Americans Don’t Feel Free to Pursue Happiness

(Newswire.net — May 11, 2019) Oro Valley, AZ — The newly released World Happiness Report for 2019 reveals an alarming mindset that Americans feel they cannot freely pursue the life they want.

The Gallup survey of more than 140 countries regarding how people feel about the quality of their lives is reported by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in the World Happiness Report. This year’s report ranked the U.S. 19thfor overall happiness based on six criteria; however, the U.S. ranked 62nd regarding the criteria for freedom to make life choices. This criterion reflects the satisfaction of a person’s ability to choose what to do with her/his life and it was the lowest of the criteria for the U.S., dragging down the overall happiness ranking. Further, American’s feel they have less freedom to choose what to do with their lives than people in Kosovo (46 overall), Estonia (55 overall), and Portugal (66 overall). This is a surprising outcome for a country founded on the ability to pursue one’s dreams freely. 

“Freedom of choice is a mindset and our sense of happiness increases when we can pursue the life we want,” observes Robert Tull, a change agent coach specializing in helping others identify and take action to fulfill authentic desires.  “We are our own barrier to living the life we want. We spend our precious lives and time doing what we think we should be doing based on roles, upbringing, and society, and we fail to live the life we want. American society has no shortage of imposing its thoughts on how we should live. The key to unlocking that mindset is to identify the situations where we are forfeiting what we truly want in order to fulfill a perceived obligation. Once identified, we can take action to live the way we want.”

Tull immersed himself in studying this dilemma and he knows firsthand the effects of living based on the expectations of roles and society instead of what he truly wanted. Tull’s knowledge and experience is the cornerstone of his change agent coaching practice (www.rstull.com), and he is sharing his insights and techniques through a partnership with Parenting Strategist and #1 International Best Selling Author, Madeleine Davis, in the new book, “The One Thing Every Mom Needs To Know.”

“The One Thing Every Mom Needs To Know” comes out on Mother’s Day (May 12, 2019), and contains essential advice from two dozen experts, including Tull’s insights on how to identify authentic desires and pursue a life one wants, making happiness a reality.

“Parents, especially mothers, are so focused on prioritizing the needs and wants of their family and children that they can be influenced by the expectations of external forces, such as other parents, family dynamics, and society. As a result, they subordinate their authentic desires, pushing the sense of happiness farther away and leading to feeling unfulfilled or trapped,” notes Robert Tull. “I believe it’s critically important for mothers to feel empowered and equipped to identify the situations where they can act on their own wants and shape their life in the way that makes happiness real today, instead of a luxury that might be there one day in the future.”

This Mother’s Day, give yourself and your loved ones the freedom to choose happiness by pursuing a life based on authentic wants.

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