Follow Your Joy To Find Meaning! Really, That Simple?

Yes, I do think it’s that simple. And we’ve all been focusing on the wrong angle! I think passion is way over-rated, and can, in fact, be dangerous because it consumes, not sustain. I think curiosity is necessary but somehow seems too fleeting to go the distance. But Joy! I believe is regenerative and energising and expansive and most definitely fun!

Decades of neuroscience strongly suggest that the best way to reinforce any pattern of thinking, doing, being is to tell yourself to stop it. Counter-intuitive though it may appear at first encounter, the best way to break a habit is to ignore it, and literally starve it to oblivion. In other words, focus instead on strengthening the new habit, i.e., feed the neural pathways of the new habit, so it gets bigger and stronger. The key word here is “feed”.

New neural pathways are “fed” when glucose (from the food we eat) is directed to it. And the only way to do that is ATTENTION. When you pay attention to something, you are feeding the neural pathway. Do it often enough, and it becomes a habit. And so, what I am proposing for you to pay attention to, is your JOY. Understood by me as that which you want to say “Hell Yes” to! A simple invitation that I find makes more sense than follow your heart or listen to you your gut because much of that is habituated.