How to Handle Too Much Happiness | The Matthew McConaughey Effect | An Underestimated Tool | This Week's Challenges
Break a Rule Newsletter #8
What To Do When You’re Feeling Too Happy
Break a Rule is designed to promote growth, a feeling of agency, possibility, and even joy.
It wouldn’t be responsible of me to keep offering these tools without also educating you about how to interrupt runaway happiness if it gets out of hand.
After all—being too free, too happy, and overly positive has been known to annoy others, depress pharmaceutical executives who profit from the sale of mood medications, and model unreasonable hopes about adulthood to children.
As award-winning science journalist Catherine Price tells us in this TedTalk, “playful deviance and breaking the rules of ‘responsible’ adulthood” is likely to result in having a lot of fun.
Unchecked momentum in this regard can cause us to quickly lose sight of our commitment to show up at pointless meetings, deliver mind-numbing presentations, and fabricate new forms of busywork.
Clearly we can’t risk any of that.
So without further ado, here is a short list of things you can do to ensure that joy and happiness do not get the upper hand at work.
Consistently put your creative or passion projects on the back burner and surround yourself with friends who do the same, insisting they really are finally going to finish the novel they started writing when Theodore Roosevelt was president.
When you start feeling really good, eat copious amounts of food that contains a percentage of salt, saturated fat, and sugar that accounts for 584% of the total ingredients.
Keep consuming books, courses, and videos about how to be happy and successful, while implementing none of it and promising yourself you will put into practice some of what you’ve been learning once Mark Hamill gets a leading role again.
Arrange for minimal contact with your children during the work week so you’re not seduced into free-spirited activity when you should be getting shit done.
I hope this helps.
Of course, there are many more things that can be done to short-circuit the dangerously compounding effects of joy and happiness in your life, so feel free to explore other methods as needed.
The Matthew McConaughey Effect
This is about a scientific phenomenon that I admittedly made up after listening to the audiobook version of Matthew McConaughey’s book Green Lights during my daily bike rides.
It was during one of my outings last week that an odd thing happened.
One minute I was cycling on a frequented trail near my home. The next minute, I found myself in a delightfully new and unfamiliar part of the forest without even meaning to discover it.
As I shared in last week’s newsletter, I’m focusing on challenges for breaking the rule Be Independent. Last week’s challenge was, Get the Biography.
I’d heard from a number of friends that Green Lights was excellent, and given this week’s challenge, I downloaded the audiobook and started listening to it on my daily rides.
I’ve never been a huge McConaughey fan, but I am now.
Not because I resonate with all of his characters, lifestyle, or views, but because he’s willing to take risks. This Oscar-winning actor’s book is just a series of stories about having the awareness and courage to jump out of a groove before it becomes a rut.
Without even knowing it, these stories about intelligent risk and the willingness to brave new territory inspired me to spontaneously explore a new path on this recent ride through the woods.
Even in the midst of an activity as dynamic as mountain-biking, I’d fallen into a routine exploration of finite routes, and only realized it when the mood of this book provoked a heightened spirit of adventure in me.
Routine behaviors can be very useful, helping us to remain focused and efficient in our lives. They can also keep us unconsciously tethered to circumstances, roles, relationships and behaviors that no longer serve us.
"If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal." ~ Paulo Coelho
From time to time, we’re all in need of what behavioral science calls a pattern interrupt.
The Break a Rule challenges are a collection of strategic pattern interrupts that can be used to discover new pathways, adventures, and approaches to success in your own life.
You can visit the growing archive of these challenges in the Challenge Library.
Revisiting the Risk Finder Quiz
Break a Rule is 13 years now in the making. Over that time I’ve poured many years of research, study, writing, and testing into the creation of tools and content that support professional growth.
The Risk Finder quiz is a carefully designed assessment, deserving of periodic re-use to facilitate learning and development.
My own growth and development is guided by my most recent quiz results.
As you can see, my score in the Be Independent category is notably lower than the other rules, which why I am currently focusing on these challenges.
Be Popular is a secondary area where I need to practice breaking rules.
I recommend that you re-take the quiz every few months, remind yourself of the types of challenges you’ll benefit from practicing, and engage them as a priority.
You’ll be surprised how effectively these simple challenges promote dynamic growth.
And now most importantly . . .
Here are this week’s challenges
You can browse the challenges and choose one for the week that catches your eye, or use your Risk Finder Quiz results to find the challenge that corresponds to your lowest scoring rule.
Break the Rule Be Normal
Break the Rule Avoid Mistakes
Break the Rule Be Independent
Break the Rule Stay Comfortable
Break the Rule Pretend You Don’t Matter
Break the Rule Stay in Control
Break the Rule Be Popular
Do you need team building for your people?
I’m currently working on a step-by-step guide that will show anyone in a leadership position how to use the Break a Rule platform as a cost-effective and time-efficient team building tool.
It’s designed to work even when members of your team are remote.
If you’d like to be on the list to beta test the new tools, just send a reply to this email saying, “I’d love to hear more when it’s ready,” and I’ll keep you in the loop.
That’s all for this week.
Happy Rule Breaking!
Regards
Rick
Proof that I’ve been breaking rules for a while.
Here I am stealing my grandmother’s hat and sunglasses and trolling for my first laughs at age 2.
I’m sorry the break a rule quiz link is broken. Love the ideas here. I live like this normally. 👍🏼
I loved the quiz and will use it this week as part of my reflection. Grateful for you.