How to make time for happiness when you have a busy day

1. . How to make time for happiness when you have a busy day… By: Rachel Rofe

2. Question: Why do we want more pleasure?

3. First thing, a lot of us are just going, going, going, and thinking that the more we work the more productive we're going to be. Productivity is such a buzz word and yes, like I'm into productivity too, but the reality is we're going to be more productive when we stop to take care of ourselves. And you've probably noticed that yourself. I was actually just reading an article. There was a guy who spent a year doing productivity experiments and every month for a year he went and he did some other productivity experiment. So one thing was meditating for five hours every day. One thing was the Pomodoro Technique and he tried all these different things. And when he wrapped up the year, he had a top-ten list of his top ten lessons from that year, and one of them was that working too much actually shatters your productivity. It burns you out.

4. The first thing that I would even say to people who are just go, go, go all the time is challenge the notion that working all the time is actually helpful. I know you may say, “Well, I have deadlines, I have things to do,” but I've found, and many people have found, that when you give yourself less time to do things, but it's more focused time, magically that stuff gets done way faster. So if you haven't yet listened to the podcast with Becca P. Australia about play, that might be something that would help you. And then the other thing is with self care, pleasure, there are all kinds of side benefits to taking care of yourself. It's going to help you feel more creative. You're going to be able to show up better for other people. So you'll be able to be a better family member, and partner, and if you work be able to be a better worker, a business owner, whatever it is.

5. It's going to be a lot healthier for you. So when you're constantly in a state of stress your body is in a fight or flight mode. So that might mean that you gain weight, you're adrenals burn out, you're exhausted all the time, you're cranky. And overall you're just going to be happier. And then, of course, there's the litmus test of just when you're on your death bed do you want to live with regrets. Do you want to look back and say, “I was really productive and I got a lot done.” Or do you want to say that you took advantage of the things that life had to offer. So those are just a couple of things to kind of frame why taking care of yourself is so important. I can go on and on and on about them, but I want to make this an episode that's kind of short and easy to digest.

6. One of the things about pleasure is that the truth is that it's a muscle. It's just something that you need to build. So if you could even just take 15 minutes every day to build up that muscle it's going to increase the quality of your life in a major way. Now, I also just want to call a spade a spade here, and be honest that it's lazy, actually it’s really lazy to not take the time to take care of yourself, because it's easier to just go through and be in a go, go, go mode when you're in that state of constantly go it takes conscious work to stop and be able to slow down. So if you can just either see this as that, if you don't identify yourself as a lazy person, maybe that will help just that mindset shift of realizing that it's going to take a little bit of work for you to take care of yourself. But it's amazing how good you'll feel when you're done.

7. Couple of different things that you can do to incorporate pleasure into your day.

9. Even if it's just 15 minutes every morning and you wake up before the other people in your house, do something that sets your tone for the day. Now, I talk a lot about morning routines because they're amazing. They’re amazing. They will help give you a sense of groundedness, if you have a lot of chaos in your life. They give your day a structure. They give your day a framework, so if you start the morning doing something that you enjoy, it’s just going to have you feel a little bit more… just happier and just like the day is set off a lot better versus let's say waking up and chasing the kids, or looking at your email or whatever it is.

10. And another reason why I like a morning routine so much is even if everything else goes crazy and you have zero time later on for anything else, you have no time for pleasure, at least you know when you get up in the morning it's done. So in the first 15 minutes, or however much time you can give yourself, 15 minutes, I’m saying is a minimum. If you can give yourself an hour, great, awesome. Ask yourself whatever is going to bring you the most pleasure in that moment. Maybe it's going to be read a gossip magazine with a mug of tea. Maybe it's meditate, maybe it's take a bath, or go for a walk, or going on a dance break. Have a dance break. Just ask yourself what would feel the best to you besides going back to bed and then just do it.

11. There's an awesome book called “The Morning Miracle” by Hal Elrod. That will give you some great ideas, too. And I know a lot of people have been doing that morning routine that he recommends and just waking up so happy. I also actually have a book coming out about just five minute different things that you can do in the morning that will really help your day get set up for success. If you go to RachelRofe.com/booklist it might be there by the time you listen to this.

