Happiness can be such an “airy fairy” topic. However, I think it’s important to stop every so often to reflect that happiness is actually the thing that we are all after in life.
Think about it … EVERYTHING we do is designed to move us either
- AWAY from “un-happiness”, or
- TOWARDS happiness
Watch the video below which explains everything.
Don’t Sacrifice Happiness For Business Success!
Having worked as a business coach for over 10 years, I find it fascinating that many people (entrepreneurs in this case) will sacrifice happiness in the present moment in order to reach a milestone or a goal in the future, because they rationalise that they can only be happy once the goal is attained.
What The Hell Are You Chasing?
This is one of the major reasons why I wrote my book What The Hell Are You Chasing.
(I actually wrote it for MYSELF because I was one of these chasers – ie sacrificing the now for the future)
I’ve discovered that happier you are, the more flow you will experience in your life.
Choosing To Be Happy?
While I maintain that happiness is a choice, I also believe that many people aren’t educated or shown HOW to make happiness a choice.
This is why I wrote this article and I really hope that it can shed some light on this.
I am going to explore three areas …
- The law of control
- Lowering expectations and letting go
- Taking an ultra high level of responsibility
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1) The Law Of Control
It really is true … our happiness is measured by how much control we have in each area of our lives.
We feel happy to the degree of control we have, and we feel unhappy to the lack of control we have.
My advice is to scroll down the list of items below and give yourself a rating out of 10 for each area of your life:
- Health
- Romance
- Friends and social
- Career
- Finance
- Spiritual
- Education
- Challenge
Here are some things that I have found about this list:
- If you rate yourself below a 5 out of 10, you may be experiencing a lack of control
- You might have a rating of zero in some of these (ie relationship because you don’t have one) This doesn’t necessarily mean you feel a lack of control – ie you can still be completely happy and not be in a relationship
- I personally believe that if anyone has a rating of under 5 for their health, then they are not completely fulfilled and satisfied and happy with their life
- Being low in one area can really affect all of the others
- You can be happier not being a in a relationship than in a relationship that isn’t right
- Your intuition will often tell you when something isn’t right (which will lead to a feeling of loss of control)
- Many people feel a lack of control in their career. Because this takes up more than 50% of our time, it can have a MAJOR impact on many other areas (ie you hate your work, you don’t like yourself so eat bad food etc etc)
- What you focus on gets bigger, so when you do lack control in an area, it’s up to you to work out what needs to happen to regain control. Often this will occur when you slow down. You can then work out what you want and devise a plan to regain control
- Often we lose control when we fall out of balance. For example, we might have a lot of work on and thus not have any time for family and health. As result, we lose control in these areas. The key thing is to make necessary decisions to find the balance. BALANCE EQUALS MORE CONTROL EQUALS MORE HAPPINESS
- We will often hurt those around us when we lose control (because we are hurting ourselves).
Are You Feeling Unhappy?
So the best thing you can do if you are feeling unhappy, is to ask:
In which area of my life am I currently lacking control, and what am I going to do to regain control?
2) Lowering Expectations And Letting Go
Let’s compare two people, Max and John.
Max has $3000 to his name. In the list above, he gives himself a rating of 9 out of 10 for finances.
John has $2 million to his name and gives himself 4 out of 10 for finances.
Why is this?
It boils down to expectations
John has more drive and ambition compared to Max when it comes to finances. Maybe John won’t allow himself to be satisfied until he has $8 million to his name?
Is this a good thing?
I don’t think so, and here’s why …
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with John’s ambition to reach his goal of $8 million. It certainly doesn’t make him a bad person.
But remember – we take action in order to move towards happiness, so John could be purposefully punishing himself with feelings of unhappiness because he has an EXPECTATION about where he thinks he should be.
Who Is More Successful?
John has more money, but he’s always stressed. He’s always pushing and he doesn’t enjoy life.
Max doesn’t have much money, but he walks around with a big smile and other people find him really pleasant to be around.
I really believe expectations can have a major play on our level of happiness and can actually cause many wasted years of unnecessary unhappiness for many, many people.
The Girl Who Can Only Happy Once She Meets The Man Of Her Dreams
Kate believes that her life will only ever be happy when she meets the man of her dreams. Once again, it’s the expectation of being somewhere by a certain age that can create the feeling of unhappiness. Change these expectations, LET GO of these expectations and you change your life.
The result? By letting go of expectations, you actually increase your gratitude and happiness in the present moment. This simply brings more good things into your life. Remember – gratitude is such a powerful universal law. The more we are grateful, the more we receive.
