The Inspiration Place

Archive for the ‘Happiness’ Category

We all want happiness. We all need appreciation. We all crave for recognition. We all want to be applauded. We all desire to be called as good and lovely human beings. We are all looking for this certificate from our friends, family and our partner. This makes us happy. This makes us feel good about ourselves. This gives us new confidence in ourselves. This all gives us a new and positive self esteem, which is very important.

How to get it? Let us do all this for others. If no one is praising us, let us praise others. Let us do all that we want others to do to us. Let us give love, affection, appreciation, and let us applaud others even for a very small victory. Will this help us? It helps us immediately.

The first feeling we get after doing a good deed is feeling of satisfaction. This raises our self esteem in our own eyes. This makes us feel good. By making others happy, we get happiness. So let us become proactive and get all we want by not asking for it, but giving it.

What will happen to others when they get such praise from us? They will feel very happy. They will be happy with us. They will like us even more. They will like to do something in return. They will do all that we have been wishing for. Send happiness to get happiness.

Happiness is a state of mind, when one feels contented with oneself, one feels cheerful with one’s life and circumstances. Remaining unhappy is not our goal in life, happiness is our goal. If we are not happy, life becomes a burden. Why not make happiness a part of everyday living?

If you haven’t been able to find a lot of happiness in your life, maybe you’re looking in the wrong place. Our level of happiness is based on our thoughts and our thoughts are a reflection of what’s in our minds. We can begin the quest for happiness by separating our memories into three separate chests.

The Treasure Chest of the mind is where we put our most cherished memories. We open this chest when looking for happiness, comfort and contentment.

The Hope Chest of our mind is for our goals and dreams of tomorrow. As each is fulfilled it is then moved to our Treasure Chest.

The Dumpster Chest of the mind is for letting go of the hurts and trash of yesterday. Once in this chest they are dumped, to be forever let go. Once these memories are put in the Dumpster Chest you should never go digging them out.

Our thoughts are a reflection on who we are. Happy people have happy thoughts. That doesn’t mean that the happy person never has an unhappy thought, it means the happy person knows how to move these unhappy thoughts into the Dumpster Chest and then forget about them.

If someone speaks of you and is not pleasant or someone acts and is not nice to you, it is not a reflection of you but a reflection of them. Do you think they are happy? What is in their Treasure Chest or Hope Chest that should have been put in their Dumpster Chest? How sad for them, but don’t let it affect you.

If you want to be happy, take the time to sit and think about your thoughts. Put the good ones in your Treasure Chest or Hope Chest and the bad ones in your Dumpster Chest. Focus only on your Treasure Chest and Hope Chest for they are now full of the jewels of hope and joy.

Happy people spend their effort adding to their Treasure and Hope chests while unhappy people spend their time sorting through the dumpster. If you are serious about finding happiness, leave the trash behind and become a treasure hunter.

Are you in control of your destiny?

As you are reading these words, you may be thinking about and looking for a way to improve your sense of fulfilment, success and true happiness in your life.

It seems that some people nearly always attain success in relationships, business and personal fulfilment, while others in similar circumstances may do well, but never seem to reach the higher levels.

We often say they are “lucky” but I suggest that luck has nothing to do with it.

What does have everything to do with it are the following six factors.

They are the areas which every one of us need to improve in order to attain personal fulfilment, success and happiness. Which of these would you wish to improve?

1. Self-image.
Your beliefs about your self affect how you feel and how you appear to others. Your self-confidence and self-worth are the result of your self-image.

2. Self Control.
The true fact is that either you control your life or you are controlled by it.

3. Creativity.
In its broadest sense it is the artist and the scientist within you, who solves your problems and brings new ideas.

4. Cooperation.
No man is an island, and the successful person will be expert at communication skills, persuading and encouraging others to make his own and their shared goals come true.

5. Planning.
It is said, that “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else”. If someone doesn’t have clear and focused goals, they cannot complain if the “somewhere else” is not to their liking.

6. Concentration.
Willingness to get going, concentrated effort, persistence and resilience in the face of obstacles - all are crucial to success in achieving life goals.

Think about it … every single thing we do is intended to make us happier., at the root of every goal we want to reach is happiness.

And yet sometimes we get diverted and do things that actually move us away from this goal.

We all have the potential for genuine happiness. There is no gene or DNA marker that determines who will be happy and who will not. We make choices throughout our lives and the result of all these choices combined determines our level of happiness. Make the right choices and happiness can be yours.

