It’s a radical idea: finding what makes you happy first rather than pursuing a level of income or title as a prerequisite for happiness.

What makes you happy?

How can you get there as frequently as possible?

How can you find your passion, get paid, and stay motivated?

I’m writing these questions about before I have the answers.

I’m between an online certificate and building a business from scratch, and Shawn Achor’s book, Before Happiness, is filling this void.

At a time when my high school senior is getting his rejection and waitlist notices after all of his out-of-state acceptances, this book really resonates with me as a parent as well.

The book’s premise that in order to be happy (at work, whatever form it takes), we need the precursors of motivational safeguards to keep us going and thrive. This is particularly true when you don’t have the structure of a boss or institution to frame out your timelines and keep you honest towards reaching your goals. Your motivation can also flag while going to school or when needing to meet deadlines but losing motivation and procrastinating.

This book published in 2013, still has relevance today as a step-by-step guide of doing the inner work towards sustaining motivation and finding inspiration to keep you going. I love resurfacing books that may not be on the best-seller shelf right now but has the power to be life-altering.

I read an Amazon review of this book that reflects my previous encounters with similar books. Somehow, in the past, the facts and anecdotal stories fail to sustain my attention and I move on. However, fate and fortune has led this book (through online links) into falling into my lap.

I began with the audiobook, listening while vacuuming or driving, and I realized I wanted to hit pause and take notes numerous times so I decided to get the printed copy to highlight and mark the page with the key steps written out, namely:

  1. Defining the framework of your “most valuable reality.”
  2. Drawing a map of key landmarks of meaning.
  3. Focusing in on your progress with manageable markers of progress.
  4. Screening out the noise.
  5. Transmitting that positive reality for others to prosper.

Your most valuable reality

Two people can be standing right next to each other but perceive the same event in entirely different ways. In other words, many realities co-exist. We have a choice about which to fixate on. Do I obsessively fixate on the probability of my kid getting off of a school’s wait list by checking numbers of students accepted off of the wait list in previous years? Or do I focus on what he needs to get through school these final months during a period of historically low motivation amongst high school seniors?