During the twelve years I was a psychotherapist in private practice (and in the eight plus years I’ve been a life coach and an executive coach) I’ve never had anyone come to me with this simple request: “I want to be happier.”
The truth is, most people have mixed feelings about happiness. On one hand, we think it’s important. But on the other hand, too many of us still equate prioritizing happiness as being superficial at best or “selfish” at worst.
We’re still being told by many “experts,” “If you focus on yourself, you’ll end up alone and miserable.”
Here’s what my experience (personal and professional) has taught me:
- Focusing on yourself and your happiness is healthy because you can’t directly change others or your circumstances in life. However, you can change others or your circumstance indirectly by changing yourself.
- Until you learn to be happier (right now, not later) you won’t be happy when you get what you think will make you happy: More money, the right job, the right relationship, less stress in your life, better life circumstances and so on.
More than that, if you got all those things but weren’t really happy, what would you really have?
Learning to be happier now, however, is key to getting all those things.
If you look at your life and you think you have a money problem, a relationship problem, a health problem or a job problem, think again.
The “problem” isn’t your lack of money, a job you don’t love or something else you’ve identified as the problem you need to fix.
When we finally learn that our happiness doesn’t depend on these things, everything changes. We can learn to be happier with ourselves and our lives right now.
The interesting thing is that by doing that, achieving the other things we want becomes so much easier.
Agree? Disagree? I welcome all your comments or questions.
Categorized in: Articles, Life, Mastering Emotions, Prosperity, Self-Esteem/Self-Worth, Self-Improvement
| << previous | next >> |