It Took Me 40 Years To Understand This...

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   What if the thing you've been chasing your entire life, success, love, peace, purpose, was never outside you? It's taken me over 40 years as a doctor, a father, and a human being to realize this, and in this video, I'm gonna share with you some of the core life truths that I wish someone had shared with me when I was younger. This is not a shortcut to success. It's a path to freedom. For many years, it looked from the outside as though I was crushing it. By all external metrics, I was crushing life, but I didn't feel content. Yes, I was a successful medical doctor. I had a big global hit podcast, and a few years ago, I'd had three Sunday Times best-selling books. But despite all this so-called success, I didn't feel happy because I was living from achievement and not from alignment. One of the things that I've realized over the years, both from my life and from seeing tens of thousands of patients, is that one of the big mistakes that many of us fall into these days is that we equate success with happiness. Success and happiness for many of us are two different things. Now, can they be the same? Yeah. If you're one of the rare people who live a very intentional life, yeah, then they can be the same thing, and I would say for me at this point in my life, they probably are the same thing. But for much of my life, they weren't. I thought that being successful would lead to me being happy, but in so many ways, I had to get all of the success that I got to teach me that very important lesson, that lesson that we've heard time and time again before from all kinds of people, that money, fame, success does not make you happy. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Yeah, it's okay for you, Rangan. You know, you can say that now having had that success," and I get that. I understand that sometimes we have to go on that journey for ourselves and get the things that we thought we wanted until we can realize, "Actually, you know what? I thought that's what I wanted, but I'm not sure it was." But I don't think we all have to go through that journey to realize some of these core truths. I really don't. I think the problem for me, the problem for many of my patients, and the problem I see in many people across society is this confusion between success and happiness, and it comes from prioritizing external validation over internal validation. Now, I really want you to think about this. What do you do in your life to get validation from the world around you, and what do you do where you can validate yourself? I think this is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. One of the reasons so many people end up in their 30s or 40s feeling discontented and unhappy is because they have been driven their entire lives from external validation. That was me. Okay? That was absolutely me, and why did I do that? Well, the truth is a lot of that came from my childhood. Now, I wanna be clear, my parents were absolutely fantastic. At the same time, there were certain ideas I picked up when I was a kid that have been really problematic for me throughout my life. So when I was a kid, my parents very much prioritized academic achievement. This is very common in many families, particularly in immigrant families, and one of the downsides of that prioritization of academic achievement is that sometimes we feel our self-worth comes from that achievement. So how this played out for me is this. I can still remember as a young boy coming home from school, maybe I was six or seven years old, and I think I'd got 19 out of 20 in one of the tests at school. I was really happy. I showed it to my parents, and their first question was, "What did you get wrong?" I think their second question was, "Who came top?" You know, "Were you top of the class or was someone else above you?" Now, I understand why my parents asked me those questions. Maybe I didn't understand at the time, but now I absolutely understand it. They were immigrants to the UK. They faced a lot of struggle, a lot of discrimination. They didn't want their children to face the same struggle that they faced, and so their idea was that if my children can excel at school and be a straight A student, they can become a doctor or a lawyer, and they're not gonna have any of the struggles that we had. Now, I understand that, okay? Both versions can be true. There can be benefits of that, and there can be some unintended consequences. One of the unintended consequences was that me as a young boy took on the beliefThat I was only loved when I got full marks, when I was top of the class. And that belief, whilst it drove me to do really well at school and at university and become a medical doctor, it came at a really big cost. How did I actually feel about myself? I mean, this is such a common story. So I did all those things. I went to a fantastic medical school. I got my specialist exams. I got my general practice exams. I was successful. I published number one bestselling books. I started a podcast which became a big hit all over the world. Yet despite all that success, I felt there was something missing on the inside. And I've learned over the years that nothing on the outside can validate you if you can't validate yourself. So what do you do for external validation, and what do you do for