Just One Joey: The Process Of Happy

I wish I could be happy.

I don’t want to be sad.

I don’t want to feel like my life is going nowhere.

I don’t want to feel like I am wasting away.

How can I be happy?

The first step to being happy is recognizing that you have everything you need to be happy right now, right this second, you just need to access it. You are not happy because you are not allowing yourself to be happy. It is a choice you are making, whether you realize it or not. That can change right now.

Your life is a combination of habits.

Good habits. Bad habits.

Sleep habits, fat habits, thin habits, drinking habits, sad habits, and happy habits.

Happy and sad habits? How does that work? How can I have a happy habit?

It’s a process. You create habits of being happy, and in turn, you create a process of being happy.

The process of being happy is …………….. having a process.

A process to your morning.

A process to your day.

A process to your life.

Since this is primary election season, think of it like a checks and balances for your “Happy Meter.” You are the Happy Railroad Company and every time you get off the tracks there is a place to jump back on around every corner. You will never be off for too long. That in itself should make you pretty happy. Shitty morning? You don’t have to be sad, just jump right back on just around the corner. You have a process! Check it, and balance it. Someone ate your tuna fish sandwich? Don’t worry, you can jump right back on just up ahead. You don’t have to be unhappy for long, because happiness is a process throughout your day. You are “checking” and “balancing” all day long. Gotta love the Democratic life process we have going here.

Books to help your process:

Mental: The Miracle Morning, Radical Acceptance, Mindset, Choose Yourself, Awaken TheGiant Within, Love Yourself

Physical: Reboot Your Body, The 4 Hour Body

Productivity: The 4 Hour Work Week, Crush It, The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth, Success Principals, Unlimited Power

Building Your Process

How do you get this process?

A lot of people I read and listen to will tell you to pick a destination and go full steam ahead until you get there. The process? Grind, grind, grind. That may work for success in a sense, maybe. It will almost definitely work in burning you out.

You don’t need a destination, you need a direction.

Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Find your Northern Star, your guide, then start walking. Obstacles will be on your path. Weather may be an issue. Cloudy with a chance of assholes tomorrow? Snow flurries and shitheads next week? Its ok. It doesn’t change anything. Just look up, find your star, and keep moving. You have a direction. As long as you keep moving there is nothing to bring you down for too long.

80% of success is just showing up.

If you keep walking, your success is inevitable. And isn’t that what happiness boils down to? Being successful? A successful parent? A successful child? Successful partner? Successful in business? That’s what we want. A successful life. Does that mean money? Maybe. It means being able to look at where you have been, where you are and where you are going and knowing that you are doing your best. Really doing your best. Not doing a shitty job, getting defensive and saying you are doing your best. I mean deep down, in your guts, “I am doing this” kind of doing your best.

A process allows you to say that. I am doing my best. I am showing up every day. I am here. I am constantly getting better, every day.

I am happy.

My process consists of (generally in this order): affirmation, meditation, education (not rhyming intentionally, this is not a Mike Dyson speech), cardio, healthy eating, working my ass off, weight lifting, family time, sleep.

Sounds like a lot, huh? I agree. It doesn’t feel like it though. And it really, really works. Really.

Affirmations: Write down 10 things you want to have or have accomplished in 10 years. Write them down every single morning. 7 days a week, 52 weeks, 365 days (don’t forget it’s leap year this year. That’s more days for affirmations!). Doing this reminds you every morning what you are striving for, what you are working so hard for, what you are focused on. They will slightly adjust, maybe a few things will be added by the end of the first month, but after that point, these are your affirmations. They are your babies. They are staring at you every day, at the beginning of the day, to keep you focused. Haven’t worked on one in a while? You will know it that morning, and every other morning.

After I write out my affirmations, I always make two lists of things I am grateful for. One is a list of things I was grateful for yesterday, and one is things I am looking forward to today. How can you be happy if you aren’t grateful? Exactly!

2. Meditation: After your affirmations, put on some headphones, some nice relaxing music or noises (I Iisten to the ocean), and just relax, for 10-20 minutes. Take deep breaths, get your blood moving through your lungs, push out the toxins that built up overnight. “In with the good, out with the bad.” I recommend a mantra, something positive. You don’t want to be telling yourself you are a piece of shit for 20 minutes. Something like, “I love myself.” “I am smart and I am going to figure this out.” “No one can stop me.” Something reassuring. Something to build yourself up. I know you will feel like a douchebag pumping yourself up like Stuart Smalley, but your brain loves it and will help your words and thoughts meet reality. You don’t have to tell people you sound like a hippy meditating every morning, just do it. It can be our little secret.

3. Education: READ READ READ!!!!!! What are your goals? What do you want to do? What do you want to be? Find people that have done it. Read their books. James Altucher says something along the lines of, “You only have one life, but you can live vicariously through all your heroes and have their lives too.” James, if I messed that up, I’m sorry, but it’s at least in the same spirit.

Stop reading the news. Who cares what crazy thing Trump said? Fighting in the Middle East? Wow. Same headline 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 1000 years ago. I have a scroll from 34 B.C. (not really). The headline? “Fighting In The Middle East!”

Put down the People Magazine, stop looking at TMZ. Who gives a shit what the Duggars are doing? The Housewives? Who cares? They are probably fighting. Stop filling your brain with garbage. Stop filling the fridge with cakes. You aren’t leaving any room for the veggies man!

