Authenticity : Proactive & Practical Path to Contentment

Authenticity : Owning and acting in accordance with your true self. 

Authenticity is a buzz word in today’s leading edge circles. 

When I gave a speech in Mountain View, CA on the topic, the room was jam packed wall to wall and people were standing.

Our culture craves authenticity.

The reason you crave authenticity is because there is so much in-authenticity in our daily lives.

And in yourself.

Most people are still seeking the answer to life’s big question:

Who am I?

You fight this question all day every day.

Problems leading to in-authenticity and discontent include: 

1) Listening to others beyond yourself

2) Being to busy to make time to self reflect.

3) Being out of touch with the voice inside.

4) Encountering 48 barriers to authenticity

You are told who we are and who you ought to be by our job, family, culture, religion, and education.

You have lost touch with the seed of your own soul’s voice because you focus on the external world so much and pleasing those around you.

As you are externally driven in your achievements, your driving, your eating, your job, and with your family, this leaves little room for self exploration.

Self reflection and introspection are imperative to your heart’s deepest levels of contentment.

Beyond the focus of whatever is going on outside of yourself, you have an absent mindedness where 47% of the time you are thinking of something that isn’t really going on.

If you are listening to others over yourself, if you are never allotting time for your own self reflection, you probably are also out of touch with your own inner voice.

There is a difference from the truth in our mind versus the truth in your heart. The truth in your mind is convoluted with your subconscious belief system and your conscious struggle in achievement and pursuit of inner peace. 

This voice in your heart is where your secret to contentment lies.

Your mind is to smart and will justify things are the way they are or how they should be. 

Your heart simply knows your soul’s truth.

When asked the right questions within the right process, contentment is possible as a real sustainable result.

When you have contentment in your heart, you feel a bold fulfillment in your heart’s center that is ever present, opposite of an empty feeling inside, separate from your emotional state.   

Peace of mind is possible at this point, making the mind a tranquil pond.

Beyond asking the right questions and following the right process, you have to allow empowerment, positive mood and resiliency to be your focus before you are truly able to reach the depths of your contentment.

The depths and breath of the complexity of authenticity are beyond most peoples understanding of the topic.  

Seems simple, right? Just be yourself.

Who knew there were 48 barriers you would potentially have to get though to be totally authentic.

Knowing the answer to Who Am, I then being able to achieve relational transparency is the next step.

Authenticity is owning and acting in accordance with your true self.

Owning your true self takes time. Acting as your true self also takes time.

Not only does it take time, it takes persistence, diligence, acceptance and confidence to overcome any of 48 barriers to authenticity.

I had a 3 month leadership experience in graduate school where I ‘tested’ my authentic leadership and discovered I encountered 30 of the 48 barriers that can steer us toward inauthenticity.

After so much attention and the belief I was being authentic, it was a hard awakening to see the stark difference between what I am saying and what I am thinking and feeling inside.

This led me to a gigantic leap in my self awareness, personal authenticity and gave me true insight on how I was relating with the people I was leading.

The path of authenticity is a spectrum.  It is situational. It is developmental and ever evolving. 

As the development of contentment takes time and effort, once achieved, it is like surfing the best wave life has to offer.

As we all are on the path of self actualization, we need to allow our authenticity to unfold naturally, with conscious awareness, acceptance and confidence. You must spend time with yourself asking the deeper questions and being true to yourself ir-regardless of the barriers we constantly face to develop our truest and deepest heart’s contentment.

Contentment as a form of sustainable happiness.

Authenticity as a construct of Contentment.

21 steps to reach eudaimonia or sustainable contentment.

I am offering a Proactive and Practical Path to Contentment.

This is an illumination of step four of the five steps of sustainable happiness. 

Would you like to contribute to this conversation?

* Note *

For more information on my dissertation research: 

Toward authentic leadership crisis prevention: identification of barriers to relational authenticity in self-awareness

Authenticity Talk 

Part 1

Part 2

Dr Aymee Coget

Sustainable Happiness Doctor 

sfhappinessdoctor at gmail dot com

www.happinessmakeover.com 

Teaching Happiness like Mathematics

Often times when I correlate mathematics and the science of happiness, the response is disbelief and confusion. 

I can see a flash of ‘does not compute’ behind the listeners’ eyes.

Most understand happiness as an elusive emotion that is surface level; it comes and goes when good things happen in life.

Some would call it woo woo or insignificant.

On the flip side, some people kill themselves because they have given up hope of ever feeling good: happy.

Most subconsciously guide their lives seeking to attain feeling good; happy most of the time.

Pursuit of happiness?

Everyone has their ideas and concepts behind happiness and its relevance in our human experience.

I agree with Aristotle, who noted ‘Happiness is the Goal of all Goals.”

You want ____ because it makes you happy.

Other than purchasing fun objects, going on extravagant vacations and planning for happiness in the future when you have achieved ABC ; what is your strategy for obtaining a life like Shangi-La?

This popular strategy of pursing happiness on the outside, is a FAILED strategy since the World Health Organization espouses 1 in 4 people have depression or some sort of mental illness.

AND, shockingly, only 17% of Americans are flourishing.

Within this externally - driven strategy of pursuing happiness through people, places and things; discontent, emptiness, unhappiness, anxiety, and stress are likely within 3 months.

After 3 months, hedonic adaptation kicks in and your ego wants bigger better more.

This transient happiness will come and go putting you on the hedonic treadmill; always wanting the next big thing.

