Happiness Is The Way, Not the Destination

"All our lives we think happiness is a destination, only to look back and realize that it was the way."

~Robert Brault

Many of us are trapped in the rat race of life, thinking that if we reach a certain goal or a particular destination, we will finally be happy.  However, when we finally arrive at our destination, we often just feel relief that we are no longer under pressure or we feel happy for a brief time. So we quickly focus on our next goal, hoping to catch the next glimpse of relief or happiness, and never really get to enjoy the present. 

In order to experience lasting happiness, we need to enjoy the steps we take on our journey toward a goal that is important to us.  We need to take time to enjoy each day and all the little moments, as we are moving forward toward our dreams and goals. 


Manuela loves helping others bring more happiness into their lives!  You can visit Manuela's Website for Personal Success Coaching and check out her upcoming “Secrets to Happiness” Workshop!

Keep Asking Until You Find the Answers

 

"Some people fold after making one timid request. They quit too soon. Keep asking until you find the answers."

~Jack Canfield

Why is it sometimes so hard to ask for what we want? It could be because we don't want to appear selfish, or maybe we don't want to rock the boat or we are afraid to be told 'no' and feel rejected.

So when we finally get up our courage and ask for something that is important to us and we hear the dreaded "no," we often stop right there. After all, who wants to get rejected over and over again?

But did you know that in sales, there are usually four or five "no's" before a "yes?" I was amazed when I found out that was the case. And I started to think about what that meant if we applied it to our life. 

What if it was proof that rejection is not something to take personally, but just the natural order of life? What if we knew and expected that there will always be "no's" when we try to pursue something that we want, but that didn't mean that we won't be able to achieve it?

 

Think of something you really want to have in your life. Maybe it's the career of your dreams, a Soulmate, more balance and less stress in your life or something else. Would it be worthwhile to go out and go for it (and risk hearing some "no's") before you give up on it? 

Manuela teaches women life strategies to find success in their careers and personal lives! You can visit Manuela's Website for Personal Success Coaching and Empowerment Workshops. 

   

Making Your Dreams Come True

Have you ever wished for something and worked hard to get it, only to find out in the end that it didn’t make you as happy as you thought it would?  It definitely happened a few times in my life: working my way up in a career that wasn’t fulfilling me, moving to a new neighborhood that didn’t really suit me, making time to take a break and do nothing but then ending up feeling bored… Achieving your dreams is a great thing, but how can we make sure we go for the “right” dreams – the ones that will actually make us feel happier when we reach them?  

I just read an excellent article by Martha Beck: “How ThreeSimple (But Powerful) Words Can Put You On The Path Of Happiness.” She talks about how she helped two women achieve their goals - one hoped to start a business and the other wanted a baby - only to have them end up feeling more distressed afterwards than they were before.  The problem was that they hadn’t probed deeper into what they really wanted to experience and how they wanted to feel (in their cases, contentment and being loved.) Instead, they were focused on the situation they wanted to achieve (building a business and having a child.) Unfortunately, reaching their dreams brought them more stress and pressure, rather than contentment and love.

Here is the simple 4-step process Martha outlines in her article that helps you focus on the experience you want to create:

1. Think about some dreams or goals that have been on your mind (For example: start a new career, lose weight, become a movie star…) and pick your most ambitious one.
2. Imagine what your life would be like if you realized your goal. Really put yourself into it: What does it look like? Who is around you? What do you hear and smell? What are you doing?
3. Begin to list adjectives that describe how you feel in your imagined scenario (For example: Energetic, free, secure, understood, relaxed...) Pick the 3 adjectives that describe your feelings the best.
4. Focus on anything that can be described with your adjectives. Rather than waiting to achieve the big goal you had outlined, you can start now by focusing on things in your current life that can make you feel that way. This will give you an instant lift and help make you happier right now.

As you go through these steps, you might realize that the big goal you had is only one way to get the experience you really desire, and you may find new ways to feel the way you want. Maybe you’ll realize that the goal isn’t as important as you thought. Or you may still feel that it is important to pursue it, even if there are drawbacks. Either way, now that you know what it is that you really want to experience, you can focus your efforts on what matters the most to you. And the beauty is that you can begin RIGHT NOW!

So here are the 3 adjectives I came up with (with my personal definition):

- Valued (I matter. I am important. I am respected.)

- Productive (I am using my talents. I am competent. I am helpful.)

- Connected (I collaborate. I belong. I am part of something greater.) 

What are your 3 adjectives?

How Do I Know If This Choice Will Make Me Happy?

A few days ago, I watched Marley & Me with my boyfriend. While there are many funny scenes with the boisterous dog Marley, that I can relate to as a puppy Mommy, one of the questions the movie raised for me was about Marley’s owner, John Grogan. In the movie, John wants to be a reporter, but what he keeps on getting offered is to be a columnist. He tries it out, is great at it, gets a big following, but the dream of being a reporter stays with him. When he finally gets the chance to be a reporter at a different newspaper, he gets his wife’s blessing to uproot his whole family and move so he can take on the new position. But as time goes on he finds out that he isn’t particularly suited to being a reporter and doesn’t enjoy it as much, so he asks if he can go back to being a columnist.

I kept on pondering this question: How many times do we think we want something, but we really just like the idea of it, or we don't actually know what it is truly like until we try it? And then when we get it, we want the other thing that we already had or want something else altogether? 

Sometimes we may not even fully understand why we want something. We may have a dream, like becoming a pop star, and we think it’s because we like singing and performing, but maybe it is really because we crave attention and validation. Or we think we want to be an entrepreneur because we want to be a visionary and build a company from the ground up, but it may also be because we like the idea of being in control and having the image of a risk-taker. But what happens when we feel better about ourselves and no longer have the need for validation or if having a certain image is no longer important to us?  

In addition, we are actually not very good at predicting what will make us happy, as Daniel Gilbert points out in his book “Stumbling on Happiness.” Our imagination plays tricks on us when we try to look forward. So we try our best to navigate our life toward what we believe to be a “successful” future, only to find that the future often doesn’t turn out as we expected.

Does that mean we should give up our dreams and just be happy with what we have in the first place? Or is trial and error a necessary process we have to go through in order to figure out what we really like and want?

Gilbert suggests that the best way to predict how we will feel is to ask others who are in the same circumstances today how they are feeling. Depending on what we are trying to predict, it may be difficult to find people to ask or to get some honest answers, but it's a good place to start.

In the end, I believe that life is a process and usually doesn’t turn out as expected. There is no way to predict all the curveballs life throws us or opportunities that arise. It’s often impossible to tell if we made the “right” or “wrong” choice, because we don’t know what would have happened otherwise. And even if a choice seems “wrong”, we may have needed this experience to teach us something or grow in some way. We learn more about ourselves as we go through life. Our motivations and priorities may change. We sometimes need to try new things to see if we like them and if they will make us happy.

The important thing to remember is that we are not “stuck” if we choose something we don’t like or if life deals us an unexpected hand. We can always choose: how we want to be (calm, angry, grateful, excited, hopeful, sad...etc.), how we want to see and interpret what is happening (it’s a challenge, an adventure, a disaster, a blessing, a surprise, a burden, a rollercoaster), how we want to handle our current circumstances and what we want to do next.

What choice will you make today?