The Happiness Trap

The reality is, life involves pain. There’s no getting away from it. As human beings we are all faced with the fact that sooner or later we will grow infirm, get sick and die. Sooner or later we all will lose valued relationships through rejection, separation or death. Sooner or later we all will come face-to-face with a crisis, disappointment and failure. This means that in one form or another, we are all going to experience painful thoughts and feelings.

Focus On What’s In Your Control
Whatever you attempt to do, you’ll get the best results when you focus on what is in your control (and the worst results when you focus on what’s not in your control).

So what is in your control? Well, mainly two things: your actions and your attention. You can control the actions you take, no matter what your thoughts and feelings may be telling you (as long as you are aware of your internal experience and you focus on what you’re doing). And you can control how you direct your attention; that is, what you focus on and whether you do so with openness, interest and receptiveness.

Using the six core principles of ACT can help you rise to the Serenity Challenge:

When unhelpful thoughts arise, defuse them. When unpleasant feelings arise, make room for them. And whatever your values are, be faithful to them.

Applying ACT In Different Domains of Life

Feeling Stuck?
It may be that you’ve reached this point in the book and still haven’t made many (or any) significant changes. If that’s what’s happening, you’ve probably come up against one or more components of FEAR:

Fusion with unhelpful thoughts.

Expectations that are unrealistic.

Avoidance of discomfort.

Remoteness from values.

So if you’re feeling stuck or you’re putting off taking action, take a few moments to identify what’s getting in your way and think about how to resolve it.

If you’re fusing with unhelpful thoughts like ‘It’s too hard’, ‘I can’t do it’, ‘It won’t work’, ‘I can’t be bothered’, ‘I’ll do it later’, then practise defusion skills.

If your expectations are unrealistic, break your goals down into smaller steps, give yourself more time and allow yourself to make mistakes.

If you’re avoiding uncomfortable feelings such as fear or anxiety, practise your expansion skills and develop willingness.

If you’re remote from your values, then keep asking yourself: ‘What do I really care about?’ ‘What really matters deep in my heart?’ ‘What sort of person do I want to be?’ ‘Deep down inside, what do I really want?’

And if you’re not quite sure how to implement these solutions, then go back to the relevant chapters in the book. This book was never intended to be read just once and integrated fully into your life. It’s intended to be used as a reference book. As often as you need to, go back to the relevant chapters and read them again. (And if you’ve read through the book without doing any of the exercises, now’s the time to go back and actually do them.)

But before we go any further, let’s recap the six core principles of ACT:

have seen many people face a serious diagnosis—cancer, heart disease, a stroke—and completely re-evaluate their lives as a result. But we don’t have to wait until death is looking us in the eyes; we can commit to making meaningful changes whenever we choose to. And in keeping that commitment, we create a meaningful life.

A core theme in this book is that life involves pain. Sooner or later we all experience it—physically, emotionally and psychologically. But in every painful life circumstance there is an opportunity for us to grow

The point is, you can appreciate the journey of life, no matter how far you are from your destination. Edison valued the process of scientific discovery and was therefore able to appreciate that each individual experiment furthered his scientific knowledge, regardless of the results.