I had a friend who told me he hadn’t felt happy in years. Not depressed. Not anxious. Just… empty. And when I asked what he did for fun, he paused for a long time. “I don’t really know anymore,” he said.
Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research found that external achievements account for only about ten percent of lasting happiness. The forty percent within our control? It comes from how we spend our time and what meaning we attach to it.
This week’s podcast episode, I’m going into the psychology of why values-based living is the piece most productivity advice skips entirely, and why that gap is exactly where the emptiness lives.
If you’ve been feeling vaguely stuck without being able to name why, not necessarily burned out, not failing, just feeling off, this episode is for you.
Show notes with time-stamps
0:00 Phoebe’s 101st birthday story
1:13 Playing-it-safe behavior #8: discounting what you really want
2:09 Gabriele Oettingen’s research on mental contrasting
3:01 Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness)
3:53 Sonja Lyubomirsky on lasting wellbeing
4:05 Psychological flexibility meets values
4:54 Guided exercise: imagining your 101st birthday party
6:21 Viktor Frankl on meaning as a primary human drive
7:60 What will you do this week if you weren’t playing-it-safe?
Listen Here
And if you want to map the gap in your own life, my free Values-Based Review, Life Audit is in the show notes.
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