“Why the pursuit of happiness could be pointless”

Published in “The Age- 6th August, 2017” by author of Emotional Agility, psychologist, Susan David. She based the article on 20 years as a coach, and editor of the “Oxford Book of Happiness” in 2013.

Her key points were:

• I’m not anti-happiness, but, happiness comes through not pushing things under the rug.
• People who focus on the idea that “I must be happy”, end up being unhappy.
• What we are failing to recognise is our emotions, our sadness, our frustration, our anger contain really useful data.
• One way to manage excess change is to disengage with social media, which she damns as offering “One of the most toxic ways to be in the world” and living by social comparison.
• Face your thoughts in a non-judgmental way.
• Become more  accepting and compassionate towards yourself.

Cognitive Principle Matrix approach:

The Cognitive Principle Matrix is based on a similar findings and outcomes. It states that rather than pursue happiness, you should pursue growth, because you cannot be happy every day, but you can grow every day if you follow these rules:

• You make positive relationships personal, therefore you use the relationship principles of trust, respect, acceptance and commitment and you grow these.
• You make negative relationships behavioural [never personal], therefore you grow your influencing principles of courage, patience, calmness and self -control.
• When dealing with negative outcomes, you suffer and grow [your influencing] principles, rather than suffer and compare and end up blaming, yourself, others or life’s circumstance.
• Never have resentment against anyone else, because it weakens your influencing principles of calmness etc. Use forgiveness to forgive others and grow acceptance. You do this be splitting the person from their behaviour. Forgive the weak person, but put their behaviour aside. You deal their future behaviour with influencing principles of assertiveness and self control, with clear rules, boundaries and consequences. The truth is, if you can forgive others, then it is easier to forgive yourself and grow.
• Negative emotions always support positive emotions if used in the correct way:

1. Fear provides awareness for trust.
2. Anger provides assertiveness for respect.
3. Criticalness provides evaluation for acceptance or rejection
4. Anxiousness, confusion and guilt provides self-control to commit and fix the problem.

Use the Chart shown below:

• In positive situations move outwards from the core [love, peace & joy]
• In negative situations move inwards to the core and address the situation with influencing principles of courage, etc. If you move outward, then you will activate your back up personality. Eg. Overly controlling will go from anger to rage, overly responsible will go from anxiousness to panic, overly avoidant will go from fear to paranoid fear.