Quite often the hardest thing about starting any project is knowing where to start and those all to important first steps. In fact, one of my biggest stumbling blocks that I am always working to overcome is getting to far ahead of myself and becoming overwhelmed. So where to begin if you find your life to be in a rather dark place? What if you have never made an effort to consciously live a more positive life? Even if you are just looking for a simple basic step to add to everything you already are trying. Remember different things work for different people. Try as many as you can. This next one comes from a very close source…my mother. As we were discussing ways to be more positive she came up with what I think is an easy and straight forward method to help nurture and develop a positive outlook and bring more joy into your life. The complex tools needed for this task? A pocket-size notebook and a pen. The time required for this project? A few seconds every day for about a week. Here is the game plan. Pick a day, any day, be it Monday, or Sunday or Friday. The day only matters as a start and end point. Now the night before you are going to start make sure you have a pen and paper handy. Put it on a table beside your bed, so you see it first thing in the morning. Now upon waking that day grab your pen and paper and put it in your pocket. Throughout the day whenever something good happens to you write it down. It doesn’t have to be an exact description, just enough to remember what it was. “Traffic good on way to work” would do. This is just for your own viewing so as long as you understand it is all that matters. Repeat this throughout the day as you notice anything positive occurring for you no matter how small or silly it may seem at the time. “Heard a joke and it made me laugh” “Coffee tasted really good” If you forget something at the moment or don’t have time that second, write it when you do. There are no rules and the only one seeing this is you. Now before you retire for the evening, review your list. Try and remember the moments and how you felt. This does two things. One, it will probably do wonders for your dreams that evening. Also, it helps us put life in perspective and shift our attention to the positive. So what happens if you only have one or two things that first day? Nothing. That is beautiful. You stopped to appreciate two beautiful moments in your life. Repeat this for about a week. Note what happens. By focusing on the positive things in life, it helps reduce stress and increase joy. Without getting too much into how the law of attraction works, I would say it would be a safe bet that your list will be longer on day 2, then on day one and longer on day 7 then on day 5. Now you will excuse me I need to go buy a pocket-sized notebook
Tag: Self-Help
THINK…BACKWARDS…
So often I hear people say, “I’m in such a bad mood and I don’t even know why” I must confess to having felt that way before. This can be a rather perfect scenario for being happy. Now you may be wondering if I have completely lost my mind. While that has yet to be determined, at least let me explain my last statement. When it comes to adding more joy to your life, as with any worthwhile goal, one of the greatest challenges lies in just knowing how. Let’s face it, if there was a simple step by step plan to a happy life, wouldn’t we all follow it? One of the greatest challenges I have had in both putting together both this website and my book is people are different. What makes one person happy, well it may not work for the next person. So how can we discover what truly makes us happy and develop a formula to continually accomplish that? I have two suggestions and they are complete opposites and involve thinking backwards. Now before I loose everyone completely, let’s take a step back. Here is the first method. Even in the darkest of lives there are moments if not days when things just seem to be going your way. Think back have you ever had one of those days where you are just happy with the world? Here is a suggestion, try retracing your steps. What do I mean? Simple, start from how you are feeling and work back through your day. Perhaps you had completed a project you were working on? Maybe you brought a smile to the face of a friend or even a complete stranger. Maybe you just finished listening to one of your favorite songs on the radio, or working out. It will be different for everyone, and there may be a few things in there that just seem kind of crazy, but if they lead you to happiness…who cares! The point here is to look at what makes up a great day for you. Perhaps write them down on a list, or in a person journal (more on that in later in the week). Ok, so perhaps you haven’t had one of those days in a while? Maybe you can’t remember what made you so happy, or just want to enjoy the feeling without trying to figure it out. Fair enough. Even if you find yourself having a miserable day, it is cause to get excited! Why would feeling miserable be anything to be excited about you may ask. This is why, it works the same way as being happy. If you’re having a bad day, stop and think about all the things that transpired to bring you to that point. Make a list of those things too. Not only will you come up with a list of things you would do well to eliminate from your life, but if you look at the opposite of those things, you have the seeds for what will make you happy. So even knowing what you dislike can be a very healthy thing. If you were to say, I dislike all the negative people I run into. You will know limiting your exposure to negative people might be something you wish to work on. You may also phrase it as “adding more positive people to my life would make it better”. So as this week continues, try thinking backwards and form a plan for your own happiness. A plan that would be as unique as the person writing it!
