of a quest is that is measurable. So unlike, so if I were to say, I wanna be successful. That's a pretty good thing, but that is not measurable. Saying, I want to visit 30 different countries in the next year. That is a very measurable thing. So then step two of this is taking your quest idea and adding numbers to it. What you're gonna do, by what date. And I do want to have a time limit on it. So what you're gonna do, and by what date. For example, you don't have to, doesn't have to be huge, huge. Read 12 New York Times bestsellers by the New Year, that would be a mini quest. Do every hike in my city in the next six months. Finish every challenge in this course in the next 60 days. That can be a quest. The third thing now we're gonna get into the action steps. So the first stage is kinda brainstorming and dream storming. And you'll see I have a lot of films in the workbook for you, same with your mission area. Now we're gonna get into the specifics of how do we achieve it? So it's not just a wish, but actually practical. How much time and money will you need for this quest? Is it free? Could you get all library books? All New York time sellers from the library? That cost nothing. Or is it a trip, part of your quest is gathering the time, the money and materials for the quest. So if your quest is to sail around the world, your quest actually doesn't begin when you step on the boat. Your quest begins, the moment you write it down. And researching what kind of boat you're gonna use. And trying to set aside a savings goal and a new savings account in your bank. Your quest actually begins then. What do you need to do first? So the other thing that I want you to do is once you get into the pursuit section, is you're gonna start to write down action steps. What is the very very first thing you have to do. So I have this big chart in your workbook, you'll see that I think for me its on page 79, but printed, it might look a little different. I have all the steps for this quest, just like how we did the Russian doll to do list, you're gonna do, that why I taught you that earlier gonna do the exact same thing for your quest. So if it was sail around the world, maybe the very first thing would be to get a library book on sailing. Like that would be a really good first step. Second step would be finish the library book on sailing. So breaking it down into those little baby steps. Remember that those steps are part of the joy. The happiness is in the pursuit, the happiness is taking that step and crumpling it up and throwing it across the room. So each of those steps on your pursuit list are part of your happy checklist after this course. At the end of a long day, quests give you a second wind, Netflix does not. So once I started to incorporate the idea of quests in my life, and I've done a couple of them. I found that at the end of a long day when I was totally exhausted and I would have said "I have no energy for anything." Doing one or two steps on my quest to do list, gave me energy. It was way better than a nap. It was way better than a hike. It was way better than Netflix. And so the reason why I want you to do these is cause I think they are energy creating, they get you out of funks. They are way more productive than naps. And they're the best kind of to do list. Some quest ideas, let's get some of those question idea juices flowing. Try a week of extreme, fill in the blank. So quest can be short. They can be seven days of something. So I tried a week of radical honesty. (Vanessa laughs)(audience laughs) Yeah, that was radical. So try a week of extreme something extreme nice, extreme curiosity, doing a vow of silence with me. You're welcome to do a vow of silence with me. I put them on my Twitter every time I do them. So fill in the blank for extreme, that's only seven days. It's a great little warm up. Happy book list, I gave you a book list. Maybe your quest is reading all the books on that list or two of the books on that list. Your learning bucket list. So I already started to get these juices flowing when I was asking you what did you wanna learn? So maybe it's learning how to speak a different language. Maybe it's learning how to take, how to make the perfect sushi rice. Allah hero dreams of sushi. So maybe it's something on your learning bucket list that you can master. And remember, the more specific the better. So it's not just, I wanna learn to speak French, it's, I wanna learn to speak French and pass the French fluency test within a year. You want that. Or maybe it's, I wanna be able to have five dinner conversations with five people in each language. That would be a really specific one to prove, what is speak really well I mean, after adding that measurement on there. Your cause champion and your gratitude totem or your gratitude or doing a gratitude trip. So maybe there's something you can do a big project you can do, by raising a certain amount of money for your cause champion. By starting a new project, for your cause champion, and those make amazing quests. This course and work Book. Here's the good news, you're on day 10. You already finished your first quest. (audience cheering) You've finished it, yeah. So your first quest, was coming here every day and finishing all 10 days, you did it. That was your first quest, It's already done. That is how easy and hopefully fun it is. So you can also do courses, as little mini quests as well. Brian Williams, "a person starts dying when they stop dreaming." The goal of questing is just to get you dreaming bigger. That's it. I think we sometimes only dream in those four minute miles. We don't realize we can go so much further and so much faster. Quest bring control, which we know is great for happiness. Quests give us identity. So here's the interesting part about questing. So I've had a couple of students now finish their quests from our beta version, a lot of them are still in them. And what they've told me, is that when you have a quest, yes, it gives you purpose, but it's amazing how other people see you. So when you go to a party and you're like "yeah my goal is to visit all 50 states "the next, by the time I'm 40." People get excited for you. They're like, "Oh, what states have you done so far? "Oh, you know what if you go to Idaho, "I have a cousin there. "He owns a brewery, you should try to stay "in his upstairs loft." So actually questioning as a kinda secret people skill. I talked about how hard it is to come up with conversations, how hard it is to have really interesting conversations with new people you meet. Quests is the best conversation starter you could possibly imagine. People get excited for you, they text you ideas for your quest, when you see them, they check in with you. It's another way of asking the world "remind me about my quest." So I also want you to use it as a way of creating your own identity, telling people what you're standing for, what you're working towards. And quests bring hope, as we remember from that science study, that hope and curiosity are two of the biggest contributor emotions for happiness. And we are hopeful about a quest, a vacation, learning something, It gives us so much happiness. I have a ton of quest ideas in our virtual toolbox, I have videos of other people's quests they've completed. So if you sign up at scienceofpeople.com/21, you can get some more quest ideas as well. Pillar number one, Oh, I forgot to mention. So my goal for you is to pick