internal validation? Now, look, I wanna be really clear here. Those childhood ideas that I picked up perhaps served a role. I think we have to be honest about that and go, "You know what? They helped me be who I am today." But those adaptations from childhood in my adult life were no longer serving me. A few years ago, I realized this. I wrote all about it in my fifth book, Happy Mind, Happy Life, and all the teachings in that book and some of the teachings in this video are one of the main reasons why now I really do feel very happy, very calm, and very content. And one of the primary reasons is because I think about my life in terms of what is gonna validate me, what in my life is in alignment with who I am and how I see the world. So I'm less concerned about what the world around me says about me, what the world around me thinks about me, and I'm more concerned with what I think about myself. Are you tired of waking up exhausted even when you've technically had enough sleep? Do you feel like you're constantly doing everything right, yet you still feel stuck? You're not broken. You're just running the wrong habits. I've taken everything I've learnt from helping thousands of patients and boiled it down into five tiny daily habits that can transform your life in just 30 days. No overwhelm, no pressure, just small shifts that reset your energy, mood, and mind. If you're ready to stop surviving and start feeling like yourself again, download my free guide now. Just click on the first link in the description box below or scan the QR code on screen. You've got absolutely nothing to lose except the version of you that's been running on empty for far too long. So I mentioned the term happiness just then, didn't I? And there's this whole thing out there at the moment about happiness. Should happiness be the goal? Maybe happiness is the wrong goal. That's not what we're here to do. I don't agree with any of that. Of course, happiness is the goal. Of course, every human on this planet wants to be happy. I don't subscribe to the view that that isn't the goal. I think happiness is our default state, and the reason I think that, or one of the reasons, is because when I look at young children, a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a four-year-old, they're happy. They're present. They're in the moment. They're engaged in what they're doing. That's who we are. That's who we are at our core, and that's who we can all be when we understand truly what happiness is. But happiness does not come from the outside. Happiness comes from the inside. Happiness is an inside job. If you cannot be happy with a cup of tea, you're not gonna be happy with a big mansion. If you can't be happy going for a walk in your local park, you ain't gonna be happy when you've got a big mansion with loads of land that you can walk in. You think the external is gonna change things, but it doesn't. The external will just highlight what you haven't fixed on the inside. So this whole thing about external validation v. internal validation is really, really important when it comes to living a happy life, and a happy life is what I think, I do believe, we all really want. I've been a medical doctor for 23 years now, and it's really interesting. People think about doctors through the lens of health, but I also think about my job through the lens of happiness. Because why is it that people wanna be healthy? Why, why do you wanna be healthy? Why do you want more energy and more vitality? What's the point of good health? Yeah, it means you can do more things, engage in the world, but I would argue that one of the reasons we wanna be healthy is so that we can be happy. And we actually know from the scientific research there's a strong link between happiness and health. We know that people who are healthier are happier. At the same time, people who are happier are healthier. The relationship goes both ways. Now, the first way I just described that, some of us will say that's a bit obvious, okay? If you are healthier-Of course you're gonna be happier because you're gonna have more energy and vitality to do the things that you want in life. And I think there's an element of truth to that. But there is quite a lot of science now showing us that people who are happier are also healthier. One of my favorite studies on this was a study done by some psychologists, and they took a group of people and put them into a lab, and in this lab they injected everyone up their nostril with something called rhinovirus. I know it sounds like a really pleasant [laughs] , uh, scientific experiment, but everyone basically got rhinovirus up their nose. Rhinovirus is the bug that causes the common cold. But what's interesting is that not everyone who had rhinovirus injected up their nose got symptoms, and they could tell very clearly that if you were happier, you were three times less likely to get sick than if you were not happy. I mean, that's incredible. Think about it. All of us, no matter where we live in the world, are constantly being exposed to viruses, and some of us will get sick from those viruses, and some of us won't. And of course, there's many factors that play a role here, but this study showed that one of the factors we need to be thinking about is our levels of happiness. People with a positive mindset, with an upbeat mood, not fake toxic positivity, but a genuine