00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hello warriors, and welcome to a special week of the Love Your Life school. It is special for two big reasons. One, I am rereleasing one of my best of episodes. It gets the most listens, and I’ve heard from the most people that this episode is inspiring and has motivated them to make change. The other super special thing is that I am rereleasing it now because I am leading a cell phone challenge for the in the Love Your Life school lifetime, and so you can sign up right now for it that if you feel inspired by this episode two and you want change faster and more sustainably with an expert holding your hand and cheering you on the whole way, that would be me. Join now. All right, listen in. No matter where you are, by the end of this episode, you’re going to feel inspired, motivated, and really have a clear path to life satisfaction.

00:01:00 Speaker 2: Hi, this is the Love of Your Life show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let’s go! Warriors.

00:01:15 Speaker 3: Warriors. Hello and welcome to another week with me, Susie Pettit, your certified life and parent coach. I am so thrilled you clicked on this episode, because that means you’re the type of person that wants to help people have happier lives. Because I titled this something like how to help our Kids have a happier Life. And I mean, who’s interested in that? I am, and I’m so glad that you are too. Whether you have kids or not, you’re going to learn things in this episode that help us collectively as a community and individuals to raise our overall happiness. Because like, how great is that when you can look at the people you love and see that they’re living a life that lights them up, that they’re setting goals, they’re going after their goals, they’re feeling satisfaction in their days, whether it’s our partner or our kid, our friend or our parent. It feels good, right? Well, today on the show, I’m going to share with you some research from the World’s Happiness Report out of Oxford University. And then I’m going to give you some actionable takeaways so you can implement it in your own life and in your kids lives. Okay. This will set us up to all feel more happiness. Sounds good. Even better, the homework and the things I’m going to tell you all have to do with you having more fun. All right. It’s not like you need for root canals a year. No, we’re going and we’re going to have some fun. So listen in. Okay. First off, some background on happiness. I don’t know if you know this or not, but for as long as we’ve collected data on human behavior and happiness, we see humans have a common arc of happiness in their lifetime. That looks like a you. Okay? This is something that I studied when I was in school training to be your happiness expert coach. And human behavior in all things is that happiness was a. You. We all sort of knew it with both upper parts of that you. Signifying happiness and a lightness in being. And so historically, from birth up until our mid to late thirties, we’re on one side of that. You feeling good, living our lives. Okay. And then starting around our mid to late thirties earlier, if we’ve had some trauma or particular self enlightenment for most humans, mid to late thirties, you know, early forties, most of us hit a period of time. When we reached the bottom of that you the ubiquitous mid life crisis. And two things tend to happen. Okay. We start to see that external things don’t have the ability to make us happy for a long period of time. We’re like, oh, this is interesting. We sort of reached that age where we have enough experiences that we learn that the new car, the new handbag, the bigger bank account, or our kid getting into the good school isn’t actually what creates life satisfaction. This is where many people find me as a coach. They reach out and they’re like, wait a minute. They sort of realize that the things that create are it’s not the things that create our feelings, but it’s our thoughts. And so they want to learn more about how do we manage our thoughts and tell me more about emotional intelligence and emotional control. Susie. Okay. That’s the first part. We sort of get to this age in our life where we’re like, hmm, things don’t make me happy. That’s interesting. Long term happy. Okay. The second is that this is the period of our life when our external circumstances tend to be full on. We have more and more responsibilities. It’s not like when we’re age twelve and all we have to take care of is feeding the cat. No. Okay. Our kids hit the preteen and the teen years, and they don’t do what we want them to do anymore. Our parents are aging, and they probably are not doing what we think they should be doing, and maybe their demands on us are increasing. Okay. We have ideas of how they should be living their lives and their people, so they don’t necessarily do exactly what we want. All right. The responsibilities in our jobs can be bigger and more time consuming, or our lack of job fulfillment or having a job at all is becoming increasingly obvious. We’re becoming increasingly sort of just undirected and feeling flat. Sometimes this is a period of our life when our marriages are struggling, as the things we’ve shoved under the rug are harder to step over. It’s like to cross this massive mound to get to your spouse. Add to that, our bodies begin to change. We metabolize sugar and alcohol differently. Maybe we get injured because our body can’t do the things