Understanding What You Like

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After you've sorted out your goals and priorities, the next prompt is "what do you like & not like?" It is critical to think about this intentionally. Your likes and dislikes help shape your personality, and help guide what habits you want to have and how you can make them.

To help explore this idea, we can revisit the needlepoint example in my previous post. I am all for you taking this hobby up if you actually like it. Or, if you're like me, and your hands hurt when you do small repetitive motions and are very neutral to the aesthetic of the finished project, perhaps there's another creative outlet for you. If you never critically thought about it, you would mindlessly continue to pick up the needlepoint project and wonder why afterwards you feel less relaxed than before you started.

Another benefit to this is to help make decisions. For example, my husband and I recently went to a Greek restaurant, and I was determined to try Spanakopita. If you've never heard of it, it's flakey phyllo dough filled with spinach and feta. It is amazing and extremely popular, if you like spinach and feta. Which I do not. I just really wanted to like it because I wanted another connection point with my best friend, who happens to love the dish. If I had acknowledged the fact that perhaps this dish isn't for me, I could've spent the time trying the most delicious vanilla latte I've had to date instead, which is also another of her favorites. Connection point made, and thoroughly enjoyed.

Please note, I am not saying to not try new things. I am saying that we can better decide what new things to try if we understand what we already like. If you try new things that align with things you already like, you are significantly more likely to enjoy that new thing. If you enjoy enough new things, you become a person who likes to try new things. If you like to try new things, your horizon expands, and your neuroplasticity (your brain's ability to form new connections) increases, which provides a myriad of health benefits.

Now, let's discuss actually exploring what you like and what you don't. The easiest way to get started is to talk about the most blatant things: I like reading fantasy books, holding hands with my husband, vanilla lattes. The goal here is to just get the ball rolling. And then it can develop into aspects of things: I like books that have happy endings, so maybe murder thrillers aren't for me, but I could try reading comedies. I think another important part of this is to not get carried away on the don't like train. Our brains are hardwired to find negatives, and if we start complaining it is incredibly easy to continue complaining. And if you fill up two pages of just things you don't like, you won't feel any better, and you won't feel any clearer on your pursuit of happiness.

How do we combat this? Tacking on a positive. The simplest way is to throw a thing you do like onto the end of every sentence about what you don't like: "I really despise feta, but I do love goat cheese." Offer an alternative to the brain to de-rail the negativity train. [On a side note, I've found this tactic to greatly improve many situations. Offering an alternative is a powerful method of connection and flexibility. When your partner says "do you want spaghetti for dinner" and you really do not, saying "Not really, what about tacos?" helps move the conversation forward and alleviates pressure off of said partner instead of just shutting down their idea and forcing them to try and come up with another. Try it next time!]

This portion of the journal should be really fun to fill out. Thinking about things that make us happy makes us happier. At the end, you'll have a list of things you like that you can refer to when you feel down and out to help bring up the mood.

If you feel like you need more guidance for this, consider joining the Conservatory. I'll be doing a bonus session this month specifically about this journal packet, and it'll have extra worksheets and I'll be filling them out alongside you. The session will be available for rewatch at anytime after we have it.

You are now halfway through the basics of knowing yourself! How exciting! Next up: what you need and want. See you there ☼