FOCUSING ON THE DOT ON THE WALL
A few years back I went to see a counselor for some relationship issues I was having. Not sure how much it helped, but I do recall something she told me that I really found value in. It applies not only to relationships, but life in general. While listening to me discuss all the issues I felt were troubling the relationship, she said “I see what one of your greatest problems is”. The fact that I had just mentioned like three different things seemed not to matter. I was interested. If there was one issue that connected all of these things and by addressing that the relationship could improve on several different levels, well I was all ears. What she said next really confused me a bit. “You’re focusing on the problem too much”. I thought about that for a second. “How the hell can you solve a problem if you don’t focus on it” I thought. Imagining what I must be thinking she took me over to a wall across her office. She pointed and asked “Do you see that nail hole in that wall?” Well it took me a second, but I found it. She asked how bad it affected the wall. Well considering the wall was pretty big and the hole was small I answered not much. Move closer she told me. So I moved closer until I was mere inches from the hole. How does it look on the wall now? The point was fairly clear. Until she had pointed it out to me I really never even noticed it. Then when staring so close at it, the rest of the wall seemed hard to notice. It is focusing on solving the 10% instead of growing the 90%. How many of us do this? Not just in our relationships, but with our jobs, or our cars, or anything really. We seem to focus on what needs to be fixed or what we wish was better instead of appreciating all that is right. Now I am not advocating ignoring any issue or just pretending it doesn’t exist. Just that we must put things in their fair perspective. Problems are only a part of life. Some things are good, some things are not so good. Yet, as we discussed in the post on gratitude, it is important to give attention to that which is working. We may be mad at our spouse for something they said, but if we stop and think of all the nice things they have done or said we realize things are not that bad. Focusing on a challenge can often make that challenge seem bigger and more intimidating than it really is. So focus on a solution and everything that is working. Put your problems in their place. It will help you feel a lot better and make them a little easier to handle.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HAPPY
Since I started this site I have had a few people tell me, “I like what your doing, but I have no time to be happy. I have to pay the pills and make dinner for my kids. I can’t worry about making myself happy. I have to concentrate on what is important”. That statement surpises me and yet it doesn’t. A lot of the influences we hear tell us that to worry about ourselves and our own happiness is selfish. We are taught to ‘put others before ourselves’. So why is being happy so important? Why should we spend so much time worrying about what makes us or others happy? Well we could look at the scientific facts that have been mentioned in the media so often. A positive attitude helps us live longer, boost our immune system, heal from injury quicker. Even if you have no interest in living a longer healthier life, although I am not sure who wouldn’t, happiness is still more important than most of us realize. It reduces our stress levels and allows us better to face the challenges that always pop up at the most unexpected times. How often we regret reacting to a mild irritation in a severe way just because our thoughts were already focused on some other trouble. It leaves hurt feelings and turns another situation from bad to worse. If we do our best to keep our thoughts focused on the joy that life offers us and adding more to our lives, then we shall see situations as they are. For those of you that are familiar with the Law of attraction, which states like attracts like. It should be apparent why being happy is so important. If you are happy you attract more happiness into your life, if you are unhappy you will be more likely to be faced with negative situations again and again.
So if we are busy focused on our own happiness, what should we bother worrying about others happiness? Well, recently that was shown to me in a dramatic and tragic way. A wonderful co-worker of mine took his own life a few days ago. When such an event happens we are always left with the same questions “how could I not know?”, and “What could I have done?”. Truth is, most of the time there is nothing we could have done, and no way we would’ve known. In this case by all accounts this gentleman was filled with good humor and had a real zest for life. Which stresses the importance even more. We never know what is going on in someones world. So consider that when dealing with the cheery lady at the coffee shop, or the grumpy cashier at the grocery store. We are never sure when someone may need that genuine compliment, or sign of gratitude from us. How important can happiness be? It can be a matter of life and death, for both ourselves and those we care about.
falling off of a cliff
one interesting thing about living a positive and more rewarding life, and one you should be prepared to face once you venture on this path is challenges. Ironicly I am not speaking of lifes challenges to your positive spirit, although there is sure to be some of those, but people challenging the validity of being positive. At first this made no sense to me. Why would anyone not like a positive person? What is wrong with trying to live a life that is not only more self satisfying, but rewarding to others as well? We shall look to answer those questions and more in a future post, but I want to share with you an example of just such a situation that a coworker approached me with the other day. “what good is a positive attitude if it doesn’t change anything?” she asked me. “What do you mean?” the example she gave me seemed to shed light on one person’s view on the world. “Well, if a negative person and a positive person both fall off a cliff, will they not both hit the ground and die no matter what kind of attitude they have?” This is a good question. I think the answer may be found in the ‘life to years and not years to life’ paradigm. While it is true a positive attitude sure can help your longevity, my goal is to help you enjoy whatever time you have here, be it long or short. So what was the answer I gave this lady? Before I answer that, let me remind you of a very important lesson. People who disagree, challenge and maybe even mock or dislike you for trying to better yourself are more a reflection of themselves then of you. I know this thought may not help in the moment, but always look for the lesson. Are they forcing you to look at things a new way? Are they showing you why it is important to maintain a cherry disposition? Either way, be grateful for they are teachers wether they know it or not. My answer by the way, “Yes, they both will die, but who do you think will have more fun on the way down?” So remember, it is important to have fun every day, you never know what cliff may be around the corner!
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 