If you have trouble understanding your feelings, viewing your emotions as emotional equations can help you process them easier.
On the “The Tim Ferriss Show” he interviews Chip Conley. The episode is wide-ranging, and at one point they get to how Chip views emotions.
Chip was inspired by Viktor Frankl’s book A man’s search for meaning and came up with his first emotional equation. Chip then made several others and put them in his book, Emotional Equations.
The Emotional Equations
Despair = Suffering – meaning
In a person’s life, suffering is always present. There is always something slightly off. Chip explores the idea that suffering is a constant. We cannot remove suffering from the equation. However, we can increase the meaning. The more meaning we have in our lives, the less the despair weighs into this equation. If we have ten meaning and 2 sufferings, then our despair is at a -8, reverse the equation and we are at an 8 of despair. A pretty powerful effect on finding meaning in our lives.
Learn how to be more positive and find more meaning in life with this guide!
Anxiety = uncertainty * powerlessness
Anxiety is rampant in our professional lives, with thoughts like: will I get this promotion,” stress is also present in our personal lives, if I ask them out will they say yes? And countless other scenarios.
Notice this is a multiplication, if one variable goes up, they both explode into even more anxiety. Lowering uncertainty will lower overall anxiety. Lower both uncertainty and powerlessness and anxiety will decrease significantly. We can illustrate how lower uncertainty and powerlessness with an example. Let’s focus on promotion. Taking uncertainty, what exactly are you uncertain about? Do you not know what skills are necessary for the next level, who the hiring managers are, or what is the team fit? A lot of these questions can be answered by tapping into your network of mentors, peers, and others who have done similar things. If you are fortunate to have a great leader, you can even have a frank discussion with your manager about if she thinks you are ready for it. From there, you can tackle powerlessness. Why are you feeling powerless? See how you can act with self-efficacy to make changes in these areas. By tackling these two problems; uncertainty and powerlessness, the anxiety about the potential promotion diminishes significantly.
See this guide on how to be more confident when approaching ambiguity!
Disappointment = Expectation – Reality
In school, did you ever think you got an A on an exam and then you get the test back and it is a B+? Still a great grade, but you are disappointed. The reason for the disappointment is because your expectations were off. Being disappointed plays into the area of living a life of should be’s. I should be here in my career, my kids should be, my friends should be, etc etc.
There is nothing wrong with wanting more and building a better life. It is okay to want more, but we also have to accept how things are currently. Enjoy the now along the way.
To not feel so disappointed, not having solidified expectations of what reality should be. Work on having a general idea of an outcome, or enjoying the process along the way. By trying these strategies you will be less disappointed. Even in the above examples, there are a lot of variables that go into a promotion. You could do everything right and in the end, they bring in someone from outside the company. It sucks but having the expectation you will get that job, in particular, could lead to debilitating disappointment. You made it known you want a promotion and developed skills. Having an honest conversation with the managers could lead to an even better role opening shortly. Manage expectation and disappointment by not being too attached to outcomes.
Happiness = Wanting what you have/Having what you want
“Wanting what you have speaks to gratitude. Having what you want is the process of gratification” Conley states. Again, there is nothing wrong with wanting to attain new things.
You have to be careful of the bottom part of that equation because as Conley explains, “And for a lot of people who think success will bring happiness, they go on the hedonic treadmill and end up realizing, just when they get the thing they thought they wanted, there’s some new shiny object that becomes the new thing”.
If that side of us that always wants something new, without appreciating what we have, keeps going, the effect on our happiness gets worse. We continually get unhappier because we keep achieving “having what you want” but never give credit to “wanting what you have” so we become more and more unhappy. The key to balance happiness is to be grateful for what we do have while keeping in mind what we want to attain. Once you have it, adding it to the things to be consciously grateful for. Practicing gratitude at least keeps the happiness at 1 or greater. Otherwise, we enter the below happiness threshold.
Explore the Hedonic Treadmill with this guide and see this post on how to be more grateful every single day!
Main Take-Aways
- Emotional Equations help you visualize the relationship between feelings easier
- Reduce despair by finding more meaning in your life
- Limit anxiety by reducing uncertainty and powerlessness
- Reduce disappointment by managing expectations
- Be happier by being grateful for what you have while still working to attain new successes
Action Items
Which of these equations do you need to visualize the most in your life right now? Jot it down on a post-it note and keep it somewhere you see every day. How can you work on reducing the negative emotions in the equation?
