This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 146 / The Happiness Equation with Zenica Chatman

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

I know being happy every minute of every day isn’t an option, but I do wish I saw more women experiencing it regularly. I wish women allowed themselves to choose happiness FAR more frequently without feeling guilty or selfish. So let’s talk about how we might do that. Joining me is Zenica Chatman, who after experiencing workplace trauma, went on a path to redefine her own self-worth and what it means to be happy and successful. Now as a certified coach, she’s helped many other women do the same. What does it mean to be happy, FOR YOU?  Are you choosing it? Every day?  Because happiness is an available option far more often than we think. And you deserve to choose happiness.  Connect with Zenica: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zenica.chatman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zenica-chatman-86b50110/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/z_chatman/ Click here to access her free guide to Loving Your Job Again  To join Nicole’s pod (to get all the inside scoops, free stuff, and the occasional rant), click here

We think, talk, and hear about happiness all the time, but what does it really mean? We wish each other happiness. It's almost a default response when I ask people what they wish for their children. I want them to be happy. But what do we actually mean? What does being happy look like for you? Is it feeling pleasure or intense joy all of the time? Or is it more in the category of being content and satisfied? Is it a general feeling like I'm generally happy with my life? Or is it a more specific thing like I'm doing this particular thing

in this particular place with this particular person when I feel happy. Do you even know what makes you happy? And is being happy all the time in every aspect of life, even a possibility? Do you feel like there's something wrong when you're not happy? I am Nicole Kalil. And on today's episode of This is Woman's Work, we're going to talk about what my guest calls the happiness equation. But before we dive in, I want to share

a few beliefs I have about happiness and then get her perspective and wisdom on the subject. First, I believe happiness, like confidence, is mostly a choice. And sometimes it's a much harder choice to make than others, but ultimately that choice comes from within. And even though it's a choice, nobody chooses it all the time and nobody should. Other emotions will always be valid and need to be experienced. Being happy 100% of the time is delusional and experiencing sadness somehow makes happiness an even fuller experience.

We should be wishing each other happiness. It's a wonderful thing to do, but let's also wish each other courage, confidence, and a good sense of humor for those other times. And finally, far too many of us are spending far too much time with people or in environments that make us miserable and wondering why happiness feels so elusive. Why do we do that as women? Is it because we've been taught that we're here in service of others? Do we feel unworthy of happiness? Have we been told that we don't deserve happiness or even worse, do we believe it? I know being happy every minute of every day isn't an available option,

but I do wish I saw more women experiencing it in more aspects of their life, like at work and in their partnerships. I wish women allowed themselves to choose happiness far more without feeling guilty or selfish. So let's talk about how we might do that. Zanika Chapman is joining me today. She's a certified coach helping women rediscover their inner strength and confidence, which is my favorite thing, in the aftermath of workplace-related trauma. Her own journey into this began after being left emotionally broken by a pair of workplace bullies at the height of her marketing career. She went on a path to redefine her own self-worth and what it means to be happy and successful. And now as a coach that helps many other women do the same. Zanika, sometimes I think

we believe that if we make the right choice, that happiness or a good feeling, a positive feeling will instantly follow. My experience is sometimes there's a dip before the rise, like the fear and the doubt might be at its highest, or it feels like I think of leaving, for example, a bad relationship. Sometimes it hurts really bad. So all of that to say, is it your experience or is it normal that sometimes you feel a rush of the not so good feelings before you can rebuild the good ones? Yeah. I think when we talk about kind of the feeling states is to understand and be flexible because there are also people who, when you think about people who get laid off from a job that they really hated anyway, they get that initial like,

I'm free. There's some peace there. And then it's followed by, oh crap, that fear and doubt and all of that. So I think it's important to remember that we're not trying to feel great all the time. I do not think that that's achievable. I think part of being human is to acknowledge all of the emotions that we're feeling and monitor them on a regular basis. Question where are these things coming from? Because we oftentimes look at that person who the people who say, you know what, Nicole, I got laid off. And it was the best thing that happened to me. A lot of people will be like, what? You're not scared. You're not nervous. You're not this. You're not that. And they're like, no, I'm at a state of

peace with this decision. And so it's just acknowledging where you are in the moment and speaking to those emotions and questioning those emotions and having flexibility and balance and just being a human being. Yeah, that's so well said. Okay. So let's talk about some of the common myths of happiness. I think maybe I threw a couple out there, but what do you see as the most common misperceptions or misunderstanding

