Happiness is a Choice- 1B

Hi everyone,

I first of all want to thank everyone that has viewed my blog and all of you that have joined as followers.  Also, thanks for all of the supportive comments.  I really appreciate hearing those and it encourages me so much!  I hope to create a community that pulls together to help each of you create something special in your life.  I hope you will continue to come back read my blog, make comments and truly participate. 

On Monday I wrote about happiness being a choice.  If you read the blog, answered the questions and worked on the fieldwork hopefully you were able to see how your thoughts can affect your life.  If you have started to listen to the messages you send yourself and if they are negative, hopefully you have switched the dialog to something more positive.  Continue to be aware of this even when you move on to other topics.

If this is your first time viewing the blog, you can start here or if you want to go back and look at 1A first, you can come back when you are ready.  So if happiness is a choice, why aren't we all happy?  Once we make the choice to be happy, how do we find happiness?   

I think many of us have forgotten what makes us happy.  We get caught up in work, kids or life in general and we seldom go back and check in to see where we are.  What made us happy 5 years ago may not be the same now so we need to check in pretty regularly to make sure we are still on the right path.  Sometimes it is hard to take time for yourself, but if you are able to define what makes you happy and you work at creating that for yourself, think of the gift you are giving yourself and the ones you love.

Making a choice to be happy does not mean you never get frustrated or you never have things that happen in your life that are challenging.  It just makes it easier to put things in perspective when negative things do show up.  You can say, my life is happy and this is happening to me, but it is not going to change my overall level of happiness.  You may even begin to approach the challenging situations by asking what lesson they are providing for you.  What are you supposed to learn and how can you get something positive from the negative.

If you have decided you want to be happy,  let's figure out what truly makes you happy and what it will take for you to smile each day and love your life even when any trials or tribulations come your way.

Questions:  You can journal about these questions or you can spend some time thinking about the answers.  Do what works best for you and your life!

- What do you enjoy doing? reading, yoga, crafts, spending time on the computer, getting a manicure.....
- What puts a smile on your face?
- If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?
- How much time do you spend doing the things that make you happy?
- Is there a way to incorporate more of what you love into your life right now?
- What would it take to make you happy?
- What do you spend most of your time doing?
- Do you enjoy doing that?
- If not, and it is something you have to do, can you find one thing you love about that task?
- Can you take a few minutes each day to do one thing that makes you happy?
- When you take time to do what you enjoy, how does it make you feel?
- What will you spend time doing tomorrow to make you smile?

I hope that each of you will begin to look at what makes you happy and I hope you will each implement more of that into your life (obviously within reason).  Figure out what will make you happy right now and create that for yourself.  What are you waiting for?

Fieldwork:
Do something that brings you happiness each day.  Think about how it feels to take time for yourself and to do something you enjoy!

Next week, the topic will be Balance!  I hope you will join me to work on creating a healthy, balanced life for yourself.

Thanks for reading!!
Coach Gaye