At the end of the day, life is about being happy. When we are happy we feel fulfilled, balanced and comfortable. How many of us reflect on this and say we are truly happy? Unfortunately we often hear that many of our friends, workmates, family members or indeed ourselves aren’t quite making the ‘Happy’benchmark. What is happiness? Wikipedia’s definition for “Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterised by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy”.
“There is no path to happiness: Happiness is the path”
– Gautama Buddha
Richard Leider advocates a good recipe for maximum happiness is. “Living in a place you belong, with people you love, doing the right work, on purpose”. Our happiness is based on thoughts we think and choices we make. If we think this is a hard struggle we will be affected. We will unconsciously guide our self towards being unhappy because everything around us is confirming exactly this. The power of our thoughts is enormous and fully impacts personally and all the wonderful people and opportunities around us.
Sometimes the possibilities around us cannot be seen or acted on because it’s clouded with monkey mind thoughts. Monkey mind thinking is lots going on in our head at once, often negative thoughts keeping us stuck and sometimes frozen. This happens to all of us at some time or another, some manage to move on quickly and others struggle to get up and out of the sludge. When stuck in sludge we take it everywhere, it’s difficult to walk and move in any direction because the thick sticky sludge is stuck like glue. It’s heavy on our body, mind and spirit. We can still operate and many of us do however our happiness barometer is seriously challenged. The negative sludge big or small has the opposite effect to being happy. Our self-confidence, self-esteem, resilience, adaptability, mojo, energy and more are affected driving us to lower and lower feelings of worthiness and fulfilment.
Defining happiness is a challenge as it is different for everyone; some would say having money is what will make them happy. Others say sitting on top of a mountain, living in a hut with no connection to the outside world, having my family around me, being able to exercise regularly, travel, have my partner well, earn an income or play the piano will make me happy. Whatever it is, it is imperative to do what makes us happy. Life is about doing the things that fulfil us. We can make different choices because at the end of the day, week, year and our life – we only have one life.
“The United States Declaration of Independence deemed Happiness to be of such fundamental importance to the human condition that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were deemed to be unalienable rights.” – Wikipedia
It is our bus of life; it is up to us where we wish to sit on it. Do we take a back seat and allow others to fully drive it for us leaving us sliding around having no direction. Or are we sitting half way or in any of the other seats, still allowing others to direct us and drive us to places that we don’t want to be? Are we sitting behind the driver’s seat hanging to get up there ourselves, however need more confidence to take over? When we choose to take the steering wheel of our bus of life, we firmly take control and drive it where we want to go. Will we sometimes take the wrong turn or get lost, possibly, as this is the reality of life. It’s important to learn from these incorrect turns and make adjustments to pursue whatever it is that we choose to have in our life to allow us to be the happiest that we can be with our life right now.
9 tips for making a shift toward improved ‘happiness’…
- Want something different? Picture it, design the life for us, connect with it and go get it!
- Let the project go. Sometimes it’s better to cut our loses. Look at what we have learnt and move onto something we are passionate about that will take us in a more aligned direction. Might be, career, relationships, diets, exercise regimes or other projects. We can hang on too long sometimes and this holds us back.
- Ask every day and night for Joy and Happiness to come into our lives – (if we don’t ask we will not receive),
- Listen to uplifting music that makes us buzz – what music do we choose to be creative to? What music gets us grooving around the kitchen, singing in the car or dancing at parties?
- Are we surrounding ourselves with the people we love who will fully support us in being ourselves and doing what we love?
- Are we living where we belong, where we truly feel at peace that constantly embodies us with pleasant emotions? If not what can we do about this? Maybe we could look at making some new and different choices,
- If we are unhappy with the way we are doing things, it is a necessity to change. Enlist a Coach to support with change, accountability and ultimately supporting us to ‘Live our Life to the Fullest’.
- Book some time out, reconnect with ‘ourself’and what we truly want, take a Retreat, book a hotel or cabin by the beach. Rethinking, Reconnecting and Re-energising is Refreshing and Rewarding.
- Listen to personal development, read supportive books and on purpose podcasts like ‘What is Happiness’? Watch the movie ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’.
Wikipedia states that “The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognise the relevance of happiness and wellbeing as universal goals.
Have fun making the changes you wish to make!
“Everything you can imagine is real”
– Pablo Picasso
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