For us ENFPs happiness really is that mysterious lover we'll chase after and have and then lose
and then not know we want and then have again and then be like wait we have it but we don't
feel it and it's really quite a journey for us let's just say we might be the weirdest
height when it comes to our relationship with happiness because sometimes we can just be
so happy for not a lot of reasons you know ENFPs are often known as these really positive
happy people and yet all of us ENFPs know like we're talking to each other here that
behind closed doors we have our moments sometimes much more than moments and I wanted to go through
in this video three things that I think make a huge difference for us in terms of our happiness
this isn't going to be some quick fixes or tips for that but really looking deep and how you can
look at your life when you are applying the life design approach and thinking okay what
kind of life do I want how do I want to feel day to day and what should I do to create that life
so if you're new here my name is dan this is dreams around the world and my mission here is
to help you become the best version of yourself all while creating the most awesome life possible
for you and those you love and I make a ton of videos for my fellow ENFPs especially those who
are trying to create an exceptional life something outside the box that friends and family might not
quite get so if you don't mind I'd like to start off with a bit about my situation and
I don't share this to brag or sound like I have some big ego or something but I share it because
it goes to the heart of happiness as an ENFP which is that my life is pretty awesome I don't
post on it on instagram nearly as much I probably take five vacations for every one vacation photo
I post on instagram but I have pretty much the life I wanted I can live anywhere I want uh just
recently we moved in I can even show you here hopefully I won't mess up the video too much
we moved back to Prague and I said I want to live on the river I grew up in vancouver by the water
and I always loved being by the water and I thought you know I want to get an apartment
on the river there's like not many of them in Prague you know people hold on to these
I have this great team I work with you know the people on my team are awesome
they are great at their jobs but also great to talk to to hang out with I have a wonderful
partner who is really a dream come true gabby I know you're editing this so get a little teary now
and my clients are the coolest people ever not only do they put up with my stupid sense of humor
some of them actually enjoy it and join my programs for it life is really good and yet do
I feel happy all the time definitely not in fact I would say over the last couple months I've had
maybe more unhappy days than happy days or at least a battling them out 50 50 there as well
and so that's the first thing that I think is really important to understand
is that for everyone this isn't just for ENFPs but especially I think for us life isn't about
like the destination and where you get I know this is you know walmart pillow type of sayings right
life isn't about what is it life is about the destination right no life is about the journey not
the destination that's how it goes and I know this cheesy advice you've probably heard everywhere
seen it on pillows and posters in school libraries but it really is true when you reach a goal
you lose dopamine and serotonin these are the things that basically make us feel good
we have a brain that is wired and I mean all people not just ENFPs in this part we have a brain
that is wired to go after goals and to achieve things but once you have it like let's say back
in the day the goal was something to eat so once you get it it's sort of natural to be like oh okay
good I have food I can just relax I lose all my good feelings right because you're gonna eat and
you're gonna survive so when we reach our goal if we actually get it we tend to actually feel worse
after which kind of sucks and if we don't get it we feel even worse usually right so it's not about
where you get to and we all know the ENTJs whose life is based on reaching a certain status right
job title wealth fame whatever it happens to be right it's based on that surprise surprise most
of them don't actually get happy when they get that but they dedicate their whole lives to it
it is what it is uh but for us because we don't even care that much about like social status
ego thing shiny objects etc I mean we care about shiny object ideas but not actually like
shiny cars and stuff as much I mean still like shiny cars but because we're not even that
caught up in that we get even less satisfaction from reaching a goal and what we tend to really
enjoy is the challenge the journey the times when we're growing connecting with others uh there's a
great book called tribes by I think it's sebastian younger where he talks about this that when people
are in actually quite terrible life situations you know in war in difficult survival situations they
often look back on those not always but often as some of the best times in their life because
there was this unified struggle working towards a goal with peers and you know huge amounts of
human connection of challenge of growth etc and that's the things we really really want and often
because we will crave freedom we will try to create a life that has less and less commitment
because commitments tend to limit freedom right so we create this life and I've kind of mastered
this where I don't need to check my email every day I can live where I want I can do what I
want and then it's I mean it's the definition of ENFP freedom but then it's like okay but
I'm watching F1 race the other day and it's like look at that happiness and camaraderie when you're
working together for this goal right so for me what that actually ultimately led me to is once
I had that total freedom then I'm like okay well I guess I'll build my company bigger and have a
team and we can work together towards goals and build a bigger community we have the ENFP unleash
community there's a couple hundred awesome ENFPs and we do things together and that is kind of a
reaction to that but still I will have plenty of moments of unhappiness partially when I am
