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Ever have days when you feel just BLAH! You know those days where you feel like the whole world is on your shoulders and nothing seems to be going right for you? Those days when you feel like no matter what you do you will never be happy because your life is just not where you want it to be. Some days you just want to sit down and cry because things just never seem to get better?
Yeah – me too.
I have those days every so often, I think that every one does now and again. The problem is when you feel like that every day. All day. No matter what. That is a big problem and it is a really easy routine to fall into if you aren't careful. I used to feel like this all the time. Every day felt like just another set of challenges ready to smack me down, kick me in the teeth and make me feel worse about myself. I felt like nothing I did was good enough. That I wasn't doing enough for my family. I felt like a bad parent because I couldn't afford the things I wanted to get for my kids. I felt like a loser because I couldn't get a new house for our family. I felt terrible because I wasn't making enough money and we didn't have the life that I wanted so desperately to give to my children.
I spent years feeling this way.
In the end it took something so amazingly simple to get me out of this rut that afterwards I couldn't believe how long I had allowed myself to suffer!
I needed to change my mindset. I needed to DECIDE to be happy!
One of the best things I ever read was this:
I realized a while ago that I was basing my happiness on my circumstances. I was giving the power of my own happiness away to random people and things. For some reason I had decided that I would be happy if only ….
If only I had the house we wanted… then I would be happy.
If only so and so loved me back… then I would be happy.
If only I had the job of my dreams… then I would be happy.
I spent so much time focusing on what I didn't have and what I wasn't doing that I ended up ignoring all that I DID have. Everything that I HAD accomplished in life. I was giving away my happiness and allowing ‘things' to hold it for ransom and it needed to stop.
Happiness is a state of mind that you can create just as easily as you can allow someone to take it from you. And yes I said ‘allow'. People and circumstances can only make you unhappy if you let them. So why let them?
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should all be happy every moment of every day, we are human and we don't work like that. However, what I am saying is that when you place your happiness, your value to yourself as a person, in the hands of something or someone else you will always struggle to be happy. You will always feel like you aren't enough and that just isn't true dammit. You are enough and you are doing enough.
Some of the happiest people in the world have very little. They don't base their happiness on how much they have, or where they live, or what they drive – they base it on the experiences they have, the people they love, the joy that they bring to others and more…
And some of the wealthiest and successful people have everything but are miserable.
Having a good mindset and doing what you need to in order to maintain that mindset are so crucial to your happiness.
I know that everyone has bad days, and times when they feel just terrible or are unhappy or sad, and that is normal – again we are human. What is important is that those feelings do not start to take over and become the norm. So in today's podcast I discuss some of the things that you can do to help you get back to your happy place when you find yourself becoming lost…
What do you think?