upbeat mood, are less likely to get sick even when exposed to the same viruses. So this idea that we can be happy, and when we're happier we're gonna be healthier, is something that I'm very, very passionate about. So if we assume that happiness is one of the goals and that we all do want to be happy, because some of you will say it's not about happiness, it's about meaning, and I would disagree with that. I would say meaning helps us be happy. Okay? So I see happiness as the umbrella of what we all want, and there are multiple components. So here's a thing I think we all need to realize about happiness that I wish in many ways someone had told me many years ago. There are three ingredients to happiness. Alignment, contentment, and control. So let me just break those three things down for you so you really have a clear understanding of what I'm talking about. Alignment. That's basically when your inner values and your external actions start to line up more and more. Ideally, they're the same, but the closer you can get, the more aligned you are. So basically, the person who you are on the inside and the person who you are being on the outside are one and the same. Now let's think back to my example that I said before. When I was, you know, crushing it by society's metrics, there was a disconnect between who I was on the inside and who I was on the outside, and I've seen this with so many of my patients. Like time and time again, I've seen patients who, in order to be successful... Remember what I said at the start? We get success and happiness mixed up. We think they're the same thing, but often they're not. So many of my patients, in order to be successful, which is what they thought they had to be in order to be happy, they sacrificed the things that truly bring happiness. Okay? So they sacrificed their health, and they often sacrificed their relationships. So, so many patients come to mind where they would work in weekends, working every evening, not taking holidays in order to make more money, in order to get the next promotion, until they came down with a heart attack or the autoimmune disease, and then they wish they'd started a little bit sooner. So number one, they decimated their health in an attempt to meet this fictional idea of success. But a lot of them also sabotaged their relationships. I know so many people who, in order to be more and more successful, they didn't spend time with their partner, they didn't spend time with their kids, and at some point in life they realize they've got all the success that they thought they wanted, but they don't have any meaningful relationships. This is a very common trap that I have seen so many people fall into, and you don't need to fall into it once you start thinking about alignment. Okay? So remember, three ingredients to happiness. The first one is alignment. Now, I'm gonna give you a practical exercise in just a moment for each of these three ingredients, but let me just go through them all first so you have this overarching framework of how it is you can cultivate the skill of happiness. The second ingredient is contentment. What are those things that you do in your life that give you that sense of contentment, that peace, that internal sense of calm? And how often are you doing those things? Contentment is another ingredient to happiness, and it's something we can all start to engage with a little bit more once we start paying attention. The third ingredient, and arguably one of the most important ingredients in today's world, is control.Now, when I say control, I'm not talking about controlling the external world, right? The external world is uncontrollable. Most things in life are gonna happen whether you want them to or not, right? You really need to understand that. The wind is gonna blow a certain way. People are gonna act the way in which they're gonna act. The news is gonna do what the news is gonna do. The government are gonna do what the government is gonna do. You have very little ability to influence most of the factors on the outside. So when I say control, I'm not talking about controlling the external world, I'm talking about a sense of control that you can cultivate in your internal world, okay? There's a subtle difference. When you try and control the world around you, it is very disempowering. It will not lead to happiness. If anything, it will lead to frustration. And in many of my other videos on this channel, I mention one of the key mindset shifts that you make in life, the mindset shift of either being a victim to life or an architect of your life. When you try and control the world around you, you're basically a victim to life because you can't. The only thing you can control is your internal world. So happiness is what we're all after, and the way we get it is not by directly looking for happiness or searching for happiness. It's by understanding the three ingredients, alignment, contentment, and control, and working on those three ingredients. The side effect of working on those three ingredients is that you'll find that you are happier more often. That's a key thing to get clear. You don't directly work on happiness. You work on alignment, contentment, and control, and the side effect is that you are happier more often. So I'm gonna give you a practical exercise for each one of these three ingredients to get you going on your