Tag: positivity

10 STEPS TO HAPPINESS

Here is a challenge for us all, myself included. I found this great picture and we are going to spend the next 10 days taking steps to happiness and discussing our actions and results right here on this blog. I am excited and I hope you are too! At the end of these 10 days we will have taken a great leap to expanding the level of joy and happiness in our lives. Consider it a staircase to enlightenment. Not that after 10 days we will find ourselves sitting blissfully on a mountain top breathing deeply supplying the world with all the answers it seeks. We just might smile a little more and stress a little less.

We are going to begin today by taking the first step. Ironically, we are going to start with number 10 and work our way up to number 1. As you can see by looking at the photo above, step number 10 says Complain less, appreciate more. As we set out today let us look for areas in our lives that we often complain about that we can find things to appreciate about.

Take the morining commute as an example. It can be easy to get frustrated with drivers who seem to either have no connection to, or little regard for reality. Just the other day I saw a wonderful driver crawling along down a mainstreet at about 10 miles per hour when suddenly they felt compelled to turn left from the right lane. This means they esentially cut across four lanes of traffic at the same brisk pace in which they were traveling to their desitinations. In this particular event we can often apprecitate our creative nature to discover different titles to attach to that driver or colorful adjetives to describe their driving. We here at secret2anamazinglife.com like to keep things a little more positive, however. Instead we could appreciate the fact nobody was hurt by this driver using the force more than their 5 senses. We could also appreciate the fact there are not more drivers like this on the road. I do suppose we could appreciate that this safety-impaired individual was unable or unwilling to put more weight on the gas pedal.

Another area in which it is all too easy to find ourselves complaining these days is the grocery store. We complain that we occasionally have to wait to even get in the store. Once inside we complain about the atmosphere and how full of fear it is. To, of course, the lack of available products. We lament the fact that our own personal hygiene may be compromised due to the advanced planning of the 20 year-old purchasing enough toilet paper for the rest of his natural life. Yes, we would like some yeast, but find ourselves relegated to enjoying pitas because some folks may be planning to bake until they fall over. All very understandable reactions. We must remind ourselves that in most cases there are alternatives. Maybe a cheaper brand of toilet tissue. Yes, this is not ideal, but we should appreciate those lovable Charmin bears as we wait for their return. We can appreciate the fact that although we have to wait, at least we are assured of an open store and that they are taking safety precautions to help us. Yes, people are full of fear, but we can appreciate how much more our smile and friendliness will mean to other shoppers and especially those hard-working souls there to help us.

These are but a few examples. I invite you to continue throughout your day looking for areas in which you can transform complaints into appreciation. You will notice a decrease in your own stress as well as an increase in your joy and connection with your fellow humans. Tomorrow we will get together to discuss the next step and share our results with the last one. Feel free to share any ideas you may have currently and stop back for the next post to share your results.

ARE THEY READY?

Have you ever run into this problem? A friend of yours comes to you for help. You really care for this person and do not want to see them hurting anymore, so you do your best to help them. A week, or maybe even sooner, they are back with the same problem. I know a person who does really ill-advised things when they drink alcohol. They come to me with lines such as, “I wish I would have never said that.” or ” I wish I would have never done that.” With as much compassion as I can muster, I offer the suggestion that perhaps they should stop drinking. “You are right. I should.” A week later…same story. When you mention the fact that they were going to give up the thing that was causing the problems in their life, they have a range of excuses. They were going to. They thought they could control themselves.

Maybe you have a friend that is trying to get in shape and wants to work out with you. Meet me at the gym after work and we will workout together you offer. That time comes and they had a tough day at work and just want to relax at home. Maybe they are unwilling to give up eating junk food and drinking soda. Yet as they are slamming Mountain Dew with one had and eating a doughnut in the other, they are also complaining about how they just can’t seem to lose weight. Spending your time developing a workout routine or nutrition plan with these folks may not be the best investment of your time.

The hard truth is this – if someone is not willing to help themselves by letting go what is holding them down, there is little you can do for them. It is like tossing someone a life preserver who is still hanging on to an anchor. A friend that is not intent on getting out of that relationship that is bringing them down, yet they always ask you why they are not happy. Until they are willing to help themselves, you cannot help them no matter how hard you try. It will only end up with you feeling as defeated as them.

