Hey, my friend, what is up? And welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big. Listen before we dive into today's episode, I really wanted to make sure that you got your hands on my completely free quiz. It's to identify what your entrepreneurial persona type is. So if you are in business, any kind of business, whether you're new or you've been doing this for years, I have this really short quiz. It doesn't take more than literally 30 seconds. You can just go to kathiruter.com/quiz take the quiz. It will tell you exactly what your entrepreneurial persona type is there are four different options and exactly what you need to do next to break through to your next level in business. So if you're someone who wants to end the year strong, or you want to go into 2025 on fire and make 2025 your best year yet, make sure you grab that in my show notes, and it'll help you out for sure. All right, let's dive into today's episode. Can't even believe that it is already December, can you? You know, I told myself that I was going to be organized, that I was going to get all the things done ahead of time. And here we are, beginning of December. I have a business trip coming up to Arizona in a couple of days, and still haven't really done a darn little ounce of Christmas shopping yet.
You know what? We got all the lights up. We got the Christmas tree. Most of the decorations are up. All that is done, but it's the Christmas shopping. Gosh, I am just really behind the ball on that one this year, but it'll get done. It will all get done. It always does. So we're gonna dive into today's episode. And today's episode is going to be all about happiness. And how many times have you thought that maybe once you had the car or you had the house, or you had the money, or you had the relationship, or you had the achievements, or whatever it is that comes to your mind right now that you'd finally be happier, or that like you finally felt like, oh, I made it now I'm finally happy. Like, once this happens, I will be so happy, because I have x, y, z, right? How many times has that happened and you have one of those things actually come true, and you feel happier for like a minute, and you're ecstatic and you're over the moon, but then you always end up reverting right back to where you were prior to checking that thing off the list, right? Like, I know you can relate to this, because I've had this happen to myself as well, where, you know, you think, once you have the business, once you have a certain amount of money in the bank account, once you finally get rid of all the debt, okay, I'm gonna feel so much happier now, and you're excited about it, and then it's always like, right back to where you were. And that's because there's a psychological phenomenon called the hedonic treadmill, which is basically your baseline level of happiness after experiencing some kind of positive or negative event.
So, it can be either or, and everyone's baseline for happiness is different, and we're going to learn how we can raise that level today. Because I don't know about you, but I am all about being the happiest version of myself, and I talk to so many people every day, and it's like one of the most common things that they say is that they just want to be happier, or they just want to feel happier, right? So think about this hedonic treadmill. If you think about actually running on a treadmill, no matter how fast you run, you're actually really not going anywhere, right? You're in the same place, but your legs are moving faster, but you're not going anywhere. So in life, it's the same thing. It's no matter how many external things that you achieve or check off your box, your happiness levels will eventually always stabilize every single time, which in turn, you. Usually then makes us hungry for more to want to just okay. Now I need to go and create this next thing. Now I need to go and check this next thing off the box. Now I need to go and hit this achievement, because we're constantly chasing it. So you have some really positive event happen, like maybe, let's just use hitting the lottery, for example. I don't even like using that example, but let's just use it right? So you hit the lottery, and studies have actually found that people who win the lottery within one year revert right back to their baseline level of happiness. And now, on the flip side, imagine if something really negative happens, you have, like, a major life setback, you know, losing a job, or you suffer some kind of an injury after about a year, those same people, in a study that they did, they weren't any happier or sadder after those events. So it just shows you that no matter how big the event is, whether it's a positive or a negative event, after about a year, you most likely will find yourself right back to how you felt prior to that event happening. And so let's talk about and think about material possessions here for a second. You know, how many times have we thought that if we have that thing, then we'll be happier. You know? And it's not necessarily a thing. This could also be a career, career aspirations, any of these, the boost in happiness always reverts back, and then we develop this new urge to get something else. And people are constantly searching for that next thing in life. And the cycle just goes on and on and on and on. And this can happen in all areas of our life, not just with material possessions, not just with careers. It can happen with relationships. It can happen with fitness, goals, achievements. The happiness and excitement lasts for a little bit, but then it always goes away. And what this boils down to is really us misjudging what is actually going to bring us true happiness. And so the real question is, how do I increase my baseline level of happiness? And that's what this whole episode was about, right? Like, how can we actually be happier? How can we raise our baseline level of happiness? Because if external things and achievements and all of that that I just went over doesn't actually increase it for the long term, then how can we do that? Right? What should I be focusing on in order to increase my happiness? Or am I just really, just gonna stay this way forever? No, you don't have to. So the biggest shift to help you be happier is to stop focusing on external things and start focusing on internal fulfillment. What fulfills you? Really stop and think about that. And fulfillment is something that's different for everyone. There's no right or wrong answer. So do you know what fulfillment means to you? Because if not, then you need to get clear on that first that is your very first step.