road to happiness. So alignment, okay? When your inner values and your external actions start to match up. In my book, Happy Mind, Happy Life, I outline an exercise that I call Write Your Own Happy Ending. I wanna take you through it now. So if you've got a pen and paper to hand, great. If not, you can come back to this video later and jot it down. It won't take you long, but it's one of the most impactful exercises I've done with patients and in my own life. First thing I want you to do is imagine right now you are on your deathbed, okay? Now, please don't worry, this is a very empowering exercise, but you have to go through it in the correct order. So right now, I want you to imagine that this is your last day. This is it. There's no tomorrow. Today is your last day on Earth, and on your deathbed, I want you to think about and write down three things that you will want to have done with your life. Now, for some of you, those things will start to come quite quickly. For some of you, you may have to think about this, and that's okay. If you can't think of it now, that's completely okay. But at some point today or even this week, I want you to write down three things that you're gonna write down on your deathbed, or you think you're going to. Now, here's the reality. The reality is that despite all our differences, many of us are gonna say the same things on our deathbed. How do we know that? Because people who spend time with people at the end of their lives tell us. One of the most powerful conversations I've ever had on my podcast was with the palliative care nurse, Bronnie Ware, who wrote the book, The Five Regrets of the Dying. And in that book, she says, at the end of their life, people tend to say the same kinds of things. "I wish I'd worked less. I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd lived my life and not the lives that other people expected of me. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy." You know, those last two things really speak to alignment, don't they? "I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. I wish I lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me." What did I say right at the start of this video? The number one mistake we make in society is we mistake success and happiness, which of course means that at the end of their life, so many people are gonna have these regrets, but you don't need to have those regrets. So part one of this exercise is you write down those three things, and then part two is you zoom back into the present day and you ask yourself, "Okay, what are three happiness habits that I could do each week that would guarantee I get the happy ending I just wrote down that I wanted?" And I'll share with you what it is for me last time I did this exercise, okay? On my deathbed, I think I'm gonna say I hope to have spent quality time with my family and friends. I hope I've done something that makes a positive impact on the world. And thirdly, I hope I've had time to engage in my own passions, okay? That's what I think I'm gonna say on my deathbed. And so it makes it really easy for me to have some weekly happiness habits. Number one, I wanna have five meals a week where I sit down and I'm present with my wife and children. Why the number five? It just works for me. You're gonna have to find what works for you. I know in my life, in the context of my job and the fact that I also look after my elderly mother and all the other commitments I have-I know if I'm having five fully present meals with my wife and kids each week, I'm nurturing that relationship. I know at the end of my life, I'll say, "Yeah, I've spent quality time with my family." Okay? So that's one of my happiness habits. The second happiness habit for me is to release an episode of my podcast every week. Now, some of you watching this video will be regular listeners of my show. It's been going on for almost eight years. It's the most listened to health podcast in Europe. So I know if each week I continue releasing an episode of my show, I'm making a positive impact on the world. And third and finally, I know if each week I've had time to either go for a long run or play my guitar and sing or write a song, I've had time to engage in my passions. Now, here's the key thing about this exercise. You do it, and then those three happiness habits you write down and you keep somewhere visible. So for me, I have them handwritten on a Post-It note on my fridge in my kitchen, so I'm seeing it every single day. I'm being visually triggered by it every day, and that's really powerful. Now, this doesn't mean that suddenly my email inbox is clear and that I don't have any stress at work or in life. No. But here's the problem. This is what it's taken me years and years to realize. If you're waiting for your to-do list to be done before you start focusing on what is truly important in life, you're gonna be waiting a long time. So this exercise helps you flip things. This exercise helps you go, "No, no, I know my to-do list is never getting done, so each week I'm gonna focus on these three things." As long as each week I'm doing these three things as much as I can to the best of my ability, I know I'm feeding one of these key ingredients of a happy life. Okay? So it's a powerful exercise. Please don't just listen to this video and think, "Yeah, that sounds nice," and not do it. The power comes