When Did Happiness Get So Complicated?
Happiness is everywhere isn’t it? Here you are, working in a world where anything can be yours. Technology paired with innovation is leading to so many exciting shifts in the way you communicate, live and work.
Everywhere you turn there are romanticized and marketed messages like: No Fear or Go Big or Go Home or Find Your Big Break, promising happiness on the other side of an extreme, bold and strategic action.
I call bullshit.
In my work, and in my life, I have seen enough people crash and burn after a few weeks or a few months of good intentions and strategic planning. Heck, even the most resolute fall victim to deadlines, sickness and external pressures.
Perhaps you want to lose weight, or get a new job or even start your own business. How do you create results that last?
How did the oak become mighty?
Was there a flashy bold move that catapulted the oak tree from a sapling to a towering giant in the speed of a instant download? Flashy sells, sizzle excites, but they don’t last.
It is the decisions that you make day-in and day-out that really matter. Boring, simple and consistent.
What Does Happiness Mean to You?
For most of us, myself included, defining happiness was done by others. It happened so early in life that we never gave it a second thought. Yep, we never even stopped to consider the monumental impact of outsourcing this definition.
I use the word monumental on the scale of the collapse of the real estate market in 2008.
Go to college, work hard, get married, buy a home, have kids; sound familiar? You ticked all the boxes yet you are left asking,
“Is this all there is?”
So how can you cozy up to your authentically true version of happiness?
Two Tips for True Happiness
In this crazy, hazy, super fast world I invite you to get really quiet at least once each and every day. Turn off the distractions, take a break from it ALL and enjoy your own company.
Roll your shoulders up to your ears and down your back and take a deep breath right into your pelvic floor and smile as you exhale, pulling your abdominal muscles tight against your spine as you release every last bit of that breath.
How do you feel?
If you did it, you feel calmer, emptier and ready for another one.
I invite you to take it even one step further. Today, start a note in your portable device or take pen to paper and right down a list of at least 5 things you can do each day that would make your life great that you could just as easily skip. Things like preparing a pitcher of lemon water for the day to ensure you drink those glasses of alkaline water, or setting your alarm early to get in a meditation or a workout.
I am asking you to start thinking of the choices that seem insignificant in the moment as the most significant.
Consider how the resulting actions of these choices impact your work and your life if repeated on a daily basis over years. Choices like adding kale to your smoothie, or starting your day 15 minutes early to get organized or smiling at your co-workers and family members when they walk in a room,…do you feel that shift?
The choices your implement are a reflection of your core values that you 100% require to achieve happiness. Happiness after all is an intimate affair; unique to you.
If you are interested in reading more on happiness, here is another key element to creating happiness in your life.
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Until next time, live, work and play in FULL bloom.
your Coach, Lisa van Reeuwyk
