If you had a choice between being happy or not which one would it be?
I am sure you’re saying to yourself “Hey! That sure is a silly thing to ask”. I do however think it’s a valid question, so I hope you’ll take a second to ponder it. If I had to guess I would say the answer is to be happy (in the remote possibility that I am wrong I do hope that you’ll humor me on this). Here’s where I am going to run the chance of reaching some disagreement. You see, I do believe that we have this choice. Now I certainly don’t mean that if it’s going to take you being a millionaire to make you happy that it’s necessarily going to happen for you (of course that is a whole other topic all together). What I am talking about here is the overall approach we take to our day. You see friend, much in the same way that one negative thing might have a snowballing effect on our day and make it ultimately appear as a “bad day” so can positive things happen (daily successes) to us, and before we know it we look back on our day and say, “this sure was a great day!” Here are a few tips that I use to “force the positives” in my life. I know they work for me and I feel confident that if you implement them in your life that you’ll have equal or better results. Besides even in a worst-case scenario where it doesn’t work for you at least you will have tried right?
First off I keep several books near my bed (sometimes I have so many books going I forget what to read next…lol). The books I choose to read are motivational or inspirational one’s. I don’t have a whole lot of disposable time so when I do, I like to know that I am doing something that will advance me in some way. When I am in the car I try to split my time between listening to the radio as well as listening to a motivational tape. You know like a recorded seminar or audio books, etc.
Sometimes I will listen to the same tape several times. You’d be surprised by how reviewing you’ll pick up things that you didn’t catch the first time around. Another thing that I do that is a big help for me is to stay in contact with people that are positive (my mentors). When I feel that I need a little boost I shoot off a quick e-mail or just drop by for a quick visit. You see my friend; these are not great insights, rather just simple steps that we can take to boost our positivity level.
However, I have found them to be extremely helpful in my quest to “choose happiness”.
“Goals that are not written down are just wishes.” — Unknown
I still remember the first time I heard the above quote about goals.
You see at the time as I recall I had a lot of big plans, things I wanted to see transform into reality in my life. Looking back I now realize that my problem was that I had the vehicle (my ideas) but I was missing my road map! (The written goals for achieving them).
You see my problem at the time wasn’t my lack of ambition or my belief that I could make it happen. Rather it was that in my effort to achieve I was simply “all over the place” in my efforts. When I began to do simple things like commit my goals to paper (actually I use a software solution myself) things began to come together more easily.
It was as if there was a puzzle that someone had taken the time to mark where each piece went for me in advance. I hope this message finds you well.
