Monday Mindset: You Don't Have to Be Happy All the Time

On today's Monday Mindset, I'm taking a moment to intimately reflect on how maintaining a positive outlook rather than chasing perpetual happiness will profoundly shape your life's journey!

Join me as I traverse the emotional journey that life presents, from the peaks of joy to the valleys of sorrow. I'll candidly share how personal loss became a testament to resilience and the belief in a universe that conspires for our good. When we embrace the potential of positivity to bring peace and meaning, no matter what life throws at us, we will find growth and contentment in every twist and turn of life's paths.

Here's to another day of intentional living!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, hello teachers, and welcome to your Monday Mindset podcast episode. These are short, little snippets of thoughts, reflections that I share with you on a weekly basis, that are focused around mindset things that we can do to live our best lives, to live an intentional life, and I invite you to not just listen to these for yourself and how they apply to you in your life, but consider sharing them with other people too. Consider sharing them with your students every Monday and having a conversation about it and doing a reflection together, because I think a lot of these thoughts, these topics, these questions are just a part of being human, and sometimes being human can feel lonely and to know that other people are struggling through some of the same challenges that you are and are benefiting from having these types of conversations is hugely powerful in allowing us to get to be the best version of ourselves, to take who we are and who we be and who we show up in the world as to that next level. So I really hope that you enjoy these Monday Mindsets and, if you do, let us know over on our Instagram at Evie Academics. Thanks so much for listening and let's dive into our Monday Mindset. Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of our Monday Mindsets.

Speaker 1: 1:23

We are in May now, which is hard to believe that it is the end of the year, and today I want to talk about this concept that you don't have to be happy all the time. We shouldn't really expect to be happy every day, but we can be positive, and so I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about and understanding, like, the nature of happiness, right, and if you think about happiness, it's not this constant state, right, we're not always happy. Happy is an emotion. Sometimes we are feeling frustrated or disappointed or sad or whatever other emotion that we have, but it's not this expectation in life that we should just be happy all the time. It's going to fluctuate, like life just has its ups and downs. It's not this expectation in life that we should just be happy all the time. It's going to fluctuate, like life just has its ups and downs. It's unrealistic and, I think, unreasonable to expect to be happy every single day. But there is a difference between happiness and positivity, right? So while happiness can be characterized or often seen as like an emotional state, that is, joy, contentment, whatever it might be, it's an emotional state. Positivity, however, that's more about attitude. That's more about perspective, that's more about how we're choosing to see the world, how we're choosing to see situations, situations.

Speaker 1: 2:47

So I think it's important to note to ourselves that we can maintain a positive outlook even when we're not feeling particularly happy. And so what this looks like is when we are in the face of adversity, when we are in the face of a difficult phase of life or a difficult conversation or a difficult relationship or whatever it might be. Being positive does not mean ignoring or denying difficult emotions or challenges at all. Feel all of the feelings. But what being positive means is having that resilience in the face of adversity, believing that things are going to get better. And so I tell myself and this is a helpful thought for me, and maybe it's a helpful thought for you is it's this or something better? Like I just believe that we live in a benevolent universe that wants to give us what we want in this life. And when we have that resilience in the face of adversity, or that belief, that just like core belief, that things are going to get better, that it's this or something better, that things are always working out in my favor, that this thing that happened, that seems awful, is perhaps actually serving the greater good in my life in some way that I might not know for years to come.

Speaker 1: 4:09

And the thing with this whole concept is that it's choice.

Speaker 1: 4:14

You get to decide.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Right For some of us. For some of you, what I'm saying might not land at all and you're like nope, I don't buy into that, I'm not into that. But for others, when we consciously make the choice to view life as always happening for us, it creates a much more peaceful existence, it creates a much more calm way to go about your life. You know and I I know it's silly, but I just think about like my dog passing in December when we had to put him down, and like the way in which that happened was awful for my husband, for my son, just the whole thing, the way in which it happened was terrible. And I just think about like it had to happen like that because of a number of reasons.

Speaker 1: 5:04

As I look back at it and I'm so grateful that it actually did happen that way, and that's my choice to view it that way in a positive way Am I happy that we had to put our sweet dog down? No, I'm sad, I miss him. It was awful, and I get to choose how I look at that experience. That's perspective, that's positivity, and I think that all of this really boils down to, you know, finding meaning in the journey of our lives. Right that we're not always expected to be happy, but if we are positive, having that positive attitude allows us to find meaning, allows us to find growth, allows us to find peace in both the good and the bad experiences and the neutral experiences, and I just think it's a really beautiful way to go about living our lives. So I hope that that serves you in some capacity. Here's to another great week of living intentionally.