it used to do. You know the drill. Basically, we’re at that part of the movie Deer Warrior, where things get real. All right. Luckily, we know from studies and the movie that movies typically end well. Okay. This bottom part of the you, though, can feel really heavy and deep. This podcast is not about giving you tools for that stage, but if I don’t like leaving you stranded. So this is new to you that you’re like, oh my gosh, this is what I’m experiencing. It’s like your first episode or the first time you’re hearing it in this way. Get a coach. Okay. Having professional support to teach you the tools to lead you through this very normal period of human development will help you move through it with as much ease as possible. That’s what I love teaching people. Okay. What today’s podcast is about is that this is what we normally see, the you of happiness, it starts high. And then until our mid thirties or forties, it bottoms out and then it starts to rise again, showing that people in their mid fifties and older are some of the happiest, most light hearted people dealing people ever. Okay. I say usually because the bottom part of this U represents a fork in the road. When we’re looking at research people who turn the corner and head up to that next group I was talking about do the things we talk about in coaching. In the love of your life school, they turn their midlife crisis into a midlife awakening. Okay. Those who don’t rise into that upper part of the U are those who, instead of slowing down to examine the life they’re living instead of maybe being a professional in that knows about the brain and human behavior and making conscious choices, they think that that what they need to be doing is doing what they’ve been doing, but harder. Okay, not realizing that it’s the model that’s broken, that the things aren’t what bring us happiness. And so they double down. Okay? They think, well, gee, if it didn’t work to bring them happiness in their forties and they must need to do more of it, more working, more spending, more buying of the new things, more drinking, more complaining, more eating, blaming things outside of them for their inside experience. It feels awful. That’s another episode, but I’m here to help you if you’re at that pivot. What we’re looking at today is the research out of the world Happiness study that shows for the first time in history, the U is now a J, a reverse hockey stick, meaning that the first time in recorded history in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and English speaking Canada, the youth are no longer experiencing the first part of the U. That light hearted yay and enjoyment that we all had the benefit of experiencing. Okay, it’s the first time we’ve been tracking this, which has been hundreds of years through war and famine and times much worse than now. And so obviously, this is deeply concerning, which is why I’m doing a podcast on it, and I’m here to help you. Okay. And yet, I’ll bet I’m not telling you something that you don’t know. Okay. I’m not going to go into the stats on how anxiety and depression rates are on the rise and all of that. I’ll put the links to the report in the show notes, scroll down to whichever device you’re listening on to see it there in the episode description. What I do want to look at today, because this is called the love your life show, not let’s cry through life show. We want to look at why we, why we see this happening so that we know what we can do to turn the J back into a you again. Because it is possible. There are very real things we can do starting today. Okay. Yay! So first, why? What are the two main reasons why the U has turned into a J in the four countries I mentioned? First, researchers started to notice this trend in the U. Starting in two thousand and eight. What happened in two thousand and eight? I’ll tell you what two thousand and eight is the year most houses and individuals had cell phones, Facebook and Twitter. Facebook was created in two thousand and four, Twitter in two thousand and six. But they saw their most users and uptick in use in two thousand and eight. So that’s the first piece. Almost everyone had a phone. Second piece. The news cycle shifted from three times a day. Get your morning news, your dinnertime news, and maybe if you’re still up, you’re nightly news. It shifted from three times a day to twenty four over seven. Plus, since we never had, we no longer had to sit our butt down in front of a TV to watch the news. Okay, like if we were out with our friends, we were like, not like, oh, God, I got to go home and check the six o’clock news, guys. No. We could get it at the restaurant. We can get the news at the grocery store line, in the car, at the doctor’s office on vacation. So the second thing is, is that news took off. Okay. It took off back in the day. You might tell yourself that you’re an informed citizen if you check news once a day or even like once every other day. Okay. It didn’t seem as urgent. You’re like, all right, I’ll check after the kids go to school. Now we check in the morning. We feel bad if we haven’t checked by lunch. We get into this urgency and scarcity that makes the news stations money. It’s not that there’s more drama happening in the world. I want to be very clear because it snowballs from here. Not only can we pick up our phones and get access any time, we have hundreds of options to choose from. And so the news companies have to compete for our attention. What sells? Have you