This type of happiness is called hedonic happiness and is only one of the three types of happiness: hedonic, (emotion) eudaimonic (inner contentment), and chaironic (bliss).

Most of the people who have sought the help of a happiness expert have achieved their goals in love, money, family or career and still have yet to find the secrets of sustaining a frequent positive mood, being resilient in challenging times, a clear path to contentment or a clue on how to achieve states of bliss or joy.

They have yet to discover how to ‘feel good’ in the midst of life’s challenging times when following the stereotypical ‘pursuit of happiness’ strategy as they admit it failed miserably.

I would like to offer an internally -driven strategy based on recent advances in the last ten years from the science of happiness.

Think about it like this, once you learn math, you know it and use it everyday.

Once you learn happiness science, you can know and use it everyday.

If you are ready to indeed take charge of your own happiness and no longer wait around for goal achievement, the right person, the right place, the right career, or the right amount of money; I’d like to offer you a few facts on the possibility that ‘feeling better’ and developing inner peace is possible ir-regardless of your circumstances. 

I am only mentioning a few key studies in the blog, there are many others within this new science.

One of the founding papers in Positive Psychology was based on the magical mathematical formula of 3:1.  Positive to negative emotional experiences.

This ratio represents the facilitation of an upward spiral (feeling good).

Using the 5 steps of sustainable happiness within a daily practice offers you a positive emotional experience with a ratio of 15:1.

Happiness science has been able to suggest multiple types of positive interventions that do in fact increase your happiness from the inside.

Most people have experienced a downward spiral in life or know someone who has.

Just the simple fact we have this formula alone is Amazing! beyond belief.

Another research paper from Harvard, shows a three degrees of separation for the dynamic spread of happiness.  This means your happiness does in fact contribute to the lives around you and we can track it.

Think about it, what is the % of joy you currently experience in life?  

That is how much joy you are bringing to the relationships you care about most.

Speaking of %, another Harvard study showed people are mind-wandering 47% of the time. Our population is missing out on half of our waking lives!

Our culture has indoctrinated a lack of present moment awareness as the norm.  In fact, our brain is biologically wired to leave the moment making living in the now a prized skill most find an impossible dream.

There are numbers all over happiness science.

Since there are measurements, interventions, results, and tracking, how can you implement happiness science to benefit your life?

Here are some measurements for achieving basic and advanced levels of sustainable happiness.

BASICS

Empowerment: There are a series of activities that when completed there is an increase over perceived control of your emotional stated.

The first step alone is a miracle, a hurdle and a very big challenge for most people. Accepting responsibility for your own happiness is the absolute first step. 

Positive Mood: There is a daily routine plan based in proven effective ways of increasing happiness. 

Methods used have shown to help change brain chemistry to aid in the treatment of depression, anxiety, add/adhd, bi-polar, and even schizophrenia.

I use the following measurement system to track results:

Where is your happiness on a scale of 1-10 ?
This measurement is measured by two ways of thinking: from the perspective of the mind and the heart. 10 is the happiest you can imagine.

*Granted a lot of people have no idea how happy they are and how happy they could be or how their level 5 happiness relates to someone elses level of happiness.  Many times post happiness science implementation people realize how unhappy they really were.

Grade your performance of each of the three daily routines A-F. This is subjective and based in self report yet when given anything less than A level effort the student is put on a strict recovery plan to ensure top quality participation.

What is your positive : negative thought ratio?

What % of time are you living in the moment?

There are exact methods to increase both of these numbers in a relatively quick amount of time within days and weeks.

100 times a day use my 5 steps of living in the moment, once every 5 minutes for an 8 hour time period. 

Current smart phone users look at their smart phone 150x a day about once every six minutes, so this direction is in alignment with average behavior. 

Resiliency: Practice each of the resiliency tools 5 times a day: measure time frame on how long it takes to ‘bounce back’ from adversity.

ADVANCED

Contentment: Measurements and process are based in research theorizing meaning, authenticity, purpose and strengths. There is a 21 step process clearly laid out developed from the 11 categories of self awareness.

Consider it a yellow brick road to contentment yet the first three steps need to be mastered in order to ready for the deepest levels of contentment.

Bliss: States of bliss can be achieved within 2 minutes or less if you follow direct guidance. 

Mastery of the four previous steps is necessary for the highest states of bliss.

Mathematics has clear steps and clear answers.

I have fused together multiple methods within happiness science based on the principles of self leadership to provide a real life practical formula on achieving sustainable happiness.

Imagine seeing on a global level the living in the moment % and the positive thinking ratio? 

Imagine seeing on a hospital level how happiness science enhances a patients healing process.

Imagine tracking acts of kindness around the world.

Imagine seeing with your own eyes the movement of people using happiness science daily to enhance their lives and those around them. 

Imagine the dynamic spread of happiness set with intention, strategy, and results.

Implementing a clear pathway to sustainable happiness, is the answer to suicide prevention.  

It offers a practical method to change lives from depression, anxiety, and stress to empowerment, positivity, resiliency, contentment and bliss.

I know this method can save lives, enhance organizational functioning, quicken healing processes, save marriages, help families and change the world. 

I know the global well being index can be increased systematically, effectively, and quickly with the right technology built to unveil the individual happiness process we hold so dear to something open public and discussed on a global level.

What is measured can be increased. 

Would you like to be part of this conversation?

Dr Aymee Coget
Sustainable Happiness Doctor
Sfhappinessdoctor at gmail dot com
www.happinessmakeover.com