The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Here's a question I got, and I know I certainly have been in this situation before, maybe you have too, so see what advice you would give him—which really means yourself.

This is: Dear Dr. Kenner, and I've simplified his question a bit.

I enjoy doing so much that I can't fully commit to one thing. For example, I'm a computer specialist, a triathlete. I study nutrition and fitness. I've written a screenplay. I like to blog and share ideas. I want to own my own business, and I want to be in a committed relationship. Just writing this list is exhausting—and there's more.

Have you been in that situation where you are on total overload?

Continuing with his question:

The world is a playground, and I want to do so much that I can't fully commit to a single value. I keep bouncing from one to the other. That makes me feel like I accomplish nothing, because I never fully see the more rapid progress that I'd like to see in any one of these. What plagues me is deciding how to focus and choose what's most important to me.
—Jared

Okay Jared, I get the idea. You want to have your life feel like it's your life—like your days are your days—like you get to the end of your days and you say, “Wow, that was a great day.” You just have this warm feeling of, “I've done things that I really enjoy.”

And here's what you might feel. You get to the end of your day and you say, “Well, you know, I studied a little bit about nutrition and fitness, and I worked on the screenplay, and I blogged a little bit, but I didn’t exercise at all, and I haven't focused on my job as a computer specialist, and my gosh, I haven't even started to look for a romantic partner. And my bigger goal of owning my own business—forget it.”

You just feel like you're getting nowhere. Because when you have so many values in your life, and you put the pressure on yourself to be great at all of them—to accomplish all of them at a pace that would be the case if you had only one of them in your life—you feel defeated. It’s chronic. It’s a feeling of being chronically defeated.

And you even use the word “plagues.” It's like the plague hit you. So you’ve got this world with this playground imagery, and you’ve also got the plague imagery.

So how do you get your days to flow? Well, first, what is going wrong?

Number one—

Hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Many romantic partners have complaints like, “I live in the shadow of my husband’s life,” or “I feel invisible to my girlfriend.” These are common complaints, but you never want to betray yourself in a romantic partnership.

When both partners value themselves and are lovingly honest with one another, romance flourishes.

Discover the secrets to lasting love in this liberating book, The Selfish Path to Romance by Doctors Edwin Locke and Ellen Kenner. That’s The Selfish Path to Romance on Amazon or SelfishRomance.com.

So how do you get your days to flow? Well, first, what is going wrong?

Number one, you’re not recognizing success. Some people are very empty and depressed, and they sit all day long on the couch chomping on potato chips and watching TV. They're really depressed.

You have lots of values—but you don’t want your values to suffocate you.

What is your enemy? Well, time seems to be the enemy. Time is limited. You can't make a fact of reality—time—your enemy. You have to work within time. And you have to recognize one thing that I say to myself, because I’m often in your situation:

I can't have all my values. I can't ride my bike, I can't go to the gym regularly the way I would like to, I can't practice dance the way I'd like to, I can't write a book and have a radio show and have a practice—I can’t do it all.

So I need to—here’s the big skill—prioritize.

And that’s not easy to do. I need to be able to hold perspective on the big picture. What are my longer-range goals?

If yours is opening a business, can you integrate some of those goals? Can it be a business dealing with the triathlete qualities you have, or nutrition and fitness? Could you open up a gym?

If you're going into screenplay writing, well, maybe something else has to give.

My son was in engineering management and computers—involved in that industry—and he could not have that and a career in dance at the same time. Dance was his priority. He actually gave up the other career.

Very hard decisions. Very thought-provoking, thought-filled decisions that you want to make.

So what can you do? You can take a 60-year perspective and say:

“What if I was 60 years old, looking back at my life now—what do I wish I had focused on, right now, today?”

You need to have time management skills. You can go to my website and get a book: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein.

And my website is DrKenner.com.

He gives wonderful skills, and there’s a lot more at my website.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad:

Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke:

It is easy for arguments to get out of hand in the heat of emotion. Developing a method that calms things down and restores perspective provides a safe atmosphere in which to deal with conflict. Often, this can be done with a touch of humor.

Marcy and Doug used a signal system. One time, they had gotten into a heated argument about something quite silly—who would run to the store to get milk. Later, they realized how trivial the issue was and had a good laugh about it.

From then on, when an argument started to get heated, one of them would say, “Milk run,” and they would both smile and calm down.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.