two to three pillars that you wanna really focus on. So now that you've learned all of them, I'm sure people had favorites and least favorites, I want you to pick two or three as I'm gonna go through all of them, and I'm gonna ask you in the audience, if that was one of your favorites. Those are the ones I want you to start with. It's hard to do all 10 at once. So we're gonna pick the two to three priorities. You guys kind of have an idea which ones are your favorite? Okay, so pillar number one. Assertivist take is that you deserve to be happy right now. No more when then, no more pushing it off into the future. This is about looking at what makes you happy and claiming it. Who's, was this anyone's kind of priority day now how? All right, okay, interesting. Pillar number two, mastery. So this is about, I want you to be amazing at what you do. I don't want you just to be good. I don't even want you just to be great. I want you to be the best at what you do. Utilizing all those skills. How many felt like this was a priority day? Okay, very interesting, all right. Pillar number three, play. Assertively play is not optional, we have to make the time. If we don't make the time for play, we will not have time for play. So if you want to make sure that it's in your life, you have to claim it. How many of you will feel like playstorming was a big one for them? Cool, All right. Playstorming, this is also your happy checklist. I forgot to mention, so that big long list of pluses and checks and minuses, if you want to tear that out or just print that out in your workbook. You can actually use that as your checklist. You can just go down it and make sure that you're checking off all of your pluses and question marks. So you can print that out if you want. Pillar number four, minimizing the bad maximizing the good. This takes energy. This means looking at your life, diagnosing the problems and saying, "I am gonna change it. "I'm not gonna wait for them to change. "I'm not gonna just tolerate tolerate it. "I'm actually gonna do something about it." How many people feel like this was one of their priority days? Oh, not as many interesting Okay Pillar number five. Wow, the five stages of Wow, capitalizing on our happiness, savoring a little bit more. This is about claiming moment to moment happiness. Making sure that we're saying, "I am going to savor every second "of this delicious olive bread, olive garden breadstick," All those different things that make us savor. How do you feel like this was your big one? Oh, great, Okay, that surprises me. Pillar number six, gratitude totems, cause champions. This is about giving what matters. It's about making our life and our legacies start right now. And I think that when we give back, we know that our time on this earth is contributing to more than just our happiness, but other people's happiness as well. How many people have a cause champion or gratitude totem they're gonna focus on? All right, this is gonna be a big one for some of you. Pillar number seven, finding your people. So one thing that I wanted to, I forgot to mention when I taught this lesson is, if you're having trouble finding people, yes, you can use this course, The Happiness Facebook Group, also Science People, we're trying to do more in person events. So we have 70 different trainers all over the world. And they are starting, Science People live events in all of their cities. So we actually just rolled out the first 20 in October and we're gonna be doing more and more every month. So you're welcome to go to our website and search to see if there's a local tribe in your city. Science People are awesome, so hopefully you can find your people. I'm happy to help, we do anti networking events. So I hate networking events. So we created anti networking events. And it means you come and you play games with us. And it's a totally different kind of networking experiment. So hopefully you can join us for that. How many of you feel like this is when you're going to focus on? okay a lot, all right. Pillar number eight, you're Lucky Jack, lock opportunity in your basement. No more waiting, but actually searching and doing. So does anyone feel like this one is a big one? This is a hard one to make a priority. (mumbles) for all yeah. (audience laughs)(Vanessa laughs) You can do, you can totally do that. So lucky jack is a hard one to make a priority cause actually, the good news about number eight is once you know it, there's not much you have to actually physically do for it. It's a mindset shift. Triangle theory, so leveraging your physiology for total wellness. How many people feel like they're gonna try to tackle a side of their triangle? Nice, okay, a lot of people. Last one, claim the life you love. Live to your fullest capacity. So I already asked you if you all are going to start a quest. How many people have a quest that ties into a previous day? or thinking about a quest that ties into previous day? Like a cause champion? Yeah, maybe okay. All right, I'll give you some time to think about it, don't worry. Your happiness, remember, is a gift. So I know that sometimes it can feel like we don't wanna focus on our happiness, that's not enough, that's not giving back enough. 87% of adults said they would prefer a society with the greatest overall happiness and well being. Only 8% preferred one with the greatest overall wealth. When you are happy, that contributes to everyone around you. In your workbook, I also have an extra section for you, on happy at work. So I have an entire section in your workbook, where I want you to be able to take some of the skills we learned and I've posed some questions about how you can use these at work in different ways. A little chart that you can fill out. Some things to remember, to keep in mind for happiness at work. What's working for you at work? Can you please start stop, continue with yourself with your work tasks. Capability brings happiness. The more you can job craft and add mastery, the happier you're gonna be. And lastly, you give yourself an immediate competitive advantage by amping up your professional happiness. The best, the most way, you're most likely to get a raise or promotion, just like we saw in that Google study, is by increasing your happiness at work. You deserve to be happy, and that also makes you more successful. I also have in your workbook, a happiness checkup. So this is what I encourage you to do. With five questions once a month. You don't have to do it once a month, you could do it once a quarter, or once every six months. These are the five questions I ask myself every month. So every month I do a big like kind of personal growth day on a Sunday. I get my favorite tea. I make a whole big thing of it. These are the five questions I asked myself. These are five questions I want you to ask yourself after this course as sort of a check in. It also helps you if you focus if you've nailed three or four pillars, helps you add a couple of more even afterwards. The final challenge of the course, just start, there is no last challenge. It's just to pick one of those things that I've already given you. Start your quest, start your happiness experiment, start your Sangha, start minimizing, start maximizing, start your cause champion. The very last thing, bigger question is, what was the most important thing you learned in this entire course? Not just today, What was the biggest aha moment you had over all 10 days.