heard that expression blood cells. Sadly it’s true. Okay. If you’re just, you know, you’re like hanging out with your friends and you see this headline like woman discovers new flower. You may not click on it. But woman gets killed by flower. You’re going to click on that’s called clickbait. Have you heard of clickbait? The news companies are fishing for our attention. They bait us to click. Not only that, they now have twenty four hours of on air time to fill instead of just three hours. Think of it. In those three hours, the world news might have been, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes of your nightly news program. Then you have the local news for ten, and then you have sports and weather and, you know, whatever. Well, how much could they actually cover? Back in the day, a major news outlet had to constrain themselves in terms of what they highlighted. They didn’t have time to tell us about all these random negative things that they find out now. Nowadays, they not only have twenty four hours to share information, they compete with more outlets for our attention, so they have to make the news more dramatic. So we click and listen. This impacts us and our youth on many levels. Obviously Captain Obvious here. And so how do these two changes from two thousand and eight impact us and our kids happiness? Um, I’m going to highlight three ways that we have control over. Okay. First, because most everyone has a phone and because phone developer study how to keep us on our devices. The average person in the four countries I mentioned Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand spend an average of at least four hours on their phone. That is outside of work time. Okay, it’s four hours on a device, a tablet, a computer or their phone. Okay, that does not count work time. So that means that we’re choosing to spend one sixth of our waking time bathing our brain in something someone else controls, which comes to the interesting part of the study. Okay. Because other countries are not on their phones as much, not all of them are at least like other countries have more outside lifestyle or they’re just, they, they just don’t have access to the cell network that we have and all that. But really the important the interesting thing came when researchers were perplexed because they noticed that the happiness and turn into a J in those four countries the US, New Zealand, Australia and English speaking Canada, not French speaking Canada, not European countries, not African countries, not Asian countries or the global South, which led us to question why. Well, the difference is mostly in how the news is reported in these four countries. French speaking Canada pulls their news and news style from Europe, and European news has a much more balanced reporting, similar to the other countries that still have the U curve. Whereas for the rest of us, let’s just say sadly, Trump sells. Okay, so we have the first piece here that we’re spending four plus hours on our phone. Okay. How much time did you spend on your phone when you were young, when you were your kid’s age? Dumb question. Right? The second part is that social apps like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all the ones have made it much easier to compare and despair. And that goes for our kids and us, whether we’re fifteen or fifty. It is super easy for us to get on and see a life that looks way better than the one we’re experiencing. Okay. When I was in middle school and high school and heck, even college, I graduated from college in nineteen ninety three. Okay. I would leave school on a Friday, do my thing with a group of friends or by myself, and then Monday head back into school having no idea what my peers outside of my circle had been doing or how they spent their time. If I couldn’t ride my bike by them or call them on the family phone, I was blissfully unaware. Okay, sure, I might sit down Monday in the cafeteria and hear that Julie invited all my friends over for pizza party. Like that really did happen. Okay. But let me tell you, the disappointment I felt Monday at school was short lived compared to what our kids have to deal with nowadays. They leave school and can instantaneously see things they’re quote unquote missing out on. Okay, so they decide maybe their friends like, hey, do you want to go to Starbucks? And they’re like, no, I’m going home. They just, they make a decision for themselves on the bus ride home. They get to see a selfie of their friends at Starbucks looking like they’re having far more fun than they’re actually having. Okay. It’s so hard for our kids. They click on an app and they see their friends out and about, posting pictures that have probably been edited with some sort of filter. Most definitely show the highlight of what they’re doing. They’re not showing how, like Julie’s face when she had a little hissy fit because Starbucks was out of the egg whites, or how Bertha complained the whole time about the her drink or whatever. No, they see this picture that that shows our kid what they’re missing out on. Okay? And even if you’re one of the ones who went to Starbucks, who’s in that picture? Look at the kids in Starbucks. What do you see? Those kids are still being influenced by their phones. They’re posting pictures on their phones and maybe checking for likes like they’re looking. It’s like the little rat in a maze. Like Pavlov’s dog. They’re like, did I get the like, did I get the like, did I get the