There is one caveat to this. If the person you are trying to help is genuinely working hard on changing but is having a difficult time. You can perhaps work with them to develop a plan to help them succeed. If you see a person really desires to change but is lacking the knowledge how, encouragement and working with them is a noble and great thing to do. Just be aware there are those who want others to fix their lives for them. Unless they are willing to let go of the negative in their life, any positive you offer them will be of little to no use.

MY FAVORITE ANTIDOTE TO FEAR AND DESPAIR

We have spoke at length about how to deal with feelings of fear and negativity. What happens on those days that you just can’t find any positive thoughts no matter how hard you look? Is your place of work where happy feelings go to die? Does even driving up to the building fill you with dread? Maybe every word that comes out of your mouth seems to cause disagreements with those around you. Trust me, we all go through periods of times like that. When we live in a world filled with darkness. It is then that you must switch from looking for the sunshine to being the sunshine. The million dollar question then becomes, “How on earth can I find sunshine to spread, when I can’t even find any sunshine in my own head?

This goes back to a lot of the tools we discuss in this blog and that are mentioned in my book A Happy Life for Busy People. You will find a link to purchase that book at the end of this blog. There are a few things we can do that only take minutes a day that can add sunshine into our life. It is for this reason I recommend doing these before the negativity starts to affect you. Meditation, vision boards and happy playlists. For more details on these and many other activites feel free to search this blog and the pages of the afore mentioned book.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, you can increase your happiness by giving it away. By shifting your focus from all of the negativity in your own life, to bringing light to someone else’s you will increase your own. In addition to the feeling you will get from seeing the smile light up their face, you will walk away with a feeling of accomplishment. Why a feeling of accomplishment? You have brought a great deal of positivity to a world that sorely needs it. That is a feeling that will stay with you long after you have left the smile you created.

How important is one small act of kindness? Let us do the math quickly. There are 7 billion people on earth. Even if we could achieve a 50% rate of people doing random acts of kindness that would be 3.5 billion smiles created. 3.5 billion positive moments brought to light. Imagine living in a world where that happens. It may sound like a crazy dream, but that is only half of the people. Can you imagine if we could get close to 75%? It is not out of the realm of possibility. How can we achieve this? Start with ourselves. As many days in a row as you can do at least one act of kindness. Even if you only did this on the weekends that would be 104 smiles you created a year. Do you think this would affect the state of the world? Feel free to leave any suggestions for kind acts in the comments below.

CLICK HERE TO GET NEIL’S BOOK FILLED WITH IDEAS TO MAKE YOUR LIFE AMAZING!!

I ALMOST FORGOT IT MADE ME HAPPY

This idea was given to me by my beautiful Margie. In these crazy times we all need to remind and use things to create a little sense of joy in our lives. In my book A Happy Life for Busy People, I encourage people to create what I call a “Happy Playlist”. Quite simply compile a list of songs that bring joyful memories to you. I put mine on my phone. I created a list on YouTube and add songs on a daily basis as they occur to me. Currently, it has a total of 187 songs. The great thing about this list is that anytime I find life giving me a hard time I ‘just push play’ and I am greeted by songs that bring back fond memories or transport me to someplace I would rather be. Some make me think of my friends and quite a few make me think of my lovely lady.

Music is a powerful way to transport your mental state quickly than anything else I know. Once you do the list of songs you may realize how powerful this is and want to add other mediums as well. Favorite movies that you love that make you laugh or put a special feeling in your heart. It is great to have a collection of books that can take your mind to a different world. At this moment when many of us have a little more time it is a good idea to put some of these together.

Why now? I often use the comparison to learning to swim. It is certainly a better idea to learn to swim when you are safely on shore than waiting until you are on a sinking ship. When we return to work we will face a lot of new challenges. Some of us may have to begin looking for new jobs. Life will take a lot of getting used to and having a things that could make us happy will really come in handy. Whether your happiness comes from music, books or even kittens (that is Margie’s contribution to today’s post) Let us all use the time we have to create some ideas of people, places and things that bring joy into our lives. When the world returns to normal, let us spend more time doing those very things.

WIN THE MORNING BY DOING THESE 2 THINGS

Recently, I exchanged some wonderful messages with a good friend. They thanked me for the work I do, which I must confess is what drives me to keep writing. They had mentioned they were working on reducing the negative mental chatter in their head first thing in the morning. This is a struggle I think we can all relate to.