The more you read about your goals, the more you think about your goals. The more you think about your goals the more ideas you will have to reach your goals. All of a sudden, your goals are right in front of you. That doesn’t happen looking up Kimye. Get it? Got it? Good!

4. Cardio: Run, walk, ride a bike, swim, whatever, just move! Get your blood flowing! Flowing through your muscles, flowing to your brain. Some of my best thinking is while I am running. It is like an extended meditation. Have a problem at minute 2? Probably figured out by minute 54. Take walks in the middle of the day. It’s amazing for your body and your mind.

5. Healthy Eating: Drop the sugar and walk away. You need a healthy gut and healthy body in order to be your best. You can read and work out all you want, but if you eat like shit, you will be shit. Not literally. No one eats shit. Except my dog. She’s gross. Healthy food = healthy gut = less inflammation = less sickness = more dopamine released in your system = clearer thinking = happier. Boom! Healthy tummy time. Veggies, healthy fats, no breads (at least eat them after a workout or towards the end of the day). Be smart. No processed stuff.

WORK YOUR ASS OFF!!!!!: Don’t leave anything on the table. There is no substitute for being a productive powerhouse. The best part about # 6, is if “life” happens one day and you don’t get everything accomplished that you wanted to, you have this process in place to make it up tomorrow. Then you can be happy!

Don’t text, Facebook, Tweet, or look at boobies online. This is productive time. Unless you work at one of those companies or are plastic surgeon, there is no reason to be looking at any of those things if you are really trying to get something. It is work time. Be productive the whole time. Every minute you waste is just more time in between you and your goals. And for what? So you can check your likes? Fuck your likes. Like work.

7. Weightlifting: The fountain of youth! Lifting heavy weights is shown to keep your body more youthful than anything else you can do (Botox is just a mask, it doesn’t do anything for you physiologically. That, and you look emotionless. Are you smiling or frowning? I can’t tell). Decompress the day by compressing your muscles. You need a release, do it in the gym. Or do it like me, put a gym in your garage. This allows for major productivity. Taking out drive time, changing time, parking, blah blah blah. It’s awesome. I listen to podcasts of people with information I want, which means I am learning and lifting at the same time. Booya.

8. Family: Spend time with your family or loved ones every day. Eat dinner together. Play board games. Read together. Tuck your kids in at night. Tell them you love them. Give love. Feel love. Do this every day. Love is wonderful. Remember to love yourself first. Be happy with where you are. Set yourself up for happiness and success and love. Share that with the people you love.

9. Sleep: You work hard all day. You are a grinder. You did all your steps, your whole process. Now you need to recover. The only way to do that is sleep. 8-9 hours. Get some good recovery sleep. Get the orange glasses so you can produce melatonin faster and recover more. Get some eye covers so you block out all the light so your brain doesn’t go nuts while you are sleeping. Prep your sleep. Don’t watch crazy shows right before bed. Read something. Not TMZ!! Read something you want to learn. That way you can think about it while you dream. Be calm before you go to bed. You need good sleep so you can be just a little bit better tomorrow.

This sounds like a lot of work Joey!!!

It is.

Aaaand it isn’t.

Stop being a baby.

If it was easy everyone would be doing it.

You are not everyone.

You are special.

You are happy.

These are “happy” markers throughout your whole day. Off the tracks? There is a happy marker around the corner to get you back on. No need to worry. No need to overreact. Things will soon be better. You are habitually happy now. Who the hell can say that? You can!

This process gets you to where you want to go. If you trust the process, you will be happy, because you know you are doing what you need to do to get to where you want to go.

Here is a breakdown of my day. Not much room to be unhappy.

5am-515am – affirmations

515am-535am – meditation

535am-615am – reading/drinking coffee

615am-620am – (hopefully) poopy time

620am-7am – breakfast with wife and daughter (making and eating)

7am-8am – cardio

8am-830am – shower/eat

830am-330pm – work my balls off

330pm-5pm – lift weights/listen to podcasts/take notes/write down ideas

5pm-530pm – shower/eat

530pm-630pm – make/eat dinner with family

630pm-7pm – play games/read with family

7pm-830pm – read/hang out with wife

9pm – sleepy time

To be honest, at any point during the day I could feel like a loser. Like I will not be successful in whatever I am working on. We all get down. The idea is to minimize that. The thing that allows me to be happy is knowing that I have done everything before than moment, and I will do everything after that moment to get better and be successful. I can be happy in trusting the process. Even if I was not successful that day, or that hour, I have everything in place to be successful tomorrow, and the day after, and next week. Failure is short term. It is part of the learning process. I can’t fail! I have slept, eaten well, worked out, etc. I am a machine. I keep pushing forward, and that makes me happy. That makes me VERY happy.

I am happy with the process, which allows me to be happy with my life.

I will always be ok, no matter what comes my way.

I trust the process:

The process of success.
The process of creativity.
The process of productivity.

The process of happy.

Talk to you soon,

Joey

Books to help your process:

Mental: The Miracle Morning, Radical Acceptance, Mindset, Choose Yourself, Awaken TheGiant Within, Love Yourself

Physical: Reboot Your Body, The 4 Hour Body