about happiness in general? Yeah. So I think probably the biggest one that we focus on the most is that we can find happiness in changing our circumstances. That's usually what we're trying to do. Get the better job. I'll be happy. Get the better car. I'll be happy. Get the new partner or a partner. I'll be happy. And really, a lot of what the research actually says is that really only accounts for just like a small percentage of our overall happiness. When we think about things that make us happy or being in a state of happiness, that change in circumstances is really only accounting for about a small percentage. But for most of us, that's where we focus all of our efforts of trying to change those circumstances. It reminds me, my husband had somebody who he

interacted with who changed jobs several times over the course of a couple of years. And he sort of made the comment, like at some point in time, you have to acknowledge if you've changed seven jobs and you're not happy, it's like, well, every time you change jobs, you're still going to be there. That's where the common denominator across all of these things. So I agree with you that in some situations that might be, but for the most part that it is, we're looking outside of us. We're looking externally to something or someone to bring us happiness as opposed to that. It's an inside job. It is an inside job. Another myth is really happiness that drives success and not the other way around.

A lot of what I'm talking about, I want to give credit where credit is due. There's an incredible researcher, Dr. Sandra Lubomirsky. She wrote, literally wrote the book on happiness, but she's an incredible researcher. What Dr. Sandra says in her work is that there are three kind of set points or three tenets of happiness. One of them is circumstances that we've already talked about. The other is your happiness set point. And then the last one, which we oftentimes forget about, is intentional action. And so when you look at the happiness equation, how she breaks it down is that, you know, the circumstances account for about 10%. 50% is just your happiness set point. Just generally, generally the kind of girl you are.

And that extra 40%, Nicole, is your intentional activity. That's the part that people are like, nope, don't want to touch that. So again, this is aligning so much with what I know to be true about confidence. Action builds confidence. You can't think or hope or fingers and toes cross your way into it. You got to kind of put one foot in front of the other, right? Can you give maybe some examples of intentional action that might build happiness? Yeah. So intentional action, you want to think about things like, what are you thinking? I know we don't like to talk about that, but, but, and I heard you talk about this on a previous podcast too, really thinking about gratitude in a different way, how you connect to different

things in your life and your connection. So not just like, oh, I'm grateful for a job, but really sitting and actually allowing your brain to feel the connection between what you're thinking and what you're feeling and feeling that in your body. Another thing that we don't oftentimes look at is our social connections. And who are you interacting with and engaging with on a regular basis? Movement. That's another little one. Yeah. I'll be honest. It's my least favorite one. I am like a diehard introvert couch potato. And I, yeah, but even I have fully embraced and accepted that every person in the health and

wellness space believes that movement matters. And it is amazing how just going for a walk or being outside or fresh air or doing something, it impacts your mood. Man, listen, I get it. That movement one is hard for me. But you notice I'm very intentional about saying movement. I personally have, I've stopped telling people I work out because working out is just, my brain is like, no girl, unless we working out, lifting that remote, watching another Netflix series, I'm not here for it. So I'm very intentional about saying, you know what, just move in a way that feels good to you. It doesn't have to be some hardcore diehard workout. Sometimes for me, like this morning, I found a little, little reggae tone dance party on YouTube. And that was my movement for the day.

That has been a big shift for me. It's, I got the aura ring. I don't know if anyone listened to it, but what it does is it tracks your activity at a certain number. But what was really interesting to me is, you know, I had that working out thing. I thought I had to work out, but I noticed just walking or moving or, and then, so it's been a really interesting reframe and very freeing. Okay. What else are any other actions that, yeah, well, you talked about it with that aura ring. So achievement. So what that does is when that ring tells you, Hey, you did a good thing. You moved your body today. That achievement is also adding a personal boost in happiness for you as well. Yeah. It's like pride in self. Yep. Right. Okay. I guess, let me ask a little bit about happiness in the workplace. I find a lot

of women fall into, well, a lot of different categories, but two predominant ones I see are either my job is my job. It's what I do in order, you know, to have happiness in the rest of my life. It's sort of like a, it is what it is type thing, but there's no happiness being experienced at work or it's, I feel mostly miserable all the time. And I mostly hate what I do and hate who I'm doing it with, but it's a job and I have to do it type thing. How might we create happiness, build happiness, experience happiness in the workplace? Yeah. So for me, and because so many of my clients are probably that latter, because they are coming out of extremely toxic or bullying environments, I don't disconnect the two anymore because I live that life of, listen, this is work. I mean,

I'm not happy here. I'm going to be happy outside of my work. No, girl. So let's get back to, and one of my favorite questions to ask is either, when was the last time you had fun? What brings you joy? What makes you happy? And it's so sad that unfortunately, almost 100% of my clients don't know the answer. They don't know when the last time they had fun is. They don't even know what fun looks like for them anymore. And they don't know what makes them happy. And so we have to start there. Just happy, not happy at work. What makes you the woman sitting in front of me?

