27.3K
Downloads
674
Episodes
Do you feel overwhelmed with your todo list? Is "creating fulfilling happiness" missing from that list? Everyday Happiness with Katie Jefcoat is here to help you. In 2-minutes a day, over time, you’ll discover how to reduce overwhelm and create lasting happiness through Katie’s signature method of Intentional Margins, happiness science, and musings about life. Start your day with a positive mindset. Many of us can get deep in the feeling of overwhelm. The anxiety of our own ambition can weigh heavily on our thoughts and emotions. We lay down and close our eyes at night and our chest begins to feel heavy. More items on the to-do list than the day before. How will we ever going to get off the hamster wheel of to-dos? When are we going to start living life for more than the hustle? As a recovering lawyer and passion driven entrepreneur, Katie knew something had to change. What she found is that you can have harmony, be intentionally productive and create massive impact, all at the same time - without feeling guilty. So she asked herself a simple question: "How can I get off the hamster wheel and how can I show others how to do the same? She knew she'd had a system for herself, but she’d never put it into defining words. On August 15, 2019, she sat down at her dining room table with her friend Jenna (her business bestie). Post-It notes covering the table. This is where she first defined the concept of Intentional Margins. What are Intentional Margins? INTENTIONAL MARGINS™ (n): A buffer of space and time to create harmony between your to-do’s and your priorities. Now you can get the support you need to manage your overwhelm, one little tip at a time. Regardless of the industry, Everyday Happiness blends inspiration with a pragmatic approach to finding Harmony. You'll be encouraged to throw “balance” out the window for a more achievable approach called harmony. Through Intentional Margins™, you'll be encouraged to develop what harmony means to you, by identifying your priorities at work and at home. Every day, we'll end the podcast help you feel equipped to jump off the hamster wheel of overwhelm and go out there and crush your day. --About the Host-- Katie Jefcoat is a community curator, speaker, author and motivator who supports ambitious women (and a few good men) move from feeling hectic to harmonious. As a recovering trial lawyer, she knows first hand what it feels like to have a demanding job. As an entrepreneur with a passion that lights her hair on fire and a busy family she’s in the thick of it with you. Many people strive for balance and think overwhelm is just a part of life. Sadly, the hustle culture and our never-ending to-do list is creating a life where our priorities are getting the leftover scraps of time. Katie introduces people to what she calls - Intentional Margins™ - a kind of life in which they reduce randomness, create harmony between their to-dos and their priorities and intentionally enjoy the meaningful parts of life - without feeling guilty. Without exposure to a different way, we remain stuck on the hamster wheel of to-dos and never find the “balance” we yearn for. Katie works diligently to expose her community to different ways of doing things, because she fundamentally believes we deserve to make time for our priorities. We deserve to live a life of harmony. And it’s within our control to create it. Katie curates a smorgasbord of content related to managing your calendar, handling overwhelm, setting boundaries, reducing randomness, saying no, self-care, the power of your choices, and more in her Intentional Margins™ Membership Community -- which she calls the coziest virtual coffee shop (on Facebook). Connect and learn more at www.katiejefcoat.com.
Episodes
Sunday Mar 12, 2023
Sunday Mar 12, 2023
Did you know there are two types of happiness? Natural and synthetic happiness! In the second part of this mini-series, we discuss how to utilize synthetic happiness.
Transcript:
Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in about 2 minutes a day, through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life.
I'm your host Katie Jefcoat, and I wanted to share something Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642. He said, “I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me.”
Powerful, isn’t it? Our episode yesterday discussed the difference between natural and synthetic happiness. Today, we are diving into how we average Joes often utilize it without even realizing it. One example is how we do this all of the time with the stock market. We see our stocks rise 7%, and we’re happy. That would be natural happiness. Then, at some point, if you’ve been in this game long enough, you see your portfolio drop, maybe even 10%. You will likely think, “that sucks, but at least it wasn’t 20%.”
We, humans, try to find the silver lining. Some of us are better than others. Some of us get there quicker than others. No matter what, though, we all have the capacity to see the silver lining due to those big ole’ brains in our heads. They allow us to see the glass as ½ full, and frequently, we don't even realize we are doing it.
I’ll give you a personal example as well. As an adolescent, I didn’t feel like I belonged. I grew up in a small town in MN, 2006 people in the middle of a cornfield. I felt like I had no way out. As humans, we yearn to BELONG. It is scientifically in our DNA.
The emotional trauma of not feeling like you had good friends or people that really understand you can be devastating. Unbeknownst to me at the time, what I did was manufacture synthetic happiness. I did that by dreaming big about the world beyond the scope of my small town. My way out of a place I didn’t feel like I fit in was law school. I thought that if I made enough money, I would have more choices. I wasn’t necessarily wrong, and I did achieve my dream of becoming a lawyer - but I had this tug on me; there was something else.
As Dr. Daniel Gilbert puts it, “...we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose experience” over materiality. That commodity is happiness, and with practice, he says, we can find more happiness through choice than we ever will through selfish pursuits and material acquisition.
I found out that being a lawyer didn’t make me happy. So while it was a means to an end, to a chapter of life closed, I stopped. I mean, now, I’m here, with you, talking about happiness, which completely lights my hair on fire.
Therefore, if happiness is not a thing, but a state of mind, then we can create synthetic happiness. Now, I am not talking about toxic positivity, which is a whole different thing and one we don’t have time for today. What I am saying is that happiness science indicates that we can synthesize happiness - we don’t have to wait for happiness to happen to us, and we don’t have to chase it or find it like some magical rainbow where you have to shake down some poor leprechaun. Instead, you can create it yourself. Tune in tomorrow to learn how!
Life is heavy enough, we shouldn’t have to search for happiness. Get the exclusive happiness email, the happiest email in your inbox, delivered with a smile twice a month. https://www.katiejefcoat.com/email
And, let’s connect on social at @everydayhappinesswithkatie and join the community on the hashtags #IntentionalMargins and #everydayhappinesswithkatie on Instagram
Links: https://onamission.bio/everydayhappiness/
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.