So I'm going to share with you six tips on what you can start doing today to increase your baseline level of happiness. So number one is to practice gratitude. And when I'm talking about practicing gratitude here, I want you to really focus on what you already have and really be grateful for it versus what you lack. A lot of times, we go down the wrong path of focusing on the things that we don't have, the things that we wish we had the things that other people have, that you wish that you had the amount of money that you wish that you had the material things that we wish, and we're forgetting all of the things that we already have, things that we have to be grateful for. So focus on what you already have versus what you lack. You know, have you ever heard this quote before? I heard this a long time ago, and the quote was, a healthy man wants a million things, and an unhealthy man only wants one thing, right? So if you got your health, if you go to your health baby, and you woke up today, there's your something to be grateful for, because 150,000 people did not wake up today. So it doesn't need to be this big, huge thing that you need to be grateful for. Doesn't need to be this, like massive amount of money or this big, huge achievement. Just find the little things to be grateful for and just actively look for those little things every day.
Second tip is to focus on intrinsic goals. And intrinsic goals are wanting to improve yourself, because when you start to feel like you're personally getting better and becoming a better version of yourself, you automatically, as a byproduct of that, become happier. So find little goals within yourself that you want to work towards, and you'll become happier.
The third tip is to focus on being present more. Now, listen, I know, because I am guilty of it too, especially with the phones and social media. You know, if you actually just, you know, sit around and look at everybody walking around, it's like a bunch of zombies with our heads down in the phones. I was literally in the Target parking lot earlier today waiting for my grocery. Used to be brought to my car, yes, because I didn't feel like going in. I was in my pajamas, so I did a pickup, and I was just sitting there people watching, because I love to do that. And I saw this guy literally get out of his car on his phone, head down, shut the door, head down, looking at his phone, and proceed to walk through the parking lot, through the crosswalk area, up to target where all the cars are driving without even looking at once. On, this is not even an exaggeration, like, literally didn't even walk and didn't even look up once. And I thought that is so sad. Like, how dumb does that look, right? Like, so just, I know it's easy to get distracted, and especially in the world that we live in, with the rushing around everywhere. We gotta be here, we gotta be there. We gotta get to work. We gotta get the kids. You know how it is, it's just crazy. But try to just focus on being present. More. Stop rushing around so much, right? Like you'll get there, when you'll get there, the things will eventually get done, the more that you can get into, like the here and right now, like really being here in the right now versus being in your head. Because when you're in your head and you're not present here, right, when you're in your head, you're always in the future or the past, when you're in your head and you're not living in the moment, right? So the more that you can get out of your head, the more present in the moment that you can actually be, and that will help you be more happier. That'll help you increase your baseline level of happiness.
All right, the fourth tip is to focus on experiences over materialistic possessions. I don't know about you, but what really matters most to me is the experiences where you can make memories with the people that you love. When you make a memory and you have an experience, it's something that you can literally have with you forever. You can think about it, it'll make you happy. It intrinsically makes you happier. So try doing that. Try focusing on experiences over the actual possessions, and your baseline level of happiness will increase.
The fifth tip is to build strong relationships. They actually did a study that showed that quality relationships not quantity. It didn't matter how many friends you had. It mattered that you had quality friendships, quality relationships in your life. In this study, was shown to be one of the strongest and biggest predictors of longevity in people. For people who went on to live long lives, the people who went on to live these long lives had quality, strong relationships in their life.
And the last tip I'm going to share with you is to focus on helping others. Right. Get out of doing the thing, doing things like for yourself, you know, where, like, you know, sometimes you can get wrapped up in, well, you know, I want the eyes on me. I want the attention on me. You start to like, only do things because of how it's going to make you look, because of your perception that you want people to have. Of you get away from that and just focus on doing something small every day to help someone else, and that, in turn, will also raise your level of happiness.
So I hope that today's episode helped you out. If you loved it and it helped you out in any way, share it on your Instagram. Tag me @dolifebigpodcast, or you can tag me @katherinereuter, and you know, I love you. Thank you so much for being here. You're awesome, and I will see you the next time. Bye.
