If You Were on Your Death Bed

If you were laying on your death bed, what is the last thing that you will talk about or think about? Will it be the holiday in Greece? Will it be the company that you started from scratch and sold for millions? How are you currently measuring your life successes? Are you truly happy with your life and where it stands?

So many of my high-achieving clients never have to worry about money for the rest of their lives that have amazing families (wives and children) or beautiful girlfriends and all the luxury toys that they can imagine, but they still come to me with intense anxiety and or severe depression and they don’t know why. They come to me feeling lost. They come to me frustrated and can’t understand why they are feeling the way that they are feeling.

These clients are measuring their life successes in the wrong way. They are measuring their happiness by the number of zeros at the end of their balance in their bank accounts. They are measuring their success by the title on their business card. They are not measuring their happiness by the quality of their relationships and who those relationships are with.

One of the longest running Harvard studies researched happiness of specific students over their life and “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health” (Mineo, 2017). The study shows that happiness is not related to income, financial statements, appearance or status. Their happiness was simply linked to their relationships and how fulfilling they found their close relationships.

Those with fulling and rewarding relationships were in better mental and physical health, had more financial security and overall lived significantly longer. Those that didn’t have good relationships had poor mental health, were more likely to have addictions and suffered from loneliness. So, the question becomes, are you leading a life that will lead to happiness or loneliness.

Now, just because you are married, does not mean that you have a good relationship. Just because you have children means that you are feeling fulfilled as a parent. Are you ignoring the truth behind what creates long-lasting healthy relationships? Going back to the Harvard study, it was found that the people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80. Those who kept warm relationships got to live longer and happier, and the loners often died earlier.

People in healthy relationships are in better physical health, sleep better, go to the doctor regularly and are better leaders in the workplace. A healthy relationship allows you to focus on things that matter and not have to put all your energy into making a relationship work, thus not allowing you to focus on other important tasks such as your career.

Why do a majority of woman find happily married men (or long-term relationships) so attractive? They are confident. They are relaxed and carry themselves differently. They have an energy or glow to them that attracts people and people want to be around them. Their self-esteem levels are extremely high. They have an internal peace and are not easily distracted.

The relationships that we have with our best friends, our children, our co-workers and our partners dictate our level of happiness. These relationships should be our peace and not the reasons for depression or anxiety. We all need emotional connections that allow us to be us and allow us to effectively communicate, feel confident and have healthy boundaries that help protect our peace.

The final piece of the puzzle is our relationship with ourselves. We need to be happy with ourselves before we can be happy in any other relationship. Those with good relationships with themselves don’t worry about perfection. They don’t have idealistic standards. They give themselves permission to fail and mess up. When they do, they don’t criticize or attack themselves for it. They learn and move on. They raise their self-esteem by working on the skills and solving problems. They don’t become overwhelmed, which can lead to anxiety or depression. They trust their own judgement that if something goes wrong, that they will fix it.

After reading this, how are you feeling about your relationships? Anything that you need to work on or want to discuss?

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