Ask yourself this question: What is my life for? What is the purpose of me being alive? Don't answer that quickly. It's very important.
What is life for? Is it for success or is it really. This may sound selfish, but is it for your own happiness? Well, it is indeed for your own happiness, and that is the purpose of life.
Psychologist and author Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi wrote that, "The ultimate in well-being is to have one's life flowing toward an overriding goal, a unifying theme that gives meaning to our lesser goals." To me, this means that happiness is derived by minimizing yourself, by remembering what life if for, to connect. Above all connect. When you connect, you create happiness.
There is a law of impermanence that we must learn to fully understand what happiness is and how it is created in our lives. Happiness never lasts, just as unhappiness never lasts. Psychologist David Meyers wrote, "Every desirable experience, passionate love, a spiritual high, the pleasure of a new possession, the exhilaration of success, is transitory, it will never last." The key is to remember that happiness is always waiting around the corner.
Another aspect of happiness that is hard for many people to understand is called denial for the sake of happiness. Sometimes self-denial is crucial to happiness. The key to creating happiness is balance. What is up is up, what is down is down. You must understand that nothing is permanent. Sometimes a little self-denial can lead to happiness a little later.
To create happiness, it is most important to establish an attitude of gratitude. An important key to happiness is the unconditional positive regard for others and your world. That's creating happiness.
Happiness is purposeful. You must create it. It doesn't just happen, and you don't create it by the minimal self-connecting with the world and those around you.
Here are 8 steps that you can take to help you create a happier and purpose-driven life:
1. Look and act happy. Remember that going through the motions alters the emotions. This is much different than pop psychology. We have taught for years that you come to behave as you feel. If you behave differently, you will begin to feel differently. If you behave lovingly, you will feel love. You change your behavior first. Going through the motions alters the emotions. If you change how you behave with enjoyment in your daily life, you will feel happier.
2. Avoid negativity. Negativity comes from three factors; personalizing things that happen to you; making things pervasive; and making them permanent when something negative happens. Personal, pervasive, permanent. Deadly negative responses. You must remember the art of waiting for things to change. They will get better, and when they're really good, they will get worse.
3. Engage in joyful life rituals every day. Rituals are ceremonies that celebrate the past and connect you with the past. They give your life a sense of rhythm and reason. For example, pray, sing, and recall past holidays. Dance or simply repeat meaningful words, dates, or even the names of your family.
4. Enjoy your work. Freud said that the key to health is Lieben and Arbiten, which means to love and to work. Loving your work is one of the most fulfilling things you can do. If you are not happy at work, you must do something immediately. It is fundamental to your happiness.
5. Laugh every day. What laughter does is increase your immune balance. Medical studies have shown that it makes your immune system stronger by increasing the antibodies that fight off viruses and even cancer cells, for more than 36 hours after a hard laugh.
6. Don't vent your anger. Popular psychology has taught for centuries that you must get your anger out. We have become ventilationists. We are going to dump our anger; therefore, we have a violent society, but research has shown us quite clearly that when you express anger you become angrier. Going through the motions alters the emotions. What you should do is stifle it. When you do vent your anger, it flies out all over everyone.
7. Develop an invisible means of support. By invisible I mean spirituality. Happiness requires that we pay attention to our spirituality, that we read inspirational materials, that we take the time to contemplate, to meditate, to connect with a higher power. To find a sense of coherence, as research calls it, meaning in our life.
8. Make time for play. Think of what time does to us. It causes stress, anxiety and anger. Take time out every day to exercise and spend time with your family or friends. Make sure you plan at least one day a week where you do something fun and don't even think about work.
When you practice these 8 steps every day and make them part of your daily life you will be on your way to course of happiness rather than on the success and misery course that many of us practice.
Copyright2008 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and success coaching programs. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in career coach training. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many businesses around the world, on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business planning, and marketing. Joe is the author of three books, Starting Your Own Business, Finding Your Purpose In Life, and The Guerrilla Marketing Workbook.
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