3) Taking An Ultra-High Level Of Responsibility
As a coach, I often find this one of the most challenging areas for people to implement. By the time we are adults, most of us are aware that we need to take responsibility for our lives.
However, I think we need to take this to another level to really be happy.
Here is what I mean:
- You are responsible for the way your family and friends talk to you. If you don’t like it, you are doing something to create it
- You are responsible for every person that comes into your life – good and bad. If you keep coming across bad/annoying/people who frustrate you, then you are responsible
- You are responsible for the way your boss treats you or if you are the boss, the way your team treats you. You created it and you can never afford to lay the blame game on anyone else. It’s all you.
- You are responsible for the exact amount of your financial success right now. You and only you
- You are responsible for the exact position you are in right now. Everything around you has been created by you
- You are responsible for the way your partner treats you. If you don’t like it, then change you, NOT THEM
You see, when you take a really HIGH level of responsibility for your life, you realise that everything falls back on you. It’s a very powerful place to come from.
If somebody makes you angry, instead of getting frustrated and angry in turn, you can stop and question why this is happening and what you are doing to create it.
IN ORDER FOR THINGS TO CHANGE, FIRST I MUST
Many people will always blame everyone else for their situation …
- the environment
- their parents
- their partner etc etc
… for stopping them getting what they want in their life.
To obtain an enormous amount of power, control and happiness, we must take an ultra high level of responsibility for our life.
We would love to hear your thoughts below, particularly your rating on the level of control you have in your life and any other strategies you use to stay happy.
Great video…thank you
I agree that we need to change in order to be happier. But I found it to difficult to change my behaviour and lifestyles. This is what I really need to learn “How to change!!” Your videos are so true and motivating and make me to think of what aspect of my life need to be changed.
Thank you
To let go .. is the hardest thing for me. I feel like I forgave everything long time ago, but when looking inside myself – no, still there! I didn’t let go at all…:)
Great video – love all those new books …
Just sometimes we all forget that there is not destiny – WE and just WE are making our lives …
Some great points there Andrew.Will put them into practice today and look forward to the outcomes.
Regards Mick
I agree with your thoughts on what makes us happy. One other way that I’ve found to be happy is to live life with the experience of knowing our Oneness with all of life. Please check out my book “The Bartholomew Effect: Awakening to Oneness.” You can learn more about me and the book at my website: Feel free to contact me to learn more or to talk with me. I’m always interested in sharing what I have learned and experienced with other. After all we are all really One. A part of the Divine Source of all that is. Namaste, Larry
Ha, love it Andrew – definite Tweetable “Success is not about how much money you make it’s about how much fun you have!”
Enjoying these vids. Just sitting in my office, taking it in and thinking about some of the small things I can do to start the changes happening. Babysteps. You just cant tackle the huge ones until you learn how to change the little ones first
I love most of your messages, but I’m struggling with your suggestion that we need to feel that we are in control to feel happy. At a certain level that’s true, but inherent in that is the downfall when not feeling in control. Isn’t happiness really about surrendering the need for control?
Quite interesting video. At first, item one seems very simple, something you hear a lot. But, then after thinking about taking control and item 3, taking a high level of responsibility, i see these as interrelated. these can be quite difficult to achieve. I would like to hear more about this idea of high-level responsibility. in extreme situations it scan be dangerous to ‘blame the victim’ by telling someone to take the responsibility of , say, someone abusing you. SO how can you take control and take responsibility at the same time in a relationship that isn’t working as well as it could. Communication is certainly key, but if the other party is not willing to take responsibility, it can seem like an unachievable task. do you have any practices for taking control and taking a high-level of responsibility?
Hi Andrew.. Trust this msg finds you well:):) Thanks for sharing such beautiful thoughts n videos.
Life has an “ECHO” EFFECT, EVERTHING BOOMERANGS… To get happiness we must learn to give out 1st…God bless u always.. tk care.
This is a great question and thanks for asking this. I think we could use an example to look at this. Lets say that you have a job and you don’t plan out your day. You have a number of tasks to complete, and they are driven by some deadlines. However, you cant seem to get to these tasks because people are constantly interrupting you. Your phone keeps ringing, and your constantly getting emails from people demanding things from you. As a result, you realise that you might not complete your tasks on time. this causes a feeling of stress and a feeling of anxiety. What is happening, is you are starting to lose control. You are letting the day control you instead of you controlling the day. Because you are not planning your day (which give you control of the day) the day is planning you. this is what causes the stress and also the feeling of losing control thus unhappiness. Once you see what you are doing, you can make a few small changes (ie plan your week, plan your day, turn mobile off, check email only twice per day etc) and this will give you more control thus more inner peace. I hope this helps?
