I am as subscriber of SUCCESS e-magazine and I regularly receive useful, inspiring and empowering information that all of us can relate to. It works for me to keep my own level of inspiration and empowerment. Today, in my INBOX, I received this one below and I would like to share the except with you:
What makes you happy....really?
That’s a serious question… maybe one of the most important questions of your life. But did you know most people can’t answer it correctly?
In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard professor Dan Gilbert explains that most of us think we know what makes us happy, but typically we are wrong.
I have found there are three major traps in which you might be unknowingly making yourself unhappy.
The first unhappiness trap is postponing happiness. The “when-I -(fill in the blank), I-will-be-happy” syndrome. The reality is happiness, isn’t something to be acquired in the future. You are either happy now or not; “then” never arrives. Living and striving for “then” results in a constant state of unhappiness. Now is the only time you have to be happy.
The second unhappiness trap is we spend our lives trying to make other people happy which can make us very unhappy. Many times we are living a life we didn’t even choose ourselves. We might have simply, and unconsciously, started pursuing the idea of happiness programmed by our parents, peers, societal culture, or the examples given to us by Hollywood or commercialism. Whose idea of success are you living out?
Third unhappiness trap is contrast. For the most part happiness is really an illusion. In other words, you make up the idea of whether you are happy or not. And you really only know how to judge something by comparing it to something else. Typically this means comparing yourself to other people. This is dangerous business because there will always be reference points that will cause you to be unhappy.
The bottom line is this, happiness creates, this is not derived from the outside, it is only derived from within. Happiness is a state of mind. And you can continually choose to be happy.
Here is the best way I know to live in happiness—live in gratitude. When you focus on all you have and all that you are, right now, that is where happiness is born. Once it is born now you can nurture it further by discovering those other experiences that bring you increased joy, happiness and exhilaration.
Imagine being able to grow your organization’s sales revenue by 56 percent with no additional investment in marketing, infrastructure, head count or even increased effort, but by simply by helping those around you be happy and get and keep a positive attitude. As a leader interested in tangible improved results, this could be the best use of your time and resources… and a very important issue to study.
Now, let’s get happy!
Give everyone ideas on getting happy - what 3 things make you most happy? How often do you spend your time doing those things?
Salaam....