like? Or they’re sitting with their friends and instead of sitting and engaging with the friends, they’re checking on their phone to see what the other friends are doing. Are they having more fun elsewhere? Cetera. ET cetera. No wonder we’re affected and no wonder our mental health is affected. So that’s our kids. So before we’re like, oh, okay, I’ll just clamp the heck down. What about us? Here’s another way our phones are affecting our kids. We are affected. And I’m saying this from personally to, okay, this rush rush attitude and paying attention to what every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing leads us parents to get a little crazy Cray too. Okay, we have the same things our kids are going on. We’re like, oh my gosh, Sally just got her kid a tutor. Should I get my kid a tutor? Okay, like third grade. My kid, you know, was having math homework and it took a little longer to do her math homework. So maybe I should get a third grade tutor, be like, oh my gosh, first of all, did they have tutors when we were in third grade for math? Did they even have homework when we were in third grade? Oh my gosh. And if it’s not that we get on and we just. We see like little Giulietta and her perfectly quaffed kids standing in front of their new big house, smiling. And what do we think our influenced brains. I think, oh my gosh, I need a bigger house too. Wow. Look at her son brushes his hair. Okay. Oh, gee, maybe I need to work more hours to get that house. Maybe I need to pressure my husband to work more hours. Maybe I need to pressure my kid on and on and on and on. Now, that might sound extreme, but one thing capitalism encourages us to do is to think that things buy happiness. We are encouraged to consume, consume, consume, thinking that the more we have, the happier we’ll be. What we are noticing around us is that is not true. Hey, our kids are starting to notice it too. This is what we were raised on. What our parents were doing. Okay? They started from less than us though. Like they started from parents who were raised with a Great Depression. And so they started eating like spam and, you know, all. And so then they’re like, oh my God, we can get real butter. Okay. And so yes, to them working more to a certain extent did bring happiness. But we took that model and poured gasoline on it. And now we are burning it down, burning along with our adrenals, and apparently our kids ability to slow down and enjoy life. We’re like little workhorses. We’re like, make money, keep working, keep hustling. Don’t stop to think for what? Go go, go. And yet, dear worriers, I’m here with you. I’m not in some high and mighty place. I’ve been studying this. And I have the fix. The simple fix. So hang with me, okay? Honestly, there is a fix. I have done it with my kids. And you can too. I want to remind you that listeners of this show are warriors. I call you guys warriors because we don’t just go along with what everyone else is doing. We hear stories like this and we draw a line in the sand and we say, not on our watch. We strive for more. What I’m speaking to here is the study of what ordinary and average people are doing. You’re not ordinary. You’re extraordinary. So keep listening. We can slow this all down. The fact that it’s only those four countries that have the J shape while the others have the U is incredibly inspiring. The fact that this trend only started in two thousand and eight, and here we are less than two decades later, incredibly inspiring. I know that seems like a long time, but it is a blip in our human behaviors. We can make small changes in our households and communities and make a difference. My brain is already coming up with answers, and maybe yours is too. Okay, so looking at the Y that we’re on our phones more and our phones are negatively influencing us. Well, let’s look at what we can control. Warriors. And here are the simple shifts you can make right now. And if you practice them this month. Heck, let’s just say for the next several months until the new year. You will notice such a marked difference by that new year. I know it because I did these things with my kids. And before your brain tells you it’s too late or Susie’s a life coach or blah, blah, blah, if it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you. I did not start when they were four. I started this when my oldest was fourteen. It is possible for you. You can start when your oldest is twenty four. If they’re still living in the house with you. It is not too late. You can do this. And so the first thing we want to look at, Mama. The first place where we have the most influence is you. Why you? Because who do you really have control over? You okay? You have control. People learn through watching, not through us talking. And if you change and start modeling differently, You influence everyone around you. Okay, so let’s look at your cell and device use. Let’s drop the judgment. Drop the shame. Okay. And let’s look at both the time and the time you’re on the phone and the content you consume. Here are some questions for you. We can ask ourselves. How much time are you spending on your phone and devices? What do you look at when you’re on your device? Which three to five apps do you use most? Are those apps adding to your life or subtracting from your life? Is getting on those apps moving you towards the goals you have? How good do you feel when you get off those apps? Those are all questions you can ask yourself in a kind and curious