The Free Time Happiness Fallacy You Must Navigate with Purpose
Have you ever thought to yourself:
“If I just had more free time I’d be much happier”
The reality is however, having free time often does not lead to happiness. It would actually be pretty boring if you have free time and literally had nothing to do. This boredom could eventually turn to sadness, and that sadness to depression.
At this point you may be thinking to yourself that you want free time to do what you want. You just don’t want to be beholden to someone else telling you what to do like a boss, parent or spouse. Just the thought of this scenario leaves you feeling better. Just the thought of being free from responsibilities you don’t enjoy makes you happier.
Surprisingly though, being free from doing things you don’t enjoy is not what leads to more happiness. It’s doing the things you do enjoy that leads to more happiness. Given the choice, most people are just fine doing things they don’t enjoy from 9 to 5 so they can do the things they love doing from 5 to 9 and weekends. Unfortunately, most people also don’t know what they want to achieve during their 5 to 9 and weekends.
To put it another way, most people have free time, but don’t have a purpose for this free time. So what ends up happening is that they avoid feelings of boredom, sadness, and depression by filling the time with mindless entertainment.
From Free Time to Goals to Purpose
If you are reading this, you probably have at a minimum some general goals for your life either written down or in your head. Ideally, you should be using your 5 to 9 and weekends to work towards achieving these goals. The reason you may not be doing this is due to analysis paralysis. You spend more time thinking about the why and the why not instead of the how and the when. What’s more, the easiest cure for analysis paralysis is to divert attention to mindless entertainment.
If you find yourself in this situation, I suggest trying the solution that is working for me and that is also working for many others like me. That solution is the Finding Your Forte program.
The Finding Your Forte program is a process that helps people like you and me define their purpose. It’s a program that was developed by my mentor Reggie Hammond through his company Your Crescendo.
When I began working with Your Crescendo, and found my “forte” (my purpose), my life changed. Reggie helped me develop my purpose statement, which is to help young athletes and their parents unlock their hidden genius. The first time I read my purpose statement out loud shivers ran through my body. I was afraid, and this fear almost paralyzed me. But I knew following my purpose was the best thing I could do both for myself and my family.
If you want to change your life like me by participating in the Finding Your Forte program, I would love to show you how. What’s more, helping you would be helping me fulfill my purpose. Please contact me here so we can start you on your path to a purpose driven life.