Old Happy: "I should make choices that please others."
New Happy: "I need to choose what's right for me."
Since the 1980s, psychologist Dan McAdams has been leading a unique research program at Northwestern where he asks study participants to write out their life story, like it was a novel or a movie.
McAdams argues that we are all natural storytellers. We instinctively take the raw ingredients of our lives and turn them into this personal narrative, a process that involves selecting events, interpreting them, and drawing connections between them. Your life story has a theme, a plot, a setting, other characters — and of course, you, the protagonist!
McAdams and his collaborators have discovered that the way you tell your life story influences your happiness. And there's one factor in particular that really matters: the way you describe yourself.
Happier people describe themselves as having agency, meaning that they identify what matters most to them and they take action towards it.
On the other hand, less happy people are much more likely to describe themselves as passive, feeling like they are swept along by other people's opinions and the force of the world. Life happens to them.
You have the right, the power, and the responsibility to make the choices that are right for you.
Today, I want you to remind yourself that this is your life, and no one else's. You are in charge. What will you do with this wonderful life of yours, and what story do you want it to tell?