Do you know how to be happy? Take a few risks

Do you know what the secret to happiness is?  The number one thing that separates people who realise their dreams and those that don’t is taking a risk.  Being brave, audacious, feisty, bold, daring, courageous, gutsy, spirited, adventurous, and exploratory even; there are many words to describe taking a risk. 

There are a number of reasons people fall back on to NOT take a risk and lead their ideal life, to be happier.  Here are just a few:

• Fear of failure
• Fear of the unknown
• Fear of rejection
• The need for certainty
• The need of approval from others
• Absence of desire to change
• Lack of confidence

Best tip – TAKE ACTION, and then:

• Allow for mistakes – you will make lots along the way, and probably need to.
• Look at risk as an opportunity to learn.
• Be prepared to ask for help
• Do some planning (not too much otherwise you won’t start)
• Take baby steps
• Reward your successes, of which taking the baby steps is included.
• Evaluate and adjust along the way

I read something the other day which goes something like this.  Go out on a limb – the view is much better from there and you are more likely to find some fruit.  Hmmm…sounds pretty good to me

“The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible”.  Arthur C. Clarke

Along the way, don’t be afraid to stop and take a different path if it is not working for you.  When I finished my life coach training, I really didn’t have any idea of what was available in the business of coaching and personal development.  I had a vision which was based on very limited information.  I wasn’t aware of the possibilities.  Once I started exploring those possibilities, I stopped 1:1 coaching to focus on creating my life and business the way I want it.  I knew nothing about marketing, social media (hey, I just started using FB recently and on a BIG learning curve), had no networks with similar business models to connect with.   Even when I started this blog, I really didn’t know what I was doing but I did it anyway.

Now, I’m investing money (yes, maxing out the credit card) and time to learn, to connect, to experiment so I can create a life that will be built on my values.   Yes, I am making mistakes – but who cares.  Yes, I will get knock backs and rejected –that’s just part of life. Yes, there will be people who will criticise me and what I do and how I do it – oh well, that’s more of a reflection of their lack of confidence in themselves and a lack of imagination.   Who cares if some people think you are crazy?  Whose life is it anyway?

Think not of the risk of taking risk, think instead of the risks of NOT taking that risk.

And, if people think you are crazy?  At least life will be more interesting.  So, what crazy ideas do you have for creating happiness in your life?  I’d love to hear them.

Related articles

• Letting Go and Allowing:What Are You Afraid Of? (adapting2change.me)
• Taking risks…There is nothing to Fear (lifeinharmonyandbalance.wordpress.com)
• The Risk of Living Fully (joyofspa.com)
• How To Turn Fear into Growth (livebreathegrow.wordpress.com)

How to be happy: 3 things to STOP doing.

Most people just want to be happy – pure and simple really, isn’t it?

Well, it could be but we humans seem to make life more complicated that it is. 

A while back I wrote about 4 questions to help you find the meaning of your life as well as a couple of easy questions to ask yourself about who you really are.  Being happy is a state of mind and those questions are a quick and instinctive quide to finding your true path to being happy.

This week I am giving you 3 totally unresourceful things to stop doing to yourself.  These habits don’t serve, support, nurture or challenge you in leading a more resourceful and happier life.  As stated by Bob Newhart in a previous post  – STOP IT!!

1. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
2. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.  Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success.  You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
3. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us.  We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past.  But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.  Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come or is happening now. If you spend all your time looking back you won’t be able to recognise the opportunities that can make your life happier.  It’s a bit like trying to drive a car looking through the rear view mirror all the time and never looking ahead to where you want to go. 

 

Related articles

• 13 Things You Should Do To Live Life Without Regrets (rhubblog.com)
• Stop! (journal1958.wordpress.com)

Three things to give up this week to make life happier and more successful (borrowed from the Purpose Fairy’s 15)

I am going to be on the Gold Coast later this week for a 3 day seminar learning how to structure my business with a new niche.  A lot of people that are going to be there are already running their businesses very successfully and earning 6 and 7 figure incomes.  So for me, as a newbie, it is going to be an exercise in expanding my comfort zone (although at least this time I know what a JV is).

So, here are the 3 things I am going to give up this week to make my life happier and easier; to be in a better and more receptive frame of mind so I can make the most of what I will be learning in those few very intensive learning days.  I wonder if you’d like to do the same and we can compare notes after I return? 

1/ Self-defeating self-talk

Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.  Allow yourself to:

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Toll

2/ Give up your limiting beliefs

about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!

 

“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle

 3/ Give up on your fears

Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

 Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

Related articles

• Don’t Mind (eliseonlife.wordpress.com)

The Regrets of Not Living YOUR Life, YOUR Way

NOTE: This is part of an article that was originally published online on February 1, 2012, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

 I’d like to add something else – let go of relationships and people who do not support and nuture your goodness, your growth and your empowerment; who try and stop you from living your dreams.  Have the courage to start again and to create new friendships and relationships.

What’s your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

***

 

The Most Important Things in Life

I came across this earlier today. The question asked was “What are the most important things in life?”  Many of the answers were the same, the most popular ones I have highlighted in colours

Ethics.