Here are just a sampling of some of the tactics you can employ in an 11-point roadmap to help guide you toward genuine happiness:

1. Look For The Positive In Everything:

There is an old saying that nothing is inherently good or bad, what makes it one or the other is merely your reaction to it. Find the positive and you will be happier. Those who soar against all odds do so because they look at the positive that could come out of their situation how ever bad it may seem to others.

2. Accentuate The Positive:

We all grow up with a “positivity imbalance”, the result of society’s norms and rules being based on restriction and punishment more than approval and reward. From a young age we are taught what we must not do instead of what we may do. Even in day-to-day life there are more negative influence that positive.

Luckily you can work to improve the balance. Celebrate the positive and work to get more of it. When you achieve something, congratulate yourself! Look for things you find uplifting, that make you happy. Get more of that! At the same time, reduce your exposure to negative input whether it is the daily news or people you don’t feel good around. You know your buttons, make sure the positive ones are pushed more than the negative.

3. Practice Good Selfishness:

When we were young we were taught that putting our interests before those of others is wrong. This is particularly true for women, many of whom sacrifice their dreams and ambitions to help others achieve theirs.

It is also common in the corporate world where the good of the company is considered more important than the good of the individual. It is good to help others, yet we should have boundaries to protect ourselves from being manipulated or abused by others.

You are important, and if you don’t look after yourself mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually, you cannot expect anyone else to do so.

4. Listen To Your Feelings:

All feelings are good. Every feeling occurs for a reason: it is delivering a message. Sometimes that message is pleasant, other times not. Our tendency is to distract ourselves from unpleasant feelings, often through smoking, drinking or drugs of one kind or another. When you feel bad, avoid distracting yourself, and identify the reason—there is some need not being met.

5. Give Of Yourself:

The more you give, the more you receive. There is probably no scientific study proving this to be so, but unconditional giving is hugely rewarding. It seems that the more of yourself you give, the greater the thrill and uplifting effect on your psyche. Help the needy, give time if you can, give anonymously, even if you lose the tax deduction!

6. Make It Happen:

You have the ability to make things happen using your mind. Top sports stars, and business people use it, and so can you. There are many ways of doing this; one of the common methods is to use visualization — getting a picture in your mind of whatever it is that you want to happen. It does not actually have to be a visual picture, it could be a feeling, a smell, a sound or any combination of the senses. Imagine finding the perfect parking near the entrance as you arrive at the supermarket or mall … the sky is the limit, but persevere! We are not used to utilizing this tool, so it takes practice.

7. Accept The Things You Cannot Change:

Change is a constant throughout life yet sometimes we resist things we don’t like and often expend a tremendous amount of energy on this resistance. Whilst this can be good and has resulted in tremendous advances through history, we should work to understand those things we cannot change and then move on.

Rather use the saved energy on something more worthwhile and productive. This is not to say that you should complacently accept anything. If you truly desire change, you should work towards that change; but spending time worrying about something without actively working to change it is unproductive and damaging to your wellbeing.

8. Take Responsibility For Your Choices:

Everything that you do, or don’t do, is because of choices you make or don’t make. It is easier and convenient to blame outside causes for things that go wrong in life but your life is the sum of all the choices you make along the way. Sometimes that choice is to let somebody else make a choice on your behalf. It may be scary to take responsibility for what happens in your life but it is really quite liberating because instead of seeing yourself as an effect of outside forces, you realize you are the cause of everything good you achieve.

Don’t abdicate responsibility for your life.

9. Schedule Regular “Self Time”:

Spend some time analyzing where you are in life, your strengths and weaknesses. How can you turn the latter into the former? Think about your views on everything from your job to global warming and the existence of aliens, then work out why you feel the way you do. Is your reasoning sound? The better you understand yourself, the better you understand the world.

10. Make Time To Meditate:

We spend almost all our time thinking of the past or planning for the future yet we are only ever here and now. We seldom spend time in the present. It has reached a point where, for most of us, it seems impossible to keep our focus on what is happening right now. Your meditation could be formal meditation or prayer, but it could be as simple as merely focusing on each breath as it goes in and out for five or ten minutes, dismissing past and future thoughts as they arise and they will!

11. Remove Your Limitations:

When we fail, usually the reason is simply because we don’t believe we are able or worthy of whatever it is that we fail to achieve. Most often, this belief is actually false; the result of negative programming received since childhood. The truth is that most of us are able to do most of what we really want to do, you just have to believe. The best way to start is with small things, working your way up as you notice the limits dissolving.

The more successful you are at assimilating the concepts and processes described in these eleven points into your life, the more genuinely happy you will be, and the happiness will last!