Great question robert. We were discussing this on todays flip your life coaching call. One of our clients on the course was sharing that people are constantly taking advantage of him and manipulating him. After competing the flip program, he finally believed that if he changed the way he was thinking, then this could change. Over the past 4 weeks he has made a big effort to do that – and this morning he was sharing how people have stopped taking advantage of him and manipulating him. He is amazed at the results. This is high level of responsibility. that for things to change, first I must.
HOWEVER – sometimes, there is another party that just wont come to the table. Sometimes, we have to end relationships if people just aren’t prepared to take responsibility. I remember someone teaching me once a profound statement to help me with relationship[s – ‘I will work hard on me for you if you work hard on you for me’ I do believe it takes two to make a great relationship work – and if one party isn’t prepared to change – then its very challenging.
Its so true Shruti. Thanks for sharing. Its the same with everything. What ever we want more of, firstly give some away.
Hi Andrew, I’m learning so much! I would just like to thank you once again for flipping me!
I feel happy right now knowing that your timing and message are always just perfect for me. Love the flow!. Keep it coming!
Warm Regards
Liz
You are always responsible for your development. If a challenge appears, it always points to a part of you which has to be developed.
Thank you Andrew, your posts are 100% uplifting. Love it.
I wish that your dreams come true.
Hi Andrew, love your work and boundless energy. Everything you say resonates well with me. My biggest issue is that I am great at helping others release their sabotaging behaviours and negative belief systems but seem unable to have the same great impact on my own stuff as I have on theirs 🙁 I have looked at mentoring and personal coaching but these people are priced well out of my range. So thank you for sharing your work so freely. I am an Emotional Freedom Technique Trainer/Practitioner and Reiki Master and often freely give my time to talk to and teach the tools for emotional freedom to various support groups. I have recommended your site to various people and they love it. Thanks again. Pam Millican 🙂 http://www.pamelamillican.com
WTF
IF a partner is cheating and flirting, it’s the persons fault.
This is insane thinking.
A person is not so powerful that they can make another act a certain way !
A person can tell another how they expect to be treated but that will not make another comply !
If a person is abused, its then their fault ?
If a woman is raped, it is their fault ?
If a person is murdered, it’s their fault ?
Nice one …. Lay the blame at the victim so the perpetrator can excuse themself of any responciblity.
interested to hear your reply to the above comment Andrew please?
Great comment, foragreatseal. I felt the same way. Victims of others’ actions are NOT responsible! That logic will just lead to arguing Malala is responsible for getting shot or the people in WTC were responsible for getting blown up or the jews were responsible for being sent to concentration camp. Really??? if that’s the type of argument you’re going to make, Andrew, there is absolutely nothing any person of reason can say to you except walk away.
Hi there, when I first was taught this I was exactly the same as you. There is definitely not an excuse EVER for people who do bad crimes. There are a couple of books that really get you thinking differently if you are interested and its a very hard area to explain – but check our Louise Hay (You can heal your life). She was abused and raped as a young girl and goes on to teach what I talk about above. Also – a book that people who benefit from is caled Women who love too much by Robin Norwood
What Andrew is trying to say is that if you look really honestly at any given situation there is always some level of responsibility that we can take for ourselves. By doing this the truth sets you free and you can begin to change , We must aknolledge before we can change a situation. I found this incredibly confronting just over a year ago but now have completely changed my life by living this way. If you take control of your own life then love and contribute the magic really begins to happen.
If a man rapes a woman, she is responsible? If a father beats his sons, they are responsible? If a man denigrates and abuses his wife, they are responsible? Think about it.
(Adam, I only replied to your comment because I don’t know how the website works. The comments are to the owner of the website.)
Andrew, you’re misquoting Louise. She most certainly does NOT say that. I have heard her book over 100 times. Here’s the exact quote:
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4860/Louise-Hay-The-Power-of-Forgiveness-Letting-Go.html
Notice she did NOT say you’re responsible. She says forgiving means “letting go”. That is not in any way, shape or form saying that one should take responsibility.
You’re free to hold and say whatever opinion you want. Do not misrepresent others.
I’d like t? find out more? I’d love to find out some additional
information.