Helpful Centers

Many people equate happiness with the how much material wealth a person has, but material possessions alone do not provide happiness. In fact it is often the case that the more material possessions people have the less happy they are. This is because people have a built-in dissatisfaction with they have and own. People always want more. We always try to get more money, more power, or more comfort.

Unless we learn how to moderate these insatiable demands that we have built into our mental and physical make-up system and instead learn how to enjoy the moment as it goes by, unless we enjoy the passage of time, the activities we do as they occur instead of always wishing for more, we are going to be disillusioned and disappointed at the end of life.

Happiness does not come from owning material things, rather it comes from the everyday activities we do. Happiness comes from relishing the moment. It comes from living rather than from desiring to get something in the future.

What is being in the moment? Being in the moment is the feeling of complete involvement with what you are doing. It happens when you’re concentrating on achieving a goal and the feeling that you get when you have accomplished your goal.

I’m sure you’ve seen the happiness on the faces of children engrossed in play. You have probably seen the intensity on the faces of athletes when they’re trying to break a record, and I’m sure there have been times when you too have been carried away by a feeling of exhilaration, or profound enjoyment.

While Being in the moment varies from person to person, the general principles are uniform from young and old, male and female, rich and poor. Once you learn how being in the moment occurs and how it feels, you will enrich the quality of your life.

When you are in the moment, you’re doing an activity where the goals of the activity are clear, nothing is conflicting or confusing. In other words you know exactly what you have to do and you know without a doubt that what you are doing is getting you closer to your goal. You can measure you activity by actually seeing that your results are immediate. You know moment by moment how well you’re doing.

To be in the moment means doing activities that are enjoyable and that the challenges of the activity are matched with you own skills. In other words, what there is to do is in balance with what you can do. For example, playing chess, tennis, or a game of cards is much more enjoyable if your opponent is about at the same level of ability as you are.

When an activity has clear goals, immediate feedback, and matches challenges and skills, then you will have a feeling of focus or concentration on what you’re doing. When you are living in the moment, the duality of attention that we all have in every day life will disappear.

Most of the time we have this kind of split attention where we are thinking and we are doing it We are watching, monitoring what’s happening around us while we are doing something else. For example, suppose you’re having lunch with a friend or a colleague and he or she is talking to you. You are physically there but your mind is thinking about several other things. You hear the other person talking, but you’re not really focused on what he or she is saying. You have split attention.

When you’re in the moment, this split attention focuses and merges into a single kind of beam of concentrated focused attention. This is why, when you live in the moment you can accomplish so much more.

When you’re in the moment you are so effortlessly, spontaneously, and efficiently focused, you are not aware of any problems that are occurring around you in your everyday life. The every day frustrations are removed from your attention. You simply cannot attend to them.

For example, if you’re playing a competitive game of tennis, you cannot worry about your family life, about your income tax, about your boss, or about any of the things that in everyday life often intrude on your attention. This is what makes living in the moment such a great feeling. You’re operating in the present without worrying about the past or about the future, instead you’re completely concentrated on what you’re doing.

When you’re in the moment you feel in complete control of your actions, experience, and your life. Time seems to be transformed. I’m sure you’ve had times when hours get condensed into what seemed to be minutes. For example, you start a job in the morning and before you know it you say: “Oh maybe it’s time for lunch,” but actually it’s time for dinner because it’s not been just two hours, but eight hours than have passed.

Our life is made up of a series of never ending moments that just pass us by most of the time and we miss so much of what life has to offer we allow this to happen. Being in the moment allows you to have fun and enjoy life. When you learn to relish each moment and live life to it’s fullest you will realize the kind of happiness you’ve always dreamed of.

Copyright©2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Happiness is hard to define but most people are unaware of whether they are happy or not.

Many people believe that happiness is a form of luck and that some people are destined to be happy while others are destined never to be happy.

The good news is we can all be happy if we want to - This is important!

If you want to be happy you can be and it does not take much effort, just a change of attitude.

The tips in this article are small and significant so use them, to lead you on a path to true happiness.

1. Understand what it is that will make you happy.

Everyone is different and different things make different people happy.

What makes one person happy, may be very different from what makes someone else happy.

You have individuality don’t ever forget that. Don’t worry about whether or not your desires are comparable with others, its all about you!

2. Make a plan that you believe will make you happy.

Your mood will become happier as your pursue your destiny if you feel better about yourself for going after something that can give you happiness.

You are taking positive action and that very important and liberating and makes most people happy.

3. Mix with happy people.

It is easy to think negatively when you are surrounded by people who are sad and negative however, if you are surrounded by people who are happy this will make you feel happier to.

4. Don’t get involved in self pity

When something goes wrong, try to figure out a solution rather than getting involved in feeling sorry for yourself.

Happy people don’t allow knock backs to hurt them, they actually make them stronger.

Knock backs are part of life, its how we bounce back and learn from them that’s important.

Always try and see a positive rather than a negative in any event that knocks you back.

