happiness Tag

Posts tagged 'happiness'

Seize the Day: Are You Using or Losing Your Time?

Time is precious. Some say that time is the only thing we really have. Most people know the expressions “Carpe diem”, “Seize the day” and “Seize the present”, but only few actually live by them.

Time keeps moving forward. Often, we feel like it’s just flown past us and are out of time. So, we need to learn to appreciate the time we have and use it wisely. We all have the same 24 hours every day. We should make the most of them.

We say that children have no concept of time. My 3-year-old granddaughter has reached the stage of recognizing past and present. For her, the past is “yesterday”, and the future is “tomorrow”. That’s advanced for her age, but limited compared to an adult’s understanding of time.

But I wonder about this view.

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100 Things to Make on Your Perfect Day

Have you ever tried to dream of a perfect day? It can be a challenge doing it while you’re in the middle of everything going on in your life. This post should help.

Every person has a story. People say that the quality of our life depends on the quality of our story. With that in mind, it is easy to decide whether you have had a good life or not. All you have to do is tell your story.

If the story you tell includes a lot of good thoughts, feelings, actions, behaviors, laughter, love and joy, give yourself a pat on the back. You’ve had a great life.

If you tell a story with a lot of negative thoughts, feelings, actions, resentment, sadness, fear, hate and depression, no one envies you. Your life sucks!

In this post, I would like to suggest a ‘moving forward’ activity. In this activity, you will take yourself forward, to the perfect day and try to imagine, what would happen there that would make you put it into the “perfect” category.

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We Are What We Think: My Rice Experiment

33 years ago, when I studied special education, I learned that our thoughts manifest themselves into our life. I had amazing teachers and mentors. One of them, who was a psychologist, taught me the importance of our emotional hygiene as teachers. He said that what we think of ourselves reflects on the children and the people that work with us.

Scientists have examined the power of what we think for years. Many philosophers and spiritual leaders have covered it extensively. Our life is a reflection of what we think. In most spiritual beliefs, there is much focus on thoughts and intention. As a life coach, I work with my clients on the power of thought and I share with them how powerful thoughts are.

About 20 years ago, Gal and I traveled with the kids to France and went to a train station. On the walls was an exhibition of Dr Masaru Emoto’s water experiments. Emoto exposed water to music, spoken words, written words, videos and pictures. He then froze the water until it crystalized, sliced it and took photos of the ice. What he found was amazing!

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Make Your Bed to Make Your Day

Believe it or not, if you make your bed in the morning, it will make your day. You’ll be happier, clearer and more productive. There’s research showing it’s true.

I have been on a search for family tips from the moment I had children. Almost 30 years ago, becoming a mother made me realize that efficiency can help me a lot in managing work and home, and that being efficient gave me more time with my kids.

As parents, we need to choose how to balance our time across many important things. Slowly, we tend to let go of some things we care about for other things we find more important.

In my leadership training, I emphasize that life is not hard when we need to choose between things that are very important and things that are less important. That’s an easy choice! It is much harder to choose between things that are equally important to us. When children appear, we have to do that a lot, and that’s not easy.

This post is part of 24 in the series Handy Family Tips

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New Year Reflection Activity Continued

The year 2019 is approaching. If you’ve New Year Activity: Reflection on 2018, you know why it’s important to take stock of your life and prepare for the next year.

I honestly believe that holidays, and time off in general, can help charge our batteries and help us gain perspective. I think we all should write goals when we are on vacation, or right when we come back, because we are usually wiser then.

Not everyone can take a long vacation, so here is a list that will help you gain perspective even if you can’t get a lot of time off.

Ask yourself the questions on the list below for a detailed reflection on the ending year in preparation for the year to come and have a great 2019!

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New Year Activity: Reflection on 2018

We are approaching the end of 2018 and our Be Happy family is preparing for a vacation. Every year, around this time, we take a month off to recharge our batteries. I believe that recharging our batteries is very important. It’s like eating food. We eat so we can get through 3-4 hours without food, and the quality of our food is important. For me, holidays are food for the soul and they give us the energy to survive the next year.

I think we are a lucky family, because we can take that time off. I do not take it for granted, because I know many people can only take the week of Christmas and New Year off.

I often measure the quality of the year by how many vacations I’ve taken. This year was a great year for me, because I took several short and long breaks. I am very grateful for being able to do that.

Every holiday is a lesson in perspective that allows me to examine my life and make changes for the following days, months and years of my life. I want to help you do the same, even if you can’t take a long vacation.

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Contentment and Gratitude: How Green is Your Grass?

I’ve written a lot about happiness and realized that some people just don’t get that happiness is an idea, a thought, an action you choose. On the other hand, unhappiness is the absence of that idea. One of the things that make people miserable is always comparing themselves to others.

I guess the reason we compare is that we learn it from our parents. It is an essential part of life and an important factor in our evolution. We must have a definition of what is right and what is wrong to navigate through life. If green, vibrant, healthy grass is the definition of happiness, then yellow, dull, dying grass is the definition of misery.

So, it’s OK to look at other people’s grass to find better ways to treat ours. But it’s not so good to believe that “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

Do you know why it’s not good? Because it’s not true.

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Best Family Quotes that Will Change Your Life

Family quotes, and other quotes, have been part of my life and personal growth since I was 16 years old.

For the first time, I had my own room. I took a sheet of thick paper that looked like an old scroll, burned its edges with a candle, wrote some quotes on it (by hand) and put on to my wall with sticky tape.

Recently, my sister helped clean up my parents’ house and found the quotes I left there 38 years ago. One of the family quotes was from the book Illusions by Richard Bach, which I had received as a gift.

This book has made a huge impression on my life and this quote changed the way I looked at family and life.

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Turn Your Unhappiness into Personal Growth

I often discuss happiness with my clients. They find it very awkward when I tell them it is possible to find happiness everywhere, including times of unhappiness.

Most people try to avoid unhappiness like the plague. They divide life into happy and unhappy and think they should move towards happy and avoid unhappy. This is good if you think of it as a process and direction, but not if you think of it as something that shrinks you. You see, we can grow from happiness and we can grow from unhappiness.

Trent was a 28-year-old man who worked at a petrol station. He was healthy, made good money, could pick shifts if he wanted to do something in the evening, had time for computer games and had some good friends.

On the surface, you’d think Trent had a very good life, but he didn’t. His friends were all professionals with university degrees, and he still didn’t know what he wanted to do in his life. He told me he’d never known what he wanted to do in his life.

One day, Trent had a weekend away with his friends, and although the time spent together was fantastic, Trent came back very unhappy. This was when he looked for a life coach and found me.

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You Can Change Your Life

Change is not easy and you can recognize the points that have changed your course in life only in hindsight. We call these points “quantum moments”. I have had many quantum moments in life and the ones that have steered me in the right direction included reading books, meeting inspiring people and attending empowering events. I contemplated each of them until I got to some realization that later became part of my being.

My biggest change in life was when I was 15 years old. I remember how before it, I dreamed every day of waking up to a different life. I said, “I wish…” and had millions of wishes. I hoped to be the Genie of the Lamp, but every morning realized I was not. I built up hopes and got up in the morning to realize they were just illusions that I had no power to fulfill.

You see, it is one thing to want and another thing to make it happen.

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