What brings you joy? What makes you happy? What is fun look like for you? And then we go do the thing. And then there's all these other things about why you can't do it. So we just break those things down. Is that true, right? Like I had a client one time who was,

Nicole, she had a whole list, laundry list of why she couldn't get a pedicure. That was gonna be the most pleasurable thing that she did that week. She really wanted it. And there were all these things. And it was like, okay, well, let's get real about it. How long does it take?

Max, if you're getting the super duper one, 60 minutes, you tell me you don't have, you can't find 60 minutes. Yeah. It's interesting how often we argue for our nose or our limitations or the reasons we can't. And it's like, I mean, the amount of time you just spent telling me why you can't get a pedicure, you could have gotten a pedicure, right? It's so funny. Right. And so, so we, we, we come back to a place of, okay, put those things back on the table and, and, and let's really start to put everything. Don't be like me and put work way up here on the pedestal. Let's put it all on the same playing field, right? So if you're maintenance, self-care, whatever you want to call that pedicure, if it was on the same level with your job,

what would you do? But what we do is we start saying, well, work has to be here. I think we do that a lot for anybody listening and that our moms as moms too, we prioritize our children and what we need to do as parents at a much higher level than everything else. And I sometimes wonder if in fact, what we mostly want is our children to be happy. Shouldn't we allow them to observe and experience us being happy? Because the reality is if we're constantly sacrificing, constantly unhappy, constantly miserable, that's what they're going to observe and experience at the highest level. And unconsciously, that's what they're going to end up emulating down the road themselves.

Well, and I find, and I don't have children, but I just find as I have become an adult that a lot of what I saw through my childlike eyes. And I thought that mom was happy and mom was this superwoman and mom was doing all this stuff. Zanika as the adult is like, I know mama did not want to be doing all of this. And so if we're not careful, what we're going to do for, and I specifically for, for young girls is we're going to create, we're just going to perpetuate the cycle for them. And they're going to think, wow, these are all the things that I have to do. Cause look at mom. She looks, she looks

fine doing it. She looks, she having a great time and not showing them that, you know what? Mommy's going to go get a pedicure and you're going to go do whatever you're going to do. And it's going to be great. We all get what we want. Yeah. Okay. I know now we both agree that happiness is not an available option all the time. Like nobody walks around happy in every minute. What do you think is an achievable goal? Like, and I, I'm sure there isn't like a, it's 80, 20 or 82, but what are we looking for? Mostly happy. What do you think is an achievable goal or desire? So I am going to reference a movie. I don't know if anybody has ever seen the sex in the city movie. Um, but if you have, okay, so, so you will know this part, but it's, it's the part in the first movie, not the second one, cause I have issues with the second movie, but the first movie where they're sitting on the couch

and Samantha is telling the ladies that she's not happy in her relationship. And they asked Charlotte, they say, how, you know, generally, how happy are you? And she says, every day, not all day, every day, but every day. So that is what I aim for. Not all day, every day, but find a little piece of it every day that you can say, gosh, I felt happy in that moment. That seems more within our control too, because if we do in fact believe that happiness is a choice every day, finding the one smallest thing where we can make that choice, uh, that feels exciting and somewhat approachable. Yeah. Okay. Um, I am going to close out by letting people know where to find you. So go to LinkedIn and find Zanika Chapman. I will put all of her other places in show notes. But if you're looking for a little

boost of happiness, or maybe the one thing that might bring you a little joy in a day, find Zanika out there. Thank you so much for talking about happiness and just the things that we can do, the steps that we can take, and just the things that we can do, the steps that we can take and those daily moments that we can be looking for it. Uh, I'm so appreciative of you and our time. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so great. Awesome. Okay. So let me close out with a loving reminder that no one or nothing will bring you happiness a hundred percent of the time. Not even your children who I know you love the shit out of. I've been using the mostly rarely rule.

Does something mostly make you happy? Do you mostly feel content in that relationship or mostly feel satisfied at work? Or do you rarely feel that way? Do you rarely feel like shit but have occasional moments of joy? Are you trading hours of misery for a second of pleasure? Or are you stuck keeping your fingers and toes crossed that one day that person or that

job or that thing out there will bring you happiness? Of course, we all go through seasons, but mostly happy is an available option. What does it mean to be happy for you? Are you choosing it every day? Not all day, every day, but every day, because that is my wish for you and a great definition of woman's work.