One of the more influential books that I have read in regards to implementing ways to improve my mental health is The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living by Russ Harris. This book was recommended to me by one of my doctors, and it focuses primarily on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which on page 204 of the book is described as the following: “be present, open up, do what matters”. (The author describes this as psychological flexibility and states that “the greater our psychological flexibility, the greater our health, well-being, and happiness”).

I took a lot of great lessons from this book, both philosophical and applicable. I will outline a number of these lessons in individual articles. However, if you are interested in learning more about how to effectively use ACT to help improve your everyday life I would highly recommend digging into this book. (I don’t want to undermine the work of Dr. Harris and am certainly not an expert on the subject as he is; I am simply reviewing some of the concepts and ideas that I found to be of personal value). This article will focus on Commitment and Success.

Discussing Commitment

Because this book is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it would make sense that Dr. Harris spends a fair amount of time discussing commitment. He states, “Commitment doesn’t mean being perfect, always following through, never giving up or going astray. Commitment means that when we do inevitably stumble or go off track, we pick ourselves up, find our bearings and carry on in the direction we want to go” (page 267). A big part of ACT is the understanding that we are all human and no one is perfect, and because of this we will all fail. Along with this is the idea that we should not beat ourselves up when we do make mistakes (“Accepting” the fact that we are all imperfect beings). This is obviously easier said than done, but having some humility and making expectations more realistic for ourselves is important when we are deciding to commit to someone or something.

The other quote that I loved from Dr. Harris on commitment is this: “Such is the nature of commitment: you can never know in advance whether you will achieve your goals; all you can do is keep moving forward in a meaningful direction. The future is not in your control. What is in your control is your ability to continue your journey, step-by-step, learning and growing as you progress – and getting back on track whenever you wander” (page 268). When committing to something (especially something big as a lofty career goal or long-term relationships with others), we have no way of knowing whether our efforts and sacrifices will actually pay off for us in the end, especially if how we define success is skewed (which, of course, leads us into the next section).

Redefining Success

Dr. Harris writes, “…I invite you now to consider a new definition: Success in life means living by your values” (page 269). In a world where success is centered on specific job titles people hold or the money they make or the size of their house or the fanciness of their car or the quality of the clothes they wear, this quote may come off as confusing. Defining success strictly by whether or not you live by your values? Let me give you an example:

I had two major career goals: become a Major League Strength and Conditioning Coach and win a World Series. All of my decisions and actions were geared towards these two goals. But the problem I quickly ran into was this: these were both (relatively) out of my control. There are only roughly 60 Major League Strength and Conditioning Coach jobs, and it’s not often they open up. Even if I felt ready, timing, organizational beliefs, etc. were all against me at times. The same goes for winning a World Series – there are 29 other organizations with the exact same goal. Injuries, trades, on-field performances, etc. are all largely out of my control. Once I realized this, it was time for a re-assessment of my life. I often fall back on a quote I had heard somewhere along the way (terribly sorry for not giving credit to whoever was the one to actually teach me this quote!): “I will prepare myself and someday my time will come”. I did some self-reflection and came up with three things that I thought would “prepare” me to “be successful” whenever it was “my time”: discipline, work ethic, and consistency. I centered my work life on these three concepts. Every day that I felt strongly about my performance in these three areas was deemed a success (regardless of what level I was working at in professional baseball at the time). Knowing I was defining success based on my values instead of an arbitrary job title that was (mostly) out of my control helped me push through the difficult moments and maintain my long-term commitment to my goals. And, in the end, I achieved my goals because I stuck to the values that I thought would get me there.

The point I am trying to make is this: you SHOULD NOT discard your goals (in fact, I encourage you to aim as high as you’d like). However, if you are going to make a big-time commitment, it will be much easier to grind through the difficult moments if you are using your values to guide you along the way and defining success by how well you stick to these values.

If you take nothing else away from this article, at least consider the following points:

-Take time to sit down and assess what values are truly meaningful to you

-Do not neglect your goals, but be leery of how you define “success” when pursuing them

-At some point along the way you will fail. Making commitments based on how well you can follow your values will help you to get through difficult moments (and ultimately achieve the goals you have set out to accomplish)

Conclusion

I hope that this article has been informational for you. My goal is to provide lessons that I am learning in my journey AND provide applicable options that may help you too. I am sure at one point or another we have all faltered on our commitments, neglected our values, or defined success based on the wrong things. Hopefully this article shed a little light on how to improve for the next time around. I would also again highly recommend checking out Dr. Harris’s book The Happiness Trap to learn more. (I will write other articles with lessons from this book as well – such as this one HERE).