not pursuing something that is really engaging and not growing growing is very important to us
the next thing that's really important is your comparison points I've talked about this in a few
videos on confidence before but what you compare yourself to whether it's other people or your own
expectations basically decides how you're going to feel about things right so if you have this
expectation of what your life should be like that maybe you created or maybe family created or your
peers or someone that didn't even ask you hey what kind of life do you want there's this expectation
right and your actual life is this because there's this gap you're not going to feel great
that gap is bad and there's a couple things that you can look at then right number one is is this
the thing you thought you needed actually what you want and if it's not and you actually have what
you want it's probably good to work on changing your beliefs and actually think like hey what I
have is what I want it's maybe it sounds easy but it really makes a huge difference if you want the
things you have you're going to feel a lot better about it but if you have this conflict where
you're sort of trying to live the life that you want but half of your mind is trying to like be
you know like your friends back in the day or your parents expected
it's going to be hard to actually excel in either direction and you're going to feel this big gap
because maybe you're pursuing like a more creative entrepreneurial life but then you're comparing
yourself to people who are you know buckling down at investment firms and obviously well not
obviously but probably making more money than you with a totally different life this is something
that I've personally struggled with and still struggle with is the expectations of the society
I come from both in terms of coming from vancouver Canada but also my immediate peers there and then
my family expectations and everything else even as they are very I would say accepting of the
life choices and I would say it many times jealous at this point there's still that something buried
in there and it's a challenge to really go back and forth between you know what did I what was I
told I wanted and what are expected you know what are the expectations of people around me versus
what I actually have so you want to think about that gap and reduce it and you can reduce it by
changing your expectations or by changing your circumstances so they align with your expectations
most of the time doing some combination of both is good uh one thing that has helped
me in this realm is as my business has grown and I've become more traditionally successful
that has helped narrow that gap as well as I've also changed some of my expectations I
maybe grew up with about what a good life looks like or what success is or or things like that
and in this area personally I'm doing pretty good on mixing together but I see it in so many clients
where there is that uh disconnect and it can cause a lot of pain and a lot of unhappiness
now aside from our expectations and really our bigger picture like what we're working towards
one of the most important things for ENFPs is actually the day-to-day how we spend our time
we like to be happy and satisfied on a daily basis it's one reason we quit jobs sooner
than most other people where we're not really willing to put up with a ton of struggle and
dislike of a position in many times it is said that the state of flow is actually what people
want when they talk about wanting happiness the state of flow is that state when you're just in
the moment and doing something me filming this video right now until I just started thinking
about it because I'm talking about it I wasn't thinking about things I have to do in a few hours
or other obligations I'm just here and present and talking to you flow is when you sit down to write
and two hours later you have 10 pages done and you don't know where the time went or you go for a run
or a workout and you're just in the moment you're not stuck in your conscious mind you're just being
this is a wonderful place to be and the more you can have this in your life the better generally
the quick lowdown on flow I can't get into everything or this video will go on forever but
when something is challenging enough but not so difficult that it becomes frustrating is when you
tend to get in the state of flow so when you're learning and growing and challenged working on
something or doing some kind of sport or whatever else but you can make progress uh it's not easy
you're making progress but you can make progress it's not too too difficult right so having more
time in the state of flow has a huge contribution to our happiness and even thinking about how you
spend your day-to-day when people ask me questions about their career and what's a good career for
ENFPs it's a very common question as you might imagine the thing I always go back to is you
have to look at the day-to-day don't think about this oh this non-profit it's helping this cause
that doesn't matter if you're spending your days looking at spreadsheets and feeling unhappy and
I verified this with ENFP clients who work for an amazing cause and look at spreadsheets all day the
day-to-day are you connecting with people are you looking them in the eye are you being challenged
and growing that's going to be the thing that matters most with a career selection and then
you want to consider all these other pieces this is one reason for me entrepreneurship has really
always been my path is I get to decide the level of challenge I have and what my days look like
if I say hey I want more human connection I want to be seeing people and be challenged I
can have more coaching calls or uh start a new program or do all kinds of other things right
is you have that constant challenge um and I think that people on my team do as well working
for an ENFP where it's like hey we're going to do this now we're going to do this et cetera right
so I do find entrepreneurship is very well aligned with our way of being because you can always have
new challenges and growth experiences now the last one is something that honestly I didn't think
about that much until recently and a lot of you will probably hear it and think you didn't think
