Want That Happiness for Here or to Go?
Waiting my turn at a quaint coffee shop in San Diego recently, I listened as customers ordered breakfast:
“Breakfast quiche,” said one customer.
“I’ll have the ham and cheese croissant,” said the next customer.
Following each food order the clerk asked “Do you want that for here or to go?”
Over and over he asked the same question, “Do you want that for here or to go?”
That’s when it hit me. We answer that question everyday when we make decisions about our lives.
Each time we make choices we decide if we want to pursue this or that goal or do we want to delay for some future time.
The problem with pushing our goals into the future is that we can push them so far that we run out of time, at least in this lifetime.
Of course if you believe in reincarnation you have another shot, but let’s deal with one lifetime at a time, shall we.
Here are three ways to get your happiness here and now.
1. Give yourself permission.
We are often our worst enemies since we stage a war with ourselves in our heads. If you find yourself hesitating to start toward a goal, you are afraid of success or failure. You are definitely concerned about whether you deserve the wonderful things you imagine. You are worried about what other people think or waiting for approval from others before you start.
We all want the best for those we love. So learn to love yourself. Then give this amazing person called “you” permission to do, be, and embrace whatever makes you happy.
2. Find out what you really want.
This may sound simple on the surface, but discovering what we want requires research and exploration. We often judge what we want by the fun others seem to having with it.
You may think, for example, that you would enjoy living in a tranquil environment in the woods, off the main road miles away from the nearest shopping center and surrounded by nature. Before you pull up your city roots, give this tranquil life a test drive in the form of a vacation, a visit or a short stay. While this living style may be very appealing from the comfort of a movie theater seat, it may not be what you really would enjoy in its entirety.
3. Gather the resources to help you reach your goals.
Once you decide what you really want, it’s time to line up the people, information and tasks that will help you achieve your goal. When I decided to write my book, Color Your Life Happy, here are a few steps that helped me reach my goal:
- Read or heavily skimmed the major books, articles and blogs in the happiness field
- Bought a laptop
- Attended a one-day Positive Psychology conference to learn from researchers what findings they had discovered
- Hired a life coach
- Hired a publishing coach
- Changed my main workspace to my living picture window where I could get light.
- Visited the library and bookstores sometimes to browse, sometimes to write in a different environment
- Set up a writing schedule
- Attended a publishing institute where I met other authors actively involved in the writing process
- Joined Toastmasters to work on speaking skills
- Joined an Internet marketing group to learn more about promoting my book
- Made notes on my experiences and observations on vacations and trips away from home
No one of these tasks got my book done. Each one played a part in the ideas, motivation, writing, publishing and marketing.
It’s certainly up to you whether you want your happiness now or for another lifetime. Try the steps I shared if you want happiness for here.
Don't Be a Happy Fool
Advice on starting new habits and reaching for new goals give steps on how best to proceed. Advice on becoming a runner, for example will stress what to do before you begin, how to begin and getting proper form. Weight-loss advice always starts with urging you to consult your doctor. Failure to follow the startup advice in any new endeavor would be foolish since it could lead to not only injury, but failure and disappointment.
If you’ve decided that you want to experience happiness, there are some steps you should take to avoid injury and ensure success.
Consult your higher source.
Just as health practitioners always suggest that you speak to an authority before starting any diet or exercise program, so should you consult your Higher Power before attempting to make changes to your life.
You may call your higher source by another name, but it is whatever force you consider greater than you are. Many people get in touch with this source through prayer or meditation. Tapping into this power for strength and guidance will put you in touch with the inner voice that will guide you. Some call this voice intuition, but what you call it is not as important as recognizing and using its power.
Since your life is an expression of this power within, you must become aware of it, set your intentions with it and align your action toward your goals with it. Otherwise, your outward efforts will conflict with your inner beliefs, and that will prevent you from experiencing the inner happiness you desire.
Connect with people who are where you want to be
Trying to go it alone is unnecessary and foolish. There is a place for solitude, but when seeking to make happiness your way of life, find and associate with other happy, contented, positive people engaged in activities they enjoy.
Members of a gym are motivated by exercising with others working toward similar goals. So will you find it easier to stay positive, set goals and make daily progress if you surround yourself with others with the same intent.
Get real.
Being happy does not mean you are immune from feeling sad or encountering pain and adversity. You certainly won’t spend all your days skipping through the meadow singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”
Being happy does not mean being a pushover for manipulative and toxic people and schemes. As a matter of fact, clear those negative people out of your life and refuse to be pawn for those who want to use you.
Happy people go after what they enjoy in their lives, but also are confident that they can handle the change and adversity that we all inevitably encounter. Happy people feel sadness and grief very deeply because they give themselves permission to feel. But they don’t dwell or remain in these states.
No matter what actions you take or people you gather around you, you won’t be any happier than you believe you can be and decide to be. Abraham Lincoln had it right “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Give Me Some Seamless Days
My friend, Linda, says that I invented the term, “seamless days.” I’m not sure about that but I do know that somewhere along the way I discovered that I needed them in order to get big projects done.
A lot of people praise multitasking, while some time management practitioners say it’s not humanly possible to do more than one thing at a time. Regardless of who is right, I seem to get major projects done best when I can work continuously without outside interruptions and the tyranny of the clock. I call these my seamless days, and they are the times when I believe I can accomplish my best writing, thinking, and planning.
Seamless days are a series of two to three days when I don’t have appointments and can stay home working on important projects. I don’t work nonstop, of course. My seamless days are punctuated with snack breaks, sometimes even a short walk out of doors. What is most distinctive about them, however, is that I don’t have outside appointments, guests or disruptive thoughts. I screen my phone calls and don’t turn on the TV. Without the distraction of the media, telephone and other time thieves, I can get absorbed so deeply in a project that hours literally go by before I realize. The result is that I get big chunks of work done.
Occasionally during a break from work during my seamless days I’ll daydream. I’ll just lean back in my easy chair and begin to think about whatever. Scenes from my childhood or episodes of raising my children flash by. Sometimes I recall how a specific moment felt, like waking up to the sunrise over Puget Sound in Bainbridge Island where the large bedroom windows gave me a full view.
Other times I imagine what it’ll be like to hold my next grandchild, whenever one of my children decides to take this step. Once in a while I’ll get spot a bird perched on a tree branch outside my window or a lizard doing pushups on my patio.
When I was still teaching full time, running a side business and managing my family I would long for seamless days. When the need became urgent, I would pull out my month at a glance calendar, check for three consecutive days without appointments and make a plan to stay put for that time frame. Sometimes I would have to reschedule an appointment to make this happen, so I would.
I urge you to occasionally make space in your life for some seamless days. You can use them for major projects or to get away from your normal activities.
You’ll return to your routine rejuvenated, able to stave off stress and more likely to keep a positive mood.
Open your calendar now and schedule your seamless days. You’ll be glad you did.
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