13. Just like you would make sure to fit in a meeting for your work schedule, schedule massages, schedule classes you want to take, schedule time to connect with people. You can schedule these, like I want to have a half hour call with my best friend, or anything that brings you joy. Just treat it like a work obligation and make sure that you make time to do it.

15. One of the things that we do in the Facebook group is choose a word every day, just kind of like your guiding word. It gives your brain a place to go when you're default might be negative. What I mean is let's say you have a super stressful day and you're in a constant state of reaction. If you choose a word that's going to guide you for the day; and let's say ease, which was my word yesterday. Then you start looking at things in a way where you say, “How can I choose ease in this moment?” Or, “How can I make this situation be full of ease?” I know this might sound crazy, but it just really… it asks yourself the right question so that instead of being in that default negative state you just start to switch things around for yourself, and you start to take control of your happiness.

17. What I've found is that when you're going all the time, you're very much in your head and when you stop and take a few deep breaths, it just has a really nice way of reminding you of the truth, which is that everything is fine. You know, you practice and you're in control.

19. Especially if you're focused on being more productive. You might be listening to audio books when you're driving, or doing different things, like if you have a few extra minutes instead of doing something for yourself you might go and catch up on emails. So instead of trying to maximize every last second, do something for you. Instead of listening to the audio book, play songs that you can sing and dance to in your car. Instead of taking a few minutes to catch up on email, maybe go take a walk.

21. So, for example, if you have kids, and you feel like, “Well, that slows me down a lot.” There are things that you can do that are going to bring you pleasure, you and your kids. It all comes down to just asking yourself what would bring all of us, what would make us all have fun, so maybe that's something like blowing bubbles together, or you dance together, color together, finger paint, play with squirt guns outside, make snow angels if it's snowing, fly kites, act silly. Whatever will bring you happiness, just do it.

23. It's an idea where you basically have a go-to pleasure basket full of things that bring you pleasure and make you happy. Some of the things that you might put in the basket that you can go to any time you just want a boost, it might be you have bubbles in there; either bubble bath or bubbles to blow. An iPod full of songs that you like, essential oils that you like, a guilty pleasure book or a magazine, some delicious dark chocolate, or milk chocolate if that's what you want. A hand massager, a tea bag, a comedy DVD, nail polish, coloring book, a yoyo, candle, a book of yoga stretches, journal, thank-you cards, those punching balloons that you can blow up and play with. Just anything that's going to make you happy so that you have things on hand whenever you want to increase the joy in your life.

25. Danielle LaPorte has this amazing book, The Desire Map, and she talks about having your core desire feelings. In there she talks about… talk about the ways that you want to be feeling most of the time, or really all the time. And it's kind of like I said choose a word for the day. If you have a few core words all the time, make decisions based on those feelings. A lot of us tend to be over givers, but when we're clear in how we want to feel all the time and then we make decisions in line with how we want to feel, it's going to help us live lives that feel better to us. It will make it easier to say no because, for example, if one of your feelings that you want to feel is ease, and you have people asking you to do all these favors, and you realize that you're not in service of yourself if you say yes, then it all starts to just slowly help you realize, “Actually, no, that's not something I want to do. That's not going to serve me, it's not going to serve my feelings that I really want to create in my life.” So that would definitely be something that's really helpful.

27. Let's say after eight o'clock or nine o'clock, it's non-negotiable, you're just going to do things that bring you enjoyment, period. So that's something else that you can do. I know that one's harder one, but it's really, really helpful, it's better for your health, too, to just be able to wind down. Your sleep is going to be better and you'll wake up more motivated every morning, too. Again, I just wanted to give you a bunch of different ideas. If multiple ones, or even just one popped out at you, try that and see how it works. And then you can either fit more in our try a new one whatever.

28. If you'd like to hear the whole interview (and more just like this) head to: http://rachelrofe.com/subscribe