Psychology 101 for Change Agents: Dialing in Your Mindset for Maximum Joy

If you are looking for true fulfillment in life, stop chasing happiness and start cultivating joy.

Happiness is driven by happenstance--if things go your way, you feel happy, if they don't go your way, you feel unhappy.  Joy is something you cultivate deep inside yourself, that you can carry with you, even in the face of unhappiness, even in the face of tragedy, you can still bring your joy in a deeper sense.

 When it comes to understanding and evolving your psychology as a change agent, it's all about figuring out how you can bring your best self to bear more consistently and more powerfully in service of your vision of a better world.  In the first 8 sessions of this Understanding and Evolving Your Psychology series, we've covered some fundamentals for stepping into your best self, from understanding how you meet your innate human needs to identifying and re-writing your most important rules and beliefs.  Now, in the final sessions of this series it’s time to dial in the mindsets that constitute your best self in the three most important life arenas for you as a change agent: your energy, your impact and your joy.

This video and the accompanying worksheet  are about building up your mindset for maximum joy so that you can truly bring your best self in pursuit of your calling to make the world a better place.

Dialing in Your Mindset For Maximum Joy

Here are a set of journaling questions to help you identify key elements to work with as you build your mindset for maximum joy.  You may also find it helpful to capture these answers in the  Mindset Map in the worksheet.

• What is your ultimate vision for yourself as a vessel of joy, carrying love and abundance to others? When you are showing up as your most joyful self day in and day out, what gifts of love and joyful presence will you bring into the world? What will you be able to do, what great feelings will you get experience more in your life?  Paint this picture as vividly as you can.
• Why is realizing this ultimate vision of your most joyful self so important to you?
• What fun, playful, or inspiring names can you give to yourself when you are living out this joyous identity? Language and metaphor are powerful—they can speak directly to your unconscious mind and activate your full self in pursuit of your vision in surprising ways.
• What feelings do you value the most when it comes to maximizing your joy? What are your rules for experiencing those feelings—what has to happen in order for you to experience each of these feelings? Are there any  tweaks you can make to these rules in order to experience even more of these joy boosting feelings?
• What actions are most important for you to take on a consistent basis when it comes to showing up as your most joyful self? What are your go-to “power moves?” for living out your joy?  How can you anchor these actions to consistent habit triggers during the course of your day (e.g. as soon as you wake up each morning, placing your hands over your heart and recalling three things you are grateful for)
• What’s your kryptonite when it comes to building up your most joyous self? What thoughts, feelings or actions do you most need to move away from? What are your go-to cures for these kryptonites—what algorithms can you install as automatic responses to counteract these kryptonites?  For  example:  “whenever I feel myself starting to y, then I will do x….”
• What external resources, people, places and things can you tap into to help you live out your most joyful mindset?

Putting it All Together: Creating Your Mindset Map for Your Most Impactful Self

You may also find it helpful to capture your answers to these journalling questions using the worksheet's Mindset Map.  This is a fillable pdf that prints out as a single page and it makes an easy reference to remind yourself of how you are putting together the key pieces in your journey to build your most joyful self.