Sustainable Happiness
We all want to feel happy right?
Even those of us that feel so low that we sometimes seek sadness on the whole would much rather be happy.
Happiness is a result from your actions and as such we all have different ways of getting to the coveted destination, aka happiness. If I was to ask you now to take 20 seconds to reflect on what makes you happy, all kinds of images may come up in your mind, your hobbies, your cat(s), your dog(s), your friends, whatever it may be it differs for each of us. When we think about what makes us happy, the images we see are not happiness itself they are vehicles to achieve it. We feel happiness when we do them because we know the resulting happiness is coming and the more time we spend on these them the happiness we build in. In short we generate our own happiness by performing activities that we enjoy repeatedly.
Now have a think about things you want to achieve in life, if you look at the various parts of your life, what would you like to achieve. To lose weight, get fitter, be more successful in your career, whatever it may be imagine doing each of these tings and feeling happy. Imagine enjoying going to work, imagine loving your time at the gym, imagine that. Sounds fanciful doesn’t it, I must say there is no miracle cure, however with some intentional pondering and trying out activities you can find ways to be happy in many areas of your life that currently you are not. As I outline in ‘Empathy for Monsters’ I had a situation that tore me down and through re-framing it and intentionally changing my perspective I turned it around to being something that I had no fear or anxiety around and in fact after some time began to enjoy. Whilst the situation itself would never bring me happiness the process around that situation made me happy, the approach and construct that I built. I took control, and so can you.
Start by writing down an area of your life that gives you trouble, where you react in a way you would rather not and would like to turn around to a lighter and more enjoyable experience.
Next, think about how you approach this situation, who is involved, what are they like, what can you to introduce to the conversation that would intrigue them and potentially remove barriers between you? This is in the instance where the issue is with others – which is often the case. We feel that the other has more control over the situation, so we sit back and let them take the wheel, even when uncomfortable for us. You can choose how you react, you can choose how you respond and you get to chose how much, and how it affects you.
Give it a try. If you have any questions on this let me know and we can have a chat. Feel free to jump on a free coffee break chat with me if you have a specific situation and we can see if we can get you past it.
Have a motivated day one and all!