Take The Happiness test
February is the month of love and love is the topic in the very first chapter of my book – Love what you do or why you do it!
My husband is often saying to my 12 year old son, “Mum is lucky she loves what she does”. Am I lucky? Yes, I believe I am. I also believe that I created a path that works for me, I experienced something and had to have more. Coaching is my drug and I need it every day!
In my Mastermind meetings, we never leave without unveiling how we honestly feel that month in terms of happiness, confidence, success and for me, balance, as that is what makes me happy. We are looking for a 10 (High achievers are never a 10 as I believe the more we learn, the more we are aware that there is to learn!) It is not uncommon for a member to drop their scores one month and the group act as their board of advisors to help them find a solution to the challenge which is affecting their score.
Call it business therapy or coaching, it works and there is a reason why Mastermind is full! We all want to be happy.
Is it realistic to love what we do every day?
For some it comes easy, for others the reason that they do it is what they are in love with. The vision, the reason, the choice that they strive for and for me this is good enough. Everybody talks about passion and the need to feel passionate about what you do, but if your business is nuts and bolts do you still feel passion? If your business is nuts and bolts, but your vision is to have a business that gives you a particular lifestyle and the time that allows you to fly 20 hours a week and your passion is flying, for me this is the same.
What do you call happiness?
If I asked you to picture the days when you feel at your most happiest, what springs into your mind? Is it your business, your family, your holidays, your pets, your home, your wealth, the weather? We are all different and happiness means something different to us all. You must start by understanding what makes you happy, if that means you are in the wrong business, in the wrong relationship, holidaying in the wrong places etc. etc., then it is time to take action as talk is cheap!
An author and speaker who I love is Larry Wingett, he says that we are who we are and we have what we have because of the actions we take. We are responsible for where we are today and I believe that is true. When I think of my business, it is in the position it is due to my actions and my actions alone.Only I can implement change and only I am able to sacrifice something to achieve something else.
We are in a big blame culture and right now the list is long of scenarios in which we love to blame Regardless of what has happened on the wider political landscape, we are still in control of our happiness and more importantly what affects it.
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no hope at all.
Dale Carnegie
It is just as important to understand what affects our happiness as it is to understand what makes us happy. I suggest thinking of all the things that interfere with your happiness and affect your mindset, then adopt the Larry way of thinking: what are you in control of? If you cannot control something you cannot let it affect your happiness. There will be situations which make us dreadfully unhappy that we have no control over whatsoever, in those scenarios we can only look to find the good, and hope that that pulls us through.
By developing a mindset for happiness and identifying what we let affect our happiness, we understand the changes we need to implement. By understanding that the smallest thing at the start of your day can quickly change your mindset, you will be more accustomed to recognising which mindset you are currently in and if it is a mindset of happiness.
TAKE THE HAPPINESS TEST!
- Score yourself in terms of how happy you feel in your life out of 10 – write down your score.
- Write down what would make you a 10/10?
- Write down the actions needed to make you feel a 10.
- Write down and commit to making these changes or taking the first step to this action.
- Give yourself a deadline and guess what – write it down.
What did you score, I would love to know your score, and more importantly I would love to know all 5 of your answers as this means you are a Larry thinker and you will make the changes you need to make yourself feel happy – I admire that.
Write to me at
Why do we need to write it down? If we do, we are more likely to commit to it. Studies suggest that by writing something down we have increased our changes of achieving it by 1000%
Good luck and be happy!
