There\u2019s a whole industry dedicated to making people feel happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just follow the three principles of this, or the five secrets to that, and you\u2019ll be happier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s the problem: In the most important moments of my life, I didn\u2019t feel happy. I felt anxious about the path ahead. I didn\u2019t feel good enough. I didn\u2019t feel ready enough. I felt heavy\u2014intimidated by a load that I was sure I couldn\u2019t carry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, I still did the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happiness came only after a wave of other emotions washed through me (and knocked me around a bunch).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you pursue only happiness, you won\u2019t ever leave your comfort zone. Because stepping outside your comfort zone is, by definition, uncomfortable. You\u2019ll keep dragging yourself into the same predictable tomorrow by reliving yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of chasing happiness, find and follow your north star. That\u2019s the guiding light that determines all the choices you make in your life\u2014what you reject and what you embrace. Your north star must be a principle that inspires you to act even if\u2014and especially if\u2014it generates pain in the short term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My north star is helping others reimagine the status quo. The career path I was previously on as a law professor was no longer moving the needle toward my north star, so, last year, I decided to quit. It was painful to leave a career I loved in order to pursue writing and speaking full time. I felt anxious giving up the security of tenure and the safety net of a guaranteed paycheck for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as long as I kept one foot in academia, I would remain tethered to the path I had followed before. I couldn\u2019t fully follow my north star because my academic commitments were depleting my limited supply of time and creative energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following your north star will often take you off the path that you\u2019ve followed in the past, as it did for me. There\u2019ll always be a reason to keep coloring inside the lines you\u2019ve drawn for yourself. It\u2019ll be agonizing to leave behind what feels comfortable to pursue what\u2019s uncomfortable\u2014and to step into the unknown, where all things that never existed are created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, as Zora Neale Hurston writes, \u201cthere is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What will your story say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reference:<\/strong> Ozan Varol<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a whole industry dedicated to making people feel happy. Just follow the three principles of this, or the five secrets to that, and you\u2019ll be happier. Here\u2019s the problem: In the most important moments of my life, I didn\u2019t feel happy. I felt anxious about the path ahead. I didn\u2019t feel good enough. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":9496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[186,151,279],"class_list":["post-9497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-motivation","tag-ozan-varol","tag-personal-development"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9499,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497\/revisions\/9499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csa.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}