about this before like I'm getting advice from you buddy it's the importance of our environment
and you may have seen an older video on my of mine on the wheel of life which is a coaching
tool where you look at eight areas of someone's life uh you know relationship career finances uh
fun et cetera and one of them is environment you know what is your home like your neighborhood like
where you spend your time and I always sort of breezed over that one I'm not the most aesthetic
person like the background behind me which I think is getting nicer it will get even better over time
is me putting a lot of effort into making something look nice I'm generally not the
most aesthetic person and I tend not to think about the form as much as function when it comes
to apartments I've lived in and everything like that and that all changed two years ago when uh we
started to travel and faced you may have heard me tell this before but basically we were traveling
and then covet happened and ended up in lockdowns in a couple places that were just beautiful like
beyond what our budget would normally have been at the time and everything else one was this amazing
villa in spain where the decoration you've probably seen if you look at videos from 2020
you can see the backgrounds and stuff it was this it was just the yeah it was awesome and
decorated in a very cool authentic way the guy who owned it owns I think seven hotels and that
was like his personal place before and it wasn't very kid safe so I think once he had kids uh he
got rid of it because it was very industrial like big stone stairs and steel everywhere and stuff
so anyhow living there I started to realize like I feel really good we were locked inside
in spain spain had one of the strictest lockdowns and didn't go totally crazy
because it there was a lot to the environment and then later had something similar in portugal you
can see some videos there that was more of like a traditional outside villa uh you know like palm
trees pool all that sort of stuff and it was the same thing I found like I feel a lot happier based
on what's around me sunshine in winter doesn't hurt as well but that actually really changed
how I started thinking about my home and so now that we've moved to Prague uh and have this place
I'm putting in a ton of effort on setting it up to have a really nice feeling and also even
within the neighborhood like getting to know local businesses and um if they happen to speak spanish
I'll speak spanish with like people like cafes and things like that just basically trying to
create an environment that feels friendly and inspiring and creative uh inside and outside
to the home because that can't be underrated right if you're trying to do really fulfilling
work and you're challenging yourself and all these other things but you live in an environment where
uh you can't really be happy it's gonna mean you can't be happy and that can be physically
like the design or the neighborhood or things like that and it can also be the people we're with uh
fortunately I've never lived with a partner where we had a bad falling out and then stayed living
together I've heard horror stories of that but I have lived with some roommates where that happened
and it's not great when you live with someone that you don't like because us ENFPs we read
the room we feel the vibe in the apartment so if you come home and you're like this person hates me
and let's be honest sometimes we're a little messy so his roommates go it might be you know
possible that people build up some resentment to us that's not a great situation to be in as
well so really thinking about your environment now these areas I have shared here I know there
can be more and this isn't a particular order like do these these steps I would
probably start with environment though if you find you're struggling in a lot of these areas
I would start with environment and I would add to that your peer group if you can make those two
changes and if you have to choose between those I would change your peers first and then environment
and then that's going to make it a lot easier to make some of these other changes ultimately
happiness is always going to be an ideal we chase as ENFPs we are too dynamic we are always in need
of change and challenge and growth and there isn't going to be this magical finish line that we cross
and then I'm happy I can tell you that because I may have crossed that finish line and I am happier
don't get me wrong but there isn't some magic time when you just feel I'm happy things are over right
and this is important when you think about all areas of design in your life you're always going
to be moving forward and growing and changing and wanting to be challenged so don't think like let's
say you're a business owner don't think in terms of an end I want to make this much income and then
stop or I want to retire this way and those are good goals to have too but
you want to think about the day-to-day what am I going to do that will make me feel fulfilled
and challenged and satisfied and helped me connect with awesome people and when you do all that I
think you've got the best chance of finding happiness as consistently as possible in the
comments below I want to hear from you in terms of what has helped you feel happier or more fulfilled
on a daily basis what are some of your tips one of the coolest things about working with ENFPs is
we all love to help and have great ideas and experiences so I'd love to hear from you in
the comments if you are new here my name is dan this is dreams around the world and I publish
new videos every week helping you become the best version of yourself and create the most awesome
life possible for you and those you love so hit the subscribe button I'll see you in another video
soon bye one last thing if you're an ENFP who loves being told how absolutely awesome you are
and why you are the best in the world well head over to DreamsAroundTheWorld.com/ENFPtraining
and you can get my free training series for ENFPs where the first email is a pep talk
you'll see the subject line in your inbox ENFPs are awesome after you read it reply to the email,
email me back and let me know what one of your favorite things to do is see you in your inbox