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We’re a few months into our new phase of life as a gym community and our “advancing happy” movement. I’ve been talking about happiness a LOT with so many people since then, and I’m absolutely loving it.

One of the things that tends to come up a lot is how subjective happiness is. What looks like happy to me might look terrible to someone else and vise versa.

That’s what’s beautiful about this world. We aren’t the same. We’re all so different. Different likes, preferences, styles … everything!

But, we are still fundamentally human, and as humans we are all very aware of feelings of contentment, comfort, and happiness.

Feelings though, are just that… feelings. They don’t do anything. They don’t help us accomplish anything real. They’re just, there. So why are we chasing feelings? Especially whenever we can’t help feelings. Feelings just show up. You can’t help it if you feel sad. You can’t help it if you feel happy. You can’t help it if *insert whatever feeling here* shows up in between your ears. These things are out of your control. 

But you know what is in your control? Your actions, each and every day.

That’s why instead of chasing feelings, I believe we should chase behaviors and habits.

Look, before I go any further, this is NOT one of those “discipline > motivation” talks. Having elite levels of discipline is actually the highest form of intrinsic motivation (Sorry, Jocko). If anyone screams “more discipline” at you, or if they say something like, “Well you just have to work on your discipline” I can assure you that they have not coached enough humans.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, chasing behaviors and actions.

We talk a lot about happiness here, and more specifically, “happy.” If you aren’t sure what “advancing happy” means, I’d encourage you to read that blog.

The happy that we’re going for here is NOT a feeling. After all, we can’t control feelings or thoughts that just pop up in our head. The happy that we are striving for is a rolling average of our behaviors and habits.

Think about an action or behavior that makes you happy whenever you do it. Working out is a great example here. I don’t know any person that doesn’t feel a sense of happy after a workout.

For me, I really enjoy playing with my kids and the fun feelings it gives me. I really enjoy the feeling of getting work done. I enjoy the feeling of finishing a workout. I enjoy the feeling of completing a project at home. I enjoy the feeling of coaching someone, or publishing something creative out into the world.

Think of some of the things that make you happy.

Now, how do you get the feeling? By committing to the action that precedes said feeling.

Thinking about the feeling is not the same as actually feeling the feeling. (Wow that was a lot of “feeling” there). 

To achieve the feelings, we have to engage in the behavior.

So let’s make a pack, you and me, to begin or continue chasing habits that we know bring about happy, and also positively affect our health.

Are you expected to engage in these habits each day? Well some of them, absolutely, but not all. It’s unreasonable to expect to hit everything everyday, all the time. That’s why we want to continue to think of things as a rolling average of your behavior. Some days will be better than others, but we can still make those low days count with a few habits.

Let’s break these habits down into two categories: Daily and Weekly.

Please notice how I said brings YOU a bit of happy. Don’t do stuff you think you “should” do or what others tell you to do.

Write those down on the attached Yellow Rose habit tracker, and hang that sucker on your fridge. Look at it each day. Ideally, you’ve picked some habits that are easy to engage in each day and week.

“BUT CLARK. SHOULDN’T I BE SHOOTING FOR THE MOON? SHOULDN’T I BE PUSHING MYSELF TO THE LIMIT? SHOULDN’T I BE GOING HARD AS POSSIBLE ALL. THE. TIME?”

No. I don’t think you should.

In fact, I think you should name these habits that you’ve set for yourself “low expectation” habits. If you know for SURE that you can engage in these low expectation behaviors each day, then everything else you do will be bonus. Everyone loves a bonus, right? 

But whenever you start thinking that a bonus day is the norm? Yikes. That’s setting you up for a lot of disappointment, even whenever you’re engaging in behaviors that make you happy.

If there’s one thing that I want you to take away from this, it’s that we should think of our own personal happy as the rolling average of our behaviors. We’re going to be playing this game of life for a long time, and it’s important for all of us to identify what behaviors we can engage in that keep us feeling great, and keep us healthy.

So let’s download this sucker, write it up, stick it on the fridge, and chase these habits. 

Or, if you’re more of a digital person, send me an email at [email protected] with the habits that you want to chase.

See you at your happy place,