5. Think about you!

This will give you the opportunity to focus on the positive things in your life and help you focus on what is important to you, so you can develop in your pursuit of happiness.

6. Love yourself!

If you don’t know one else will - Spoil yourself a bit.

Whether you treat yourself to lunch, take a relaxing bath, have a massage, a meal or simply spend a few extra minutes on your appearance, you will be focusing on you and making yourself feel better.

You deserve it, never forget that! Happiness is all about loving yourself.

7. Laugh in the face of adversity

We all have setbacks, but make light of them, there never normally as bad as we first think, make light of a situation which would otherwise make you unhappy.

8. Be happy be healthy!

Being unhealthy can have a negative effect on your moods.

Eat well, exercise and you will feel better.

Quite simply, these are the best mood enhancers of all.

You will have more energy, better health and see things in a more positive way.

9. You deserve happiness.

Those who believe that they cannot achieve happiness never will, they simply don’t think they deserve it.

Fact is we all do - never forget this!

If necessary, tell yourself each day that you deserve to be happy and remind yourself what steps you will take to achieve the happiness you desire.

10. Do something different!

Perhaps the quickest way to kick start your road to happiness is doing anything you ever wanted to do - ANYTHING!

It could be something like getting fit, climbing mount Everest, or swimming with dolphins - Whatever it is do it and understand that life is a gift were all blessed with, its precious.

There is always someone worse off than you, never forget this! WE all deserve to be happy seek your destiny and don’t be afraid, you deserve it!

Final word

Be true to yourself and above all be happy!

When you think about the legacies Walt Disney left us, do
talking mice and a multigizillion dollar company come to
mind? Actually, those are only the products of his prodigious
and rich creativity dig deeper and you start to realize one
of the most intriguing heritages Disney left was his
processes.

Disney was a creative and problem-solving genius. He
knew how to make fantasy come alive in the minds and
hearts of millions of people around the world. He employed
several techniques to do this, but one of the most
interesting is his ability to seamlessly slip into different
creative “people” or “roles.”

The dreamer, the realist, the critic
One of Disney’s coworkers once said: “There were actually
three different Walts [and] you never knew which one was
coming to your meeting.” Robert Dilts, a scientist who
studied Disney, called the three different Walts “the
dreamer, the realist and the critic.” Each persona had a
specific role in the creative process, and only together did it
become “Disney magic.”

• Dream a little dream The dreamer

  Roger von Oech, creative consultant and author of A Kick in
  the Seat of the Pants, actually divides the dreamer into two
  different roles. The explorer, where you search for tidbits of
  information and interesting facts, and the artist, where you
  rearrange all the different pieces of information to make new
  and interesting patterns.

  Being the dreamer means you let your imagination go wild
  combine random thoughts in new and unusual ways; ask
  what if?; try every possibility then think of a few more. There
  are no stupid ideas at the dreamer stage every idea has
  some possibility, no matter how remote.

• Now for the real world The realist

  That idea may sound good on paper, but how do you make
  it come to life? That’s what the realist does. The realist, or
  warrior in von Oech’s language, figures out a way to
  implement the idea after all, it doesn’t do a lick of good
  lying flat on the paper.

• But is it any good The critic

  Okay, you’ve thought of a new and unusual idea and you’ve
  figured out a way to make it work. Now, the question you
  have to ask yourself is should you? Here’s the place where
  you can finally label all those ideas as being really cool or
  really stupid. Von Oech also called this persona judge.
  Evaluate the idea, look for drawbacks and benefits and
  critically weigh the evidence only then will you know if it’s
  worth pursuing or not.

How can I get all this to work in my life?
Say you’re looking for a new way to market your business, or
you’re trying to figure out a way to beat the competition, or
you need a new sales tactic. Whatever your business
problem, you can use these techniques to fire up your
creativity.

Bryan W. Mattimore, creative consultant and author of 99%
Inspiration: Tips, Tales and Techniques for Liberating your
Business Creativity (where, incidentally, he goes into much
more depth on Disney’s creative process), recommends
setting up three different rooms a dreamer room, a realist
room and a critic room. When you want to take on a different
persona, you go into a different room.

Don’t have three rooms? Why not put three chalk marks on
the floor? This exercise, taught to me by Organizational
Consultant Tracy Puett, has you physically moving to a
different circle on the floor depending on which role you
want to invoke. The physical act of moving helps many
people take on the different persona.

Or, a third possibility invented by creativity expert and author
Dr. Edward DeBono is to use different colored hats. Each
color represents a different persona. When you want to think
like that persona, put on a different hat. You can even add
additional colors for other moods, such as feeling an
emotional point of view, if you want.

But, the real point of creativity is to try to break the mold.
Once you’re able to step out of habits and old ways of
thinking, then you re ready to let your creativity soar.

Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and
Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She
offers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine
their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting
principles to become more successful at attracting new
clients, selling products and services and boosting
business. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com