Live Deliberately! - 3 Ways to Raise Your Level of Fulfillment and Happiness at Work (and in life) in 2019!
It is that time of year. For many of us it is a time of excitement, goals, and resolutions. A NEW BEGINNING! A brand new year! All in hopes that this year we will find and get what we are looking for!
Or maybe it is just another day at the office… If this describes you, feel free to move on to the next post on the web. This post is for those of us that, for better or worse, ring in the New Year with almost a child-like feeling of anticipation.
“This is it!”
“This is my year!”
“I know I still have that gym membership, and Thigh Master that got used twice, but this year, by golly, is going to be different!”
If you are anything like me, you start each New Year out with the best intentions, but it doesn’t take long for those intentions to get pushed to the back burner or off the stove completely. What’s up with that? Why is it so hard to do something that we want to do? Life, work, family, friends, pets, Netflix always seem to get in the way.
So what is the solution? How do you break the cycle of unmet goals and unfulfilled potential? Below are three simple, but not necessarily easy, things you can do to make 2019 your best year yet.
1. Live Deliberately!
A few years ago I woke up on New Year’s Day and made a decision to “Live Deliberately.” I wasn’t sure what that meant specifically at the time but I realized that no one else was responsible for my happiness. Not my boss, co-workers, wife, kids, and not the 1,879,652 drivers on the 6-mile section of Interstate 10 that I happen to be on. I took ownership of my life, and stopped playing the victim. I decided that I was going to do the things that I wanted to do not what I thought I was supposed to be doing. Which brought me to three very big questions:
· “What do you want?”
· “What is your is your definition of success?”
· “What makes you happy?”
I believe that the vast majority of people do not know the real answer to those questions. Sure we can all come up with an answer if pressed. A healthy family, a secure job, a nice car, the corner office, money, become partner, work life balance (whatever that means), and so on. Those are all great, but what I have found is that most people answer what we have been educated and trained to think since the day we were born. In order to get what you want, be successful, and happy, we first must know what the real answers to those questions are. And only one person has them. You. So ask yourself these questions and start searching for your answers. What we want today may not be what we want in the future. The key is to be deliberate about what you do, the decisions you make, and the goals that you set. If something isn’t moving you closer to your goals, then you should probably ask yourself why are you doing it, and reevaluate. Take responsibility for your happiness and success, there is nothing more fulfilling.
2. Manage Your Thoughts
Depending on what research you read, we have between 12,000 – 70,000 thoughts per day. Or if have ADHD like me, it could be approaching 200,000+ thoughts per day. Studies have also shown that 80% of our thoughts are negative. Well that’s a bummer. Maybe not. We are actually hardwired to go to the negative for one important reason. STAYING ALIVE! So if we can’t control what thoughts come into our head and the majority of the thoughts that we have are negative, what are we supposed to do? Luckily, in 2019 most of us live in a world where there isn’t something trying to eat us or really even harm us every time we step outside of the cave… err house. Therefore we can train our brain to dial back that immediate fight or flight response. Not eliminate it, but just make it take a quick pause.
When a thought enters the brain, one of three things can happen. 1) The thought is acted on. 2) The thought is sent to another (higher more cognitive) part of the brain and expanded on, debated, analyzed, stored, and countless other options. 3) The thought is dismissed as not useful and discarded. In his bestselling book Infinite Possibilities, Mike Dooley says that “Thoughts become things, so choose good ones.” This very well may be the most powerful advice ever given. A person that can train their mind to focus on the positive aspect of any situation is almost certain to be happier than someone that is mired in negativity. Positive people tend to create their own luck. They find beauty in places that most do not. Opportunities of all kinds present themselves to people that are more positive. The Law of Attraction states that what an individual focuses on is what will come to them. If this theory is even remotely true then learning to manage your thoughts and being deliberate about what you focus on is at the foundation of achieving any goal. Spend most of your time focused on why something WILL work, instead of why it won’t. Try it for a week and tell me it doesn’t make a difference.
3. Embrace the Contrast
Edgar Allan Poe said “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.”
Life is an adventure! And no matter what anyone says, sometimes it’s hard. In fact, the moment you wake up in the morning there are thousands of forces out there that are trying to mess up your day! Traffic, the wrong coffee order, someone parked in your space… It’s not personal. The Universe doesn’t hate you. It is just the way life is. How you choose to deal with the obstacles and challenges is completely up to you. And that is key. You can’t expect to get smarter without studying. How can you get stronger without exercising, pushing yourself, stretching your limits.
If you understand and accept that sometimes bad things are going to happen and realize that without the bad times you would not appreciate the good times. I am not saying not to get angry, frustrated, sad, or any other negative emotion that arises when bad times come. Those feelings and emotions are real and part of the coping and healing process and should be acknowledged. What I am saying is accept that nothing is perfect, learn from the bad times, find the good in it, and move on. Don’t stay in the negative space for one minute more than you need to.
Make 2019 your best year yet by choosing to live deliberately, focus on positive thoughts, and learning from and understanding that there will be bumps in the road.