way. We want to know our starting point. There is no need to be judgy with yourself. People far smarter than us are studying how to entice us to keep us on the phone. So if we’ve been enticed, just like, okay, yeah, they they did it good Them. Okay. And now that we know better, we can do better. Okay. Since you’re worried, I’ll give you a couple more questions to ponder. In this self exploration that we’re not beating ourselves up. How about this one? Where do you keep your phone during the day? Is it always on your body? Where do you keep it at night? Where is it when you’re eating with others? When you’re eating alone. Which notifications do you have on? Okay. Those are all ways. Like just seeing our phone distracts us, apparently, is what they say. Um, we’ll be diving into these areas and I’ll be giving specific advice on what to do and ways to control our tech habits and the love of your life. School this month. So bring your answers to the questions I just asked to a session and I’ll have the questions in the show notes. I can’t wait to share what I know there because it really does make a difference. So that’s the first place I want you to put your attention, you and your tech. We come off as super hypocritical if we listen to this podcast episode, and then we start yapping at our kids to get off their phones when we’re on ours. I’m just saying it because it’s pretty familiar to me. So choose to lead by example. Say less. Do more. Model what you’d like your kids and your partner to do. This is a page out of leadership coaching. Like think of who you emulate. Who do you want to be more like? Okay. Someone who’s chasing you around telling you, you should do this. Don’t do that. Why did you do that when they’re doing something very different? No, we’re inspired by someone we can look at and think, wow, that person has a really healthy life, and that person really cares about me and sees the best in me. That’s the first step and it is far reaching. Okay, another factor that kids shared in the happiness Happiness Report research was that they didn’t feel inspired by their parents lives, that they looked at their parents and saw like stressed out, tired humans. And they didn’t have that thought like, oh yeah, I want to study hard so I can have that. That looks awesome. No. Our youth are feeling a little lost, a little flat, like, okay, if I follow the rules that society and the educational system and my family set out for me, what do I get that? Okay, so putting our phones down help us with this aspect too. They help us pay attention to our lives in this way, to model a life worth living. When we put our phones down, we’re left with up to four hours of time to do something with. What do we do with that time? Well, who knows, that might feel stressful to you and take the fun course and the love of your life. School. It’s on the class resource page. That helped me a lot, because I know I got to a certain age and was like, what the heck do I even like to do? If I’m not on my phone, then what? The point is here is that this first step of being more intentional with our phone time and what we’re consuming on our phone is going to impact us by modeling, phone use and also modeling a life. Our kids want to emulate that. They see that and they’re like, yeah, more of that. It looks like mom is lit up in her life. Yes, please. Now on to the second part, which is where most of us want to start because we tell ourselves it’s easier to tell other people what to do. The second part is to have guidelines in your house regarding devices for your kids. They have guidelines for all the dependents living in your house. Our brains are fully developed, and we just spent about five minutes talking about how hard it is for us to set limits, to turn off notifications, to put our phone down. Our kids brains are not fully developed. And so we as parents need to give them guidelines for cell use. They will not agree. They think they’re doing just fine. They will say none of their friends have guidelines, and they may think that you’re ruining their social life. Their kids, they get to say kid things. You’re the parent. Your kids safety is your responsibility. And once we learn that this device that other people are in control of is influencing our kids mental health, we get to set guidelines. I did. And while having my kids angry with me or disagreeing with my decision in the moment did not feel good, that was some of my least fun parenting. Okay, I have the benefit of being on the other side. All of my kids have launched their all out of my house, okay? And each and every one has come around and told me in their own way that they are so grateful for the limits we had on phones in our house. They notice a big difference with their peers, and now they’re able to come back around and see that. My adult brain knew some things that their younger brains didn’t at the time, and they’re grateful for it. Stick with it, warrior. It is not easy, okay? But talking to other responsible parents like we do in the love of your life, school and coaching sessions, that really helps. Listening to podcasts like this where I give you permission to set guidelines. Also, if you’re like, what the heck do I say? And how and around what I go through the simple process in the in the Parenting Teens class. I’ll put that link below in the show notes. And let me just say this is I don’t know if you can hear this. There’s like a bird outside my window, literally like looking