Conscious Living and Joy

I want to share something I’ve been reflecting on lately about how we attach our happiness to outcomes. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking “When I make $X, then I’ll be happy” or “Once I achieve Y goal, I’ll feel successful.” These aren’t bad goals in themselves, but the alignment of our joy, future state, or feelings with their outcomes is where we get into trouble.

Taking Complete Responsibility

In The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, you learn to take complete responsibility. I didn’t originally understand what that meant. It’s easy to say “I’ll take complete responsibility for X”—meaning the outcome of a goal, for example—and then still attack that goal in an unconscious way.

In this macro-level thinking about responsibility, I’m trying to frame my responsibility for my feelings, my joy, and my internal value of self and success as completely within my control, regardless of the outcomes of any specific day.

Expectations and Disappointment

My mother always told me that the only thing in life that leads to disappointment is expectation. She said you could do one of two things: change the expectation, or change the outcome. I think this is great advice, except we sometimes keep too much attachment to outcomes we can’t control. Even in situations where we can control something, it’s just a learning opportunity if it didn’t work out the way we originally wanted.

In either situation, finding joy in life is possible if you make the conscious decision to do so.

Making It a Great Day

I’ve said for years, “It will be a great day if you make it a great day.” This statement is a mentality, and it doesn’t stop bad things from happening or plans from going awry. What it does say, though, is that if I accept the feelings that come from those situations (anger, sadness, joy, creative spark, whatever) I can welcome that feeling and embrace it, good, bad, or otherwise. Feel it all the way to completion and release it, thereby giving myself back the joy in my day.

The Journey

I do have to say that I’m still really bad at this. It is so hard to be successful at this way of operating every day. And yet, it has become my unyielding goal in life. I believe that this level of consciousness will lead me to great things, and honestly, I think it puts me in a much closer, connective relationship with my higher power.

When you read all of this, you may roll your eyes or think it sounds hokey. It probably does. I invite you to consider a world where this set of thoughts is just as true, or truer than the preconceived notions you are basing your life outlook on. Maybe try it. Don’t take my word for it—go read The 15 Commitments, and see if it can help change you for the better!

73, Cliff