Happiness: A state of well-being and contentment. The emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.
If happiness is possessing what one desires, then unhappiness is the opposite, or NOT possessing what one desires. Simply compare what one has versus what one wants and that will explain how they feel about themselves and the life they lead. In this context what one wants isn’t about material possessions but rather focuses on truly deep, fundamentally important values. These values typically fall into 3 major categories: Health, Wealth, and Relationships.
But life is a long and winding road. It seems shortsighted to only think about what you currently have and ignore what you’re capable of achieving. A better viewpoint would be to compare what someone is consistently achieving to what they’re capable of achieving over time. Over time the actions we take either bring us closer to the things we want, or don’t.
Everyone does whether they know it or not. We constantly judge ourselves on an emotional level based on the progress towards, or the setbacks against, what matters most to us. All people intuitively have an understanding of what’s valuable to them.
Given this, we have the first two elements of the foundational framework people use to continuously and holistically achieve high performance in life: Values and Actions. If we did nothing else this insight could already provide most people with a great place to progress their journey in life. They could more clearly define their values, and pay closer attention to their actions and how they align with them. In fact some would argue that understanding your values so you can take action towards them is the most critical aspect of living a happy life.
Sometimes there is a disconnect between actions and values. It can be impossible to know whether a simple action you take in life is pointing you in the right direction, let alone whether it’s the best way to achieve your goals. It’s difficult to conceptualize the big picture taken one step at a time. Should I take an action that will bring me value today, or a different action that may bring me different value in a week, a month, a year? Let’s add some clarity to these two concepts. First we can translate Values into Goals. Values are an ideal and are abstract, something like “I value time with my family” which is different from a goal which could be something like “I want to organize a family reunion”. To strengthen the connection between goals and actions, we need another element: Planning. A Plan to organize a family reunion would include mapping out the major objectives like renting a space to host guests, sending out invitations, and figuring out food. Planning aids in breaking down larger concepts into meaningful objectives and actions to be taken.
Now we have a bit more of a framework: Values -> Goals -> Plans -> Actions. There are still some elements to add, however. Values built over a lifetime cannot be changed instantly. Knowing that, it is critical to invest adequate time to understand one’s values more deeply but just as important not to spend too long. Moving along the framework, goals can be set and achieved faster than your values may change. However, like with values, excessive attention to this process isn’t always necessary or prudent. I’m sure you see where this is going! Plans are updated and changed more frequently than goals, and much more often than values, but still not on the daily. It’s not until you get to actions that something is performed continuously. Working with these concepts within defined intervals can be very helpful to manage your time efficiently and productively. A baseline structure could be quarterly for values, monthly for goals, weekly for plans, and daily for actions. There can be some flexibility here, and the intervals should adjust based on actual needs. This gets us to a looping, continuous framework.
Not so fast – there is one last piece to this puzzle: Accountability. It is the glue that binds each element of the framework. Special attention should be placed on mindfully tracking progress and iterating it back into the process. It is vital for continued long-term success. At the end of each loop in the framework (end of the day for actions, end of the week for plans, end of the month for goals, and end of the quarter for values) you’ll dedicate time to review the results and decide how helpful it was at progressing you towards the outcomes you value. We’ll go into more detail around how to approach this exercise soon as this step may be the most critical (and the one skipped by most people!) Accountability is where you learn what’s working and what’s not, and gain the insight to make improvements. Without it your outcomes may never change so I’ve dedicated a later section to discussing the fundamentals and mindset around this. We now have the complete framework:
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