at me squawking. He’s like, yes, make the guidelines, parents. Okay. But I, I do need to say that this is a great time of year to change guidelines. Change rules in the house. Anytime is a great time, but especially right now, if you normally don’t have a guideline with phone your phones around meal time or bedtime or any at all, let this happiness report light the fire under your butt and instead of burning it down, let it motivate you. Our kids happiness and mental health depends on it. So first we’ve got our cell use. Second, we have their cell use. And third, I don’t know what to call this, but basically like do more of what the parents in the seventies and 80s did okay, with a big grain of salt. Don’t do what they did in terms of emotional maturity and all that, but do what they did. When you went to your parent and you told them you were bored. I don’t know about you, but first of all, I’m not even sure I ever said that to my parents. It’s just like, like, why would I tell them it’s none of their business. But if I did say I’m bored, I can imagine they would look at me and like, oh, I probably almost like, check if I had a fever, they’d be like, oh, okay, but why are you telling me this? Okay, because we all knew my parents and me. My entertainment was up to me. I had plenty of toys for sure, but even if I didn’t like, they’d be like, go make something out of the napkins or go play outside with the dirt. Like it’s just the parents of the Seventies and eighties. Heck, the whole last century did not view their kids enjoyment in their everyday life as their responsibility. Half the time, I don’t even know if my parents knew what I was doing. They knew I was safe. We had certain guidelines about where I could go and where I couldn’t go, but like if I was staring at a wall. They were like, great. Not their problem. They certainly didn’t parent how I did okay when I was raising my kids like the shows I let my kids watch on TV. I was, I was like, oh yeah. They got like the contrasting colors and sounds that are good for their brain. Oh my gosh, you guys, I even had I’m thinking about, I had this CD of music called Einstein Rock. Even the music was like, oh, I better be responsible for their brains. My parents played the music they wanted to play. I am quite sure that my dad did not check to see if Casper the Ghost or Flintstones or whatever else I was watching on TV had the colors my brain needed for development. Okay, it was a much easier time to parent one where they felt a lot less responsible, and one where I’m inviting you to go back to a bit. I mean, now we have the term free play that didn’t even exist because we didn’t have directed or productive play. We just played. Okay, so the next time your kid says I’m bored, try thinking in your head. What would a kind parent of the eighties say? And maybe just like, look at them and like, nod okay. Or say like, okay, okay. We just want to resist the urge to fix it. Resist saying something like, well, you probably have some math work you could be studying or a room to clean. No. All right, let’s let our kids be kids. Bring the you back to North America. And, well, it’s not all of North America, but the United States, English speaking Canada, New Zealand and Australia. So that’s it. Three simple things to focus on that if you do, you will influence your corner of the world to turn that J back into a U. Well, one thing I want to say, because I know I’ll get asked this. Yes, we can join with other parents and influence in that way. Also, I know that I did this with a couple of, um, I didn’t do it with my first two sons, but then with my third son, I finally did that when we had sleepovers and the kids came over for play dates, or we had a basket by our doors. I got together with other moms where we just said we’d put the phones in the basket. Okay, at meal times, phones weren’t at the table. Sure, some kids would growl that were new to my house. And yet, after that momentary discomfort, or maybe my kid looking at me like, oh my God, you’re doing it with this one. Okay? I would hear them giggling and laughing and being kids. Even when they were sixteen. So I cannot over influence overemphasize the influence you have over your life and your kids life and the impact and change your life will go through when you do these simple things. So let’s go warriors. If you take one thing away from this episode, I hope it’s the importance of living a life you love. Permission to put your phone down, to miss out on a new cycle, or fourteen. To not force your kid into a fourth activity just because your neighbor’s kids are doing it. Permission to live a life you love. Let’s go. Big love to you, dear warrior, and I’d love to see you on campus.

00:33:01 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the episode and staying till the end because you’re here at the end. I have a special treat to tell you if you’re listening to this live time. We are doing a cell phone use challenge in the Love Your Life school starting in October. And while you can do this stuff alone, you’re going to get better change, faster change. And it’s more fun in a group. So join me. You could just join for the month, do the challenge, change behavior, make that you into a J and feel so much more in control and better about yourself in November. I’d love that for you if you’d love that for you to go to. Love your life dot com or I’ll put the link in the show notes and let’s join hands and do this together. Warrior.