Family and friends

Happiness

Living my life and not the life of others around me

Integrity and character.

Liberation

God

Relationships.

Harmony.

My relationship with Jesus Christ

Awareness.

The freedom of choice.

LOVE

Know who you are.
Know what you want and why.

Friends, especially those who become “chosen family.”

Having a dream and heading toward it.

Health

Passion and intensity

Peace of Mind.

Surf Life, Don’t Control It. Enjoy.

Gratitude as an attitude.

1. Breathe in
2. Breathe out
(Repeat)

Learning, growing and having meaningful relationships.

Doing what is right (a.k.a. living my life according to my ethics, principles, and beliefs).

*yourself
*attitude

Spirituality

Peace

Being sincere in all my relationships and dealings with people and doing things for others without any ulterior motives

The most important thing according to me is to live life to its fullest.

Life is a priceless gift to us and we should treasure it. Make a difference to another life and leave your footprints on sands of time to be remembered forever.

Know who your true friends are

The journey!

A contribution to make to humanity

Courage to do what is good.

Sanity

I realised that I really don’t know…..I f*ing don’t know!  And that’s terribly scary….

Peace of mind

Serving and loving others

SELF ESTEEM

What have you noticed?  

Money is not on the list. 

The formula for happiness and success

This week the Happiness and its Causes forum will be held in Sydney with a couple of speakers being Martin Seligman and Sogyal Rinpoche.  I thought this TED talk by Shawn Achor would be a good starting point for those of us who are not attending. 

Enjoy and then please share with me what thoughts came to your mind.

 

 

How to finish 2011 and look forward to 2012

The New Year is upon us and we all look towards 2012 with different expectations about what it will bring.  Some of us will look back at 2011 with sadness, some with relief, some with surprise, and some with happiness, some with contentment.   

I came across a great idea by Janet Beckers the other day. She and her family make a celebration board of things that they did, things that happened during the past year that they want to acknowledge and celebrate.  I was so impressed that I started looking for coloured pencils and my A3 art pad straight away.   I made my celebration board within 20 minutes of watching her video. 

It made so much more sense to recognise the good times, actions of which we are proud, events that challenged us and that we accepted, than to ruminate and berate ourselves over what went wrong.  

Now, if you have had a read of previous posts you will know that I don’t do New Year resolutions.  When I look at my celebration board the best things on there were either totally out of my control (Hello, Emily my new granddaughter!), or things that I didn’t know about until the year progressed, such as the Wealth Dynamics seminar in Bali, the meditation weekend in the mountains…   I think there are only 2 items on the board that I was aware of this time last year.

So, as we are about to have a couple of days public holiday, take time to grab some paper and coloured pencils, crayons or even biros and start your celebration board.   It’s about you and doesn’t have to be perfect or arty.  It’s something to have fun with.  If you have children that’s even better as they are a great inspiration with creativity and fun.  

To start you of here are a couple of pics of parts of my celebration board. 

Remember – it’s about FUN!!!

Who are you and what are you doing with your life?

I came across a list of 50 questions recently and thought I’d post some here for you to think about.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?  If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do? 

I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on this 

How to get what YOU want out of your day

How you start the day can impact on how the rest of the day turns out.   I set my day up by going for a walk along the beach and having coffee with friends most days.  That way I get to have exercise, socialise a bit, watch the sun come up and sometimes see dolphins and the odd whale.  Now, it can’t get much better than that   After those types of mornings I feel I can deal with anything, also knowing that I can do it again the next day.   It is something I choose to do, to think and to feel.

When my children were very young I used to get up early, before they did so I could have breakfast and read the newspaper in peace.   The purpose of that was to have my timeout BEFORE the day started.   

At a seminar I attended many months ago,  the main speaker was an international businessman who said that he set up his day by asking himself a series of questions as soon as he woke up.   Here they are:

• What am I grateful for?
• Who do I love?
• Why am I so happy?
• What am I committed to?
• How committed am I?
• What is my intention?
• What is my wish?
• Why am I here?

Now I get that it would take a while to remember all these questions to ask yourself every day so maybe you’d like to pick just one or two to start with.   

Or, make a list of your own questions.

I have a couple of questions I ask, especially when I have to attend a workplace workshop or something I am not looking forward to –  “I wonder what it will be like?” and “What can I take away from this?  If there is something you do not want to do or take part in, ask yourself about your intention.  Or what you are committed to.

Sometimes no matter what you do things can appear to be getting out of control as the day progresses (or regresses).   In that case, ask some of these questions at those times if they are appropriate to the situation.  If yesterday was awful, ask “What can I do differently today?”.  The reality is that your day depends on your thoughts and your responses.

“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”  Marcus Aurelius

What are you going to ask yourself tomorrow?   I’d love to hear your ideas.

Related articles

• Authentic Happiness (hollyworton.com)

Want to have a “wonder”ful life? Trust your imagination

I came across this “wonder”ful talk by Janet Echelman on TED and would like to share it with you

“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” Albert Einstein