I have the great fortune to sleep next to who I believe to be the most beautiful woman in the world, my lovely Margie. My day job requires me to wake up at 4 a.m. At that hour this time of the year the temperature where I live is usually below freezing. Let it be known that if I had my choice I would be living on a remote tropical island. Add to this that the situation at my day job has recently become less than ideal and you have a perfect storm of reasons to wake up negative.

Many days that is exactly what happens. Dreaming I am back at the coffee plantation in Jamaica with Margie when the alarm clock goes off. I look outside to see a blanket of snow while realizing how good the warm blankets and hot woman next to me feel. (Not only is the ‘hotness’ referring to her amazing physical appearance, but she is generally quite warm and great to snuggle with) It takes all of my will to drag myself from that warm cocoon. I then realize nobody has made coffee yet. I also recall the fact I park outside and as mentioned it is below freezing.

Starting your day in a positive state is very important. Those of us familiar with the law of attraction know that like energy attracts like energy. If you begin your day focused on all of your challenges, it will only bring more of those challenges to you. For your best chance at an amazing life it is important to start your day on a positive note. Living in a cold climate, suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder and going to a job that neither respects or appreciates you on very little sleep makes this quite difficult. What is the solution? Take it out of your hands and make it automatic!

As the coffee machine springs to life, I glance at the calendar next to it. Knowing my difficulty doing mornings I purchased a day-by-day calendar that greets me with an inspirational quote every morning. I peel back yesterday to reveal the wisdom of the day. By then the coffee machine is ready to go and I am greeted with the amazing smell of brewing coffee. We have a great picture that reminds us to be grateful in our house that slowly begins to change my focus. As I fight the elements and get into my cold car cursing on occasion, I do so with a delicious and warm cup of coffee. As I start my car (something to be grateful for in cold weather) I am greeted with either an inspired audiobook or uplifting music. As I drive toward my job I am reminded of empowering principles I can write about later.

Did you notice the two things I did? First, I did not work on fighting against my negativity. Trying to get myself to like the cold simply is not happening. Instead of trying to delete the negative, I focused on adding positive items. Fighting against things is still focusing on them and giving them your energy. Not to mention, trying to eliminate something from our life is psychologically difficult. The more positive items you add, the less room there is for negative items.

The second thing I did was take it out of my hands. It can be very hard to rely on nothing but will to turn your mind around. After all, your mind is already in a negative state. By utilizing things like the calendar and grateful sign I don’t even have to think about these positive influences. I also recommend having an app on your phone that will send you positive quotes. You can even set an alarm with a positive reminder. Having pictures of goals and those you love can certainly do wonders.
Remember if you win the morning, you are setting yourself up to win the day!

CLICK HERE TO GET NEIL’S BOOK FULL OF IDEAS TO MAKE YOUR LIFE AMAZING!

JUST A QUICK REMINDER

Just a quick reminder in the middle of the week. Stay positive my friends. Let us reflect positivity wherever we are so that it may be reflected back to us.

More thoughts coming tomorrow.

CLICK HERE TO GET NEIL’S BOOK FILLED WITH MORE IDEAS FOR MAKING YOUR LIFE AMAZING!

IT IS THE SIMPLE THINGS


This picture was taken at ‘Harvest Fair’, a local celebration of all things fall. I am one who is a great fan of fairs so Margie and I generally attend this festivity every year. There is an exquisite farmers market where you can purchase squash, vegetables and many other delicious and local items. There are bands, food stands, vendors, friends and everything that makes a fair…well…a fair.

This year there was something new, a smores truck. Everyone was issued a plate with the ingredients for smores. You then took your ingredients and ‘roasted’ them over a small coil. This was a little less gratifying than an open fire, but accomplished the same task.

Everyone roasted their marshmallow to their liking. Some just enjoyed having it warm. I prefer a nice golden brown color with a slight caramel flavor bestowed upon it. Margie, on the other hand, believes without a little bit of charring the marshmallow is not done.

I watched the collection of people all gather together on what was an unseasonably cold September evening to do something simple like making smores. That was great to begin with but there was more. As you can see on my plate there was a sticker instructing me to give someone there a compliment. Each plate had its own positive suggestion. I thought that was a very nice touch.

