According to social psychologist Dan Gilbert people who recently became paraplegics are as happy one year later as people who won the lottery.

The paraplegic adjusted expectations upward.

Lottery winners adjusted what they had anticipated it would be like to be rich downward.

We know by now that money doesn’t buy happiness and that we overestimate how getting what we want will feel.  Never mind that chasing success breeds anxiety that in itself causes unhappiness.

The solution is to not focus as much on getting what you want and instead develop the ability to see what comes your way as an adventure that leads you to places you never imagined.  These adventures never seem to disappoint when we open ourselves to them.

Accepting does not mean not caring.  It means being hyperaware that some new person, new opportunity, new thing or new adventure is about ready to visit us.

Will we be ready to see it and take it for a test drive?

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Joseph Lovett is a 72-year old filmmaker who produced a documentary about his journey into blindness from glaucoma.

New York Times opinion writer Frank Bruni, also facing potential blindness, wrote about Lovett and his inspiring way to deal with a worry that life changing and overwhelming.

Here is Lovett’s advice:

“…you cannot spend your life preparing for future losses”

It compromises the good that is occurring in the present and discounts the fact that everyone sooner or later is faced with adversity.

When obsessed with worry, become obsessed with the only sure thing you have – life here and now.

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The brain reacts more from negative thoughts than positive.

We learn faster from pain than pleasure.

When burned, we back off and avoid.

Painful experiences are more memorable than pleasurable ones.

We work harder at trying not to lose something than to gain the same things.

These are observations from Rick Hanson’s book Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time.

The message is we must work harder to enjoy the benefits of being positive but most often spend too much time reacting to the anxiety caused by negative thoughts and actions.

Retrain your brain to hear you say the positive things that happen to you.

You may have to think hard because we tend to easily remember what’s wrong and have a more difficult time recalling what is right.

Take these positive thoughts and dwell on them for just a few minutes – or many times during a day.

There is clinical evidence that we can reprogram how we think by actively recalling the positives in life and not just feeling overwhelmed by the negative.

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47% of parents say they are worried that their children are addicted to cell phones (source: Common Sense Media).

But only 32% say they are addicted.

Phone addiction is becoming such a problem that Apple, Google and Facebook are being pressured to come up with solutions to help young people become less addicted.

The fear of missing out on something is great with a cell phone in hand.

Being left out of social media conversations is a powerful motivation to stay connected.

Cell Phone New Rules:

1. Divide your apps into ones you check vs. the black hole apps of social media.
2. The first two screens have Uber, Lyft, Open Table – things that are useful and not time consuming.
3. Put time wasting social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and Twitter in a social media folder on the third screen.  When you go there, be cognizant of the time you are using so that you don’t keep scrolling and clicking your way to addiction.
4. Make a call when multiple texts are required.
5. Spend as much time face to face with others as you do connected on the phone.

Balance is the only answer for cell phone addiction and courage.

The courage to change the way you use this tool now.

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Learn to love taking the blame.

That’s what entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk says.

 “…because once I do we can work toward coming up with solutions instead of talking endlessly about the problem”.

There is nothing wrong with being human.

No one is right all the time.

Embracing being human – subject to mistakes and bad decisions – is a liberating thing.  Holding on to being right about everything is stressful and not believable.

Turn the focus toward finding solutions not more ways to prove you are right.

There is nothing wrong with being human.  No one is right all the time.

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People don’t want advice.

They want someone to listen to them without passing judgment and – and this is the hard part – without offering any solutions.

Advice is a misnomer.

It should be to listen.

Do they really want help with their divorce or a sounding board to air their frustrations and concerns?

Do they really truly want career advice or do they want to vent about the job they hate because even if you share with them a gem of wisdom, they’re likely not going to hear it or act on it.

Does the person who lost a loved one want to hear “be strong”, “they lived a long happy life” or “they’re in a better place” when there are no words to convey loss.  Just being there is the elixir that makes a difference.

The ears are more powerful than the mouth when it comes to “advising” others – it is the little-known secret of human relations.

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Why do we start a conversation with a pitch to get the other person to change their mind?

It never works, but we still do it.

First, make a friend.

Help the other person open their ears and potentially their mind to what you’re saying.

Begin every conversation with a sincere compliment.

“Thanks for giving me some of your valuable time”

“There is a lot of wisdom in what you say”

“You always seem to be open to different points of view”

Or, if you know them well, a sincere personal comment.  Sincerity is key because otherwise communication is just manipulation.

You’d never consider drinking a bottle of water without first opening it and a wise person never starts a conversation without helping to get the other person to open up to receiving your message.

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Yes is not an intention, it’s a promise.

A commitment.

“Yessing someone to death” may be a dismissive way to avoid doing what you don’t like but there are other more effective ways such as saying no.

Every time we say yes consider it a promise that you will make sure to honor.

And when others say yes to us be prepared to hold them to their promise.

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Out of bad comes good.

I wrote a book by this name several years ago because I found that people who faced adversity also accomplished great things.

The best thing that could have happened is for no shooting to take place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.  No injuries.  No loss of life.  But that is not the world we live in.

The next best thing is to see victims speaking and vowing to do what they can to be the last in the U.S. to ever have a shooting incident.

When they succeed, significant good will come out of a heartbreaking incident.

Adversity introduces us to ourselves and to those around us.

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It’s wrong and it’s unnecessary.

One of the many reasons 52% of the people between the age of 19 and 39 – Millennials – feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety as their number one health complaint.  And it’s surely not limited to that age group.

When you are doing two things at once, you have failed to prioritize.

More doesn’t mean more efficient.

When I asked a class of students if they’d like to learn how to accomplish more by doing less, only one student out of 44 reluctantly said yes (she felt sorry for the professor, no doubt).

The answer is to prioritize.

What’s most important and then what’s second most important.

What may be important someday.

Human nature is such that we work on what’s easiest to do without regard to whether it is most important.

This is the year to stop multitasking and start prioritizing.

Just because we have tools in our hands that allow us to do many things at once does not mean that it makes us any more productive or happier.

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