Episode 8 of the Science of Happiness Podcast by the Greater Good Science Center, featuring Adizah Eghan and Serena Chen in conversation with Dacher Keltner.
Science of Happiness Podcast:
How to Find Your Best Possible Self
Dacher Keltner: After her year in India, Adizah Eghan returned home to the San Francisco Bay Area to find herself in the fast lane of her career track. At only 25, she landed her dream job as a producer for the radio show and podcast, Snap Judgment. And then she had that experience that many of us have had, where we get what we think we always wanted… but then we want something more. We’re longing for something.
Adizah joins us today as our Happiness Guinea Pig. On each episode of our show, we have a happiness guinea pig try out a practice designed to boost happiness, resilience, kindness or connection. And then we explore the science behind it.
Adizah, thanks so much for being here.
Adizah Eghan: Thank you for having me.
Dacher Keltner: Have you ever been a guinea pig before?
Adizah Eghan: I don’t think so.
Dacher Keltner: Well we’re grateful you did it. So, I wanted to talk about the practice that you chose to do which was what?
Adizah Eghan: The best possible self.
Dacher Keltner: Why did you choose that?
Adizah Eghan: You know, I’m really busy and so I felt like this is something I can do for sure. And it seemed like something that was—that was very natural for me. I’m naturally very goal-oriented. And so I was like, ‘Okay, this seems like something that, you know, I can handle.’
Dacher Keltner: What’d you do?
Adizah Eghan: So the best possible self—the activity is you’re supposed to for two weeks you’re supposed to take 15 minutes out of your day and write about your future. Think about things that are really important to you. So your—your relationships, your work your health. And you know the more specific the better and you know, just go for it, just write whatever you can. And then one of the things that I think it was like the first point was like ‘you might find yourself—I’m paraphrasing here but—you might find yourself like bogged down in the details of what’s happening with your life now which certainly happened to me but you know it was like basically like but just keep writing. Just do it.’
And the idea is to write out all of the things that you want and to do it without casting judgment on yourself, and just to really, really stretch yourself to think about, what are the things that I want if there are no obstacles and if there are no barriers, and if I could just have this? And then hopefully the idea is that you can be on your way to achieving that just by writing it down and knowing that the possibility is out there.
The idea is to write out all of the things that you want and to do it without casting judgment on yourself, and just to really, really stretch yourself to think about, what are the things that I want if there are no obstacles, and if there are are no barriers, and if I could just have this?
Dacher Keltner: So it’s getting out of the concrete list-making and thinking about what lies ahead. So what did you start to think about? What lies ahead as the best possible self?
Adizah Eghan: Well, the first thing I thought about was relationships.
Dacher Keltner: Really?
Adizah Eghan: Yeah.
Dacher Keltner: Wow.
Adizah Eghan: ‘Cause I wanted to do relationships first before I did career. And so I was thinking about what kind of relationships. Of course, first I started actually analyzing my relationships now and…
Dacher Keltner: How’d that go?
Adizah Eghan: Ahhh…mmm. You know, I realized I am right now I am in full career mode. Just so you know, I’m 26 years old and I’m really I’m doing the thing where you’re just like, let me get to the place where I want to be. That’s where I’m at in life. So I realize, ‘Okay, I don’t know that I—I have friends but I don’t. You know, in the future I would love to have like, that nice support system and everything.
And so that was something I was thinking about. So in the present day I was analyzing like ‘Oh, wow, I haven’t like taken time to like hang out with my friends really and appreciate them.’ And then in the future I was thinking I want to have that community and that sense of friends who you can rely on and grow old with and have like playdates with your kids with.
Dacher Keltner: You know I mean it’s very interesting because you know your generation, and I really tell this a lot to the parents out there, you guys work harder than any generation in the past couple hundred years the data show and you’re just focused on work. And the science of happiness really aligns with what you’re saying, which is I mean in the end it’s the relationships that matter. And it’s cool it came up in your—in sort of your thinking about your future.
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