My compliments to the fine folks at Hershey’s for sponsoring this. Not only did they add a special activity to an already special event, but for going the extra mile and encouraging people to do random kind things. I wish I had taken the time to look at more of the plates. A special shout out to the great people at the Wisconsin State Fair for deciding to make this a part of Harvest Fair.

I am looking to do something similar to this and am asking you, dear reader, to help me. How can we encourage people to do positive things like the stickers on the plates did? I feel attaching them to something positive like Hershey did with the smores was a brilliant idea. I am asking all of us to put our heads together and come up with a way to do something similar and bring positivity to our neighborhoods.

This blog is followed in over 100 countries and I can just imagine how amazing it would be if in every city, in every country where this blog is read we all start random acts of kindness and positivity. The ripple effect would be world-changing! I would LOVE to hear your ideas in the comments below!
I will also include an instructional photo of my lovely lady’s marshmallow so you can see how it should be done according to Margie.

DO NOT RUN TO THE LIGHT… BE THE LIGHT

I enjoyed this quote a good deal. Think of where light is needed the most? You do not turn on a light in the middle of the day. You do not generally use a flashlight until after dark. Light is most needed when there is darkness. This is true in the world of the spirit as much as it is true in the world of physics. Although giving positivity to people who are already positive is never a bad thing, if you want to have the greatest impact, try bringing light to those in the dark.

Begin looking for situations that could use your light. Is there a group of individuals that constantly gossip negatively about others? Perhaps drop by and share a story of something amazing about someone who is not present. I say ‘drop by’ because although light always shines in darkness, you must make a point to take care of yourself. Make sure you guard your light.

As you continue to bring light to others in need you will become more adept at doing so. It can be easier to begin with something less confrontational. Is there a senior in your community that could use a friendly visit? Maybe a meal or just a nice vase of flowers? Is there a child who could use mentoring? Maybe a meal program you could help out at? The possibilities are endless. We all have some light to offer.

Begin by taking a quick self-assessment. What are you good at? Do you have muscles to help someone? Are you a great gardener? Sometimes all that is needed is being a good listener. Again, we all have something to offer, some light to bring. What is yours and where can it do the most good? Those are two important questions we should ask today.

BECOME LIKE GOD


I must confess to making today’s headline a little click bait. Looking at the quote above by one Fred Rogers (whom most of you know is one of my favorite philosophers) it might not be that far from the truth. Whatever your spiritual belief might be, I think we can all agree that seeing the best in our ‘neighbor’ is something very special. In a world that seems to focus on our differences and who we think is to blame for what, it becomes even more special. I am sure Mr. Rogers would agree.
There is a positive flipside to seeing the best in everyone and everything. Your world looks a lot brighter. When your world looks a lot brighter, you feel a lot better. When you feel a lot better you treat others better and your world becomes…well…better.
This is where a lot of you may come in and tell me that would be ‘looking at the world through rose colored glasses’. You may be right. Looking for what is right with the world can seem like a delusion of sorts, especially to those who have never done it. Looking for and appreciating, especially out loud, what is right in others and the world around us does not mean ignoring what is wrong. In fact, knowing what is wrong can be very helpful to note ways in which things can be better. What is advocated here is to not focus on what is wrong.
It is here that pessimists and even realists may say I am being willfully ignorant. Maybe so, but it feels good and leads me to have a better life. I know there are lots of things wrong with people and the world they live in. I chose to focus on what is wonderful about both and solutions for what is not. There are plenty who fill the role of spreading gossip about others and their faults. I choose to do the opposite. My world is not any less real.
Here is a third bonus to this behavior. You will become a lot more popular. After all, who would not want to be around someone who sees the best in everything? Be like God and notice and grow what is right with each other and the world.

DON’T DO IT! UNLESS….

It never ceases to amaze me when people say things that do nothing but make all affected parties feel negative in some way. I always think to myself, and sometimes out loud, “Why on earth would you say that?” Why would anyone want to be the source of pain, sadness, anger or a host of other terrible emotions? Why would we want to spread anything other than joy?

The statue above can be a great reminder of that for us. I suggest obtaining one to remind us if what we are about to put forth is not joyous that we should reconsider. The world has enough sources of negativity that we do not need to add more. Let us not only limit and eliminate our negative communications, but work on increasing out positive ones as well.