when you actually do the exercise. Write it down and then take action. The second ingredient for happiness is contentment. So I want you to think about what are those things in your life that give you that feeling of peace and contentment, and how often do you do them? What do you enjoy doing? Well, what are those things? Maybe it's singing. Maybe it's going for a walk. Maybe it's painting. For many people, a helpful way of thinking about this is to think about the things that you used to enjoy when you were a kid. Often, as we get older and adulthood responsibilities start to weigh down on us, we forget about those things that used to bring us so much joy. And remember what I said before about external validation v internal validation. A helpful way to think about contentment is, what are those things I would do even if I couldn't tell anyone else, even if I couldn't post about it on social media? 'Cause that's the problem these days. So many people do things, and they're so bothered about taking a picture of what they're doing so they can share it. External, external, external. That's the problem. Hey, listen, I have no problem with people doing that, but the problem is, is if you're doing it for the external validation so people go, "Oh, wow, yeah, amazing to see you doing that." So that's why the question's powerful if you say, "What would I do if no one was watching? What do I do for the innate joy of that activity?" And I want you to think about one activity in your life that qualifies, and then ask yourself how many times you're getting that done in a week. If it's zero at the moment, fine. Can you make it once? If it's one, can you make it two? I'm not talking about massive life overhauls. I'm trying to encourage you to make simple changes that will have a really big impact. The third ingredient is control. And remember what I said, it's not about controlling the world around you. It's about the things that you can do that give you a sense of control in your life. One of the most powerful things I do every day to give me a sense of control is my morning routine. Now, some people love morning routines. Other people find them clichéd. But here's the reality. Every single one of us has a morning routine, whether we think we do or not. For some of us, it's meditation and movement and reading. For others, it's checking emails in bed and scrolling the news and looking at TikTok. These are all routines. They're repeated behaviors, and each one of those will have a certain outcome. So for me personally, I've realized that when I have some time to myself each morning, whether that be 10 minutes or 30 minutes, I'm a better human being in every single aspect. I'm a better father, a better husband, and I'm a better doctor. So those micro moments at the start of the day make a huge impact on the rest of the day, and the reason they do is because they give me a sense of control. They show me each day that no matter what's going on in the world, no matter what the news headlines report... I don't actually watch the news. Haven't watched the news in maybe over five years now. That's the topic for another video. And if you wanna know about my morning routine in detail, there are videos on this channel which will show you exactly what I do. There are the three M's that I do each morning.Mindfulness, movement, and mindset. So if you wanna check those out, please do. But the overarching principle in relation to this feeling of control is I do something each morning that grounds me and gives me a sense of control. So for you, what's that gonna be? What little routine can you do each morning, even for five minutes, that grounds you and gives you that sense of control? It could be a five-minute strength workout whilst you're waiting for your coffee to brew. It could be five minutes of journaling. It could be five minutes of yoga. It doesn't really matter what it is. It's something that appeals to you, but little by little it helps you build that sense of internal control in a world that is fundamentally uncontrollable. So remember, what you're chasing in life, success, love, peace, purpose, is not outside of you. It's inside of you. Happiness is what we're all looking for, but many of us get happiness wrong. Happiness is a skill that you can cultivate when you know what to work on, and the three ingredients are alignment, contentment, and control. So do the Write Your Own Happy Ending exercise. Think about the things you do that give you that sense of peace, calm, and contentment, and think about one thing you can do each day that gives you a sense of control. Every time you choose presence over pressure, alignment over achievement, and health over hustle, you're laying a solid foundation for a happy and healthy life. Please do share this video with someone in your life who you think is gonna get value from it. So many of us fall for the myth that success is the same thing as happiness. But as I've outlined in this video, it's simply not the case. You don't need more time. You need more truth, and now you have it, so start living it. If you found that content useful, I think you are really going to enjoy this video. I'm gonna share with you five small daily habits that have worked for me, that have worked for my patients, and are gonna make you feel incredible if you can give them a go for the next 30 days

Episode duration: 32:54