The Twelve Qualities of Happiness

1. Love. This is the heart of happiness. The best is loving someone else, and is the polar opposite of fear. It is the antidote the fear
2. Optimism. This provides power over painful events. It is more than just thinking positively. It is realising that even the most painful events hold opportunities for lessons. Even more, the more it hurts, the greater the lessons.
3. Courage. The only way to rise above fear is to tap into courage. Fear is hardwired into our neural pathways, and so is courage. It is nature’s way of providing balance and is the quality that allows us to thrive.
4. A Sense of Freedom. When we choose, we define who we are. Everyone has the freedom to choose, and unhappy people don’t know this or they don’t believe it. The truth is, freedom is available to anyone who has the courage to exercise it.
5. Proactivity. Happy people participate in their own destiny and their own happiness. They don’t wish, wait or hope that it comes along. They don’t accept the role of the passive victim, but choose to be the active hero in their own life.
6. Security.  Happy people know that nothing truly last forever. Not money, approval, or even life. Security isn’t measured in a bank account or a calendar, but through feeling secure about who they are and what they stand for. Security for them is an inside job.
7. Health. Health and happiness are interdependent. The most important part of your health is your mood chemistry. You could be happy and not know it if you have an imbalance in the levels of serotonin and dopamine.
8. Spirituality. happy people are willing to go beyond the limits or boundaries of their own lives. Their fear isn’t death, it’s not living a full life.
9. Altruism. Think about the unhappy people you know and notice how self involved they tend to be. Happy people focus on others, not just themselves. They know that this focus feels great, and gives them purpose.
10. Perspective. Unhappy people tend to have a black and white view of life. It either is or it isn’t, there’s not grey, so it’s easy for them to be disappointment. Happy people see the grey, aren’t scared of it, and they keep sight of life’s bigger picture when there are problems.
11. Humor. When we laugh or choose to take ourselves lightly we feel lighter, and our troubles seem further away and less serious. Humor and lightness connects us to our neocortex, and lifts suffering from the heart to a place of empowerment, the only place where there is the power to heal it.
12. Purpose. Happy people know why they are here and are doing what they know they are meant to do.
13. Appreciation. This one quality gets its own banner...We cannot experience fear and appreciation at the same time. Happy people spend time appreciating and being grateful for what is in their lives, who is in their lives and what they are experiencing.

List twenty things that you are happy about and why they make you happy

What’s at least ten things that would make you even more happy if you were to focus on them? i.e I will feel even more happiness when I choose to spend more time walking in the morning.

Remember:

Make sure you word it as it is above each time. I would choose to feel even more happy…

Be sure to choose things, feelings, activities that only you can do or feel. Don’t  leave your happiness up to someone else changing.

You can include what you are no longer going to tolerate, for example, I will feel even more happiness when I choose to clean out my cupboards

I will feel even more happiness when I choose to...

What have you allowed until now to prevent you feeling happiness? Use the twelve keys to happiness to help you with this, For example, have you believe that your health plays no part in your happiness, or ignored the power of appreciation?

Identify and list the areas that you have neglected until now. (i.e. Proactivity, health, appreciation)

What has neglecting these attributes cost you in the past?

If you were to continue to ignore these attributes, what would be the cost on you and your loved ones in the future? What will be the cost on your dreams? How will you feel? What would your life look like if you continued to neglect these attributes?

What do you have to gain by taking on these attributes? How will your life change? How will your attributes to life change if you choose to take on these attributes right now?

What would prevent you taking on all twelve of these attributes? Is it something that is outside of your control and influence? For example, I can’t feel appreciation as long as there are terrorists in the world.

If you externalise the reasons why you can’t, you’re giving up your personal power. What you’re saying is something that is beyond my influence will dictate my life. To change this, ask yourself, “What is within my control and influence now?” The answer is always how we manage our own emotional state. Everything else is always changing.

The only thing that would prevent me doing  this right now is…

The only way to remove an obstacle is to decide it isn't going to be one. What can you decide right now about this excuse, that will allow you to remove it as an obstacle?

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

If you were to commit to living a Level 1 life from this moment on, which of the key to happiness would you actively seek to experience in your life?

How will you know you are doing this? What will you notice? What will you do? What will be different?

Happiness and ...

We all have a neurological fear system embedded within our brains. This neural network once helped us survive, but it now can limit our lives… the biological circuitry that once saved us is the number enemy of happiness.

This “fear system” is our storehouse for past trauma, current anxiety, fear of the future and old instinctual terrors. We needed this part of the brain to keep us alive… the instant ability to spring into action at even a threat danger. It became faster with process of rational thought, faster again with the feeling of love. It became faster than any other human action.

We survived, and became hardwired for hard times.

And not in modern times what is good for our survival is bad for happiness and even for our long-term health. So the question is, where do we go from here?

For most of us in modern life, survival is not the cut and thrust of hunt or be hunted. It’s paying the bills, working, coming home. We don’t need that instinctive primal fear to propel us with a clast of adrenaline, yet we can’t get rid of it.

To balance this, we have evolved to possess the human neocortex, which is the primary area for intellect - this is the creative, the intuitive, the intellectual, the spiritual. More importantly, it is the home of happiness.

***Special Note: Most of this section has been learnt through the teaching of Dr. Dan Baker and Cameron Stauth, from the book “You’re Only Six Steps Away From Happiness”. We highly recommend this book as part of your journey.

Giving Up Perfectionism

Perfectionism is a myth. When someone says “I am perfectionist” what I am hearing is that they have no standards. Perfectionism cannot be achieved, so it’s the same as saying you want to achieve the impossible. Yet isn't interesting how much time people spend trying to attain it. Saying we want perfection is really another way of saying I don’t feel confident to say  the task is complete. And isn't that another way of saying I fear not being enough?

Hmmm…

How about instead of focusing on perfection you focus on the results you want to achieve? Giving up the illusion of perfection is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, because it frees up your energy and time to focus on what really matters.

When people are first introduced to this is they feel a level of fear because they have convinced themselves that it’s necessary to achieve this. Abandoning perfection seems scary because they are unclear about what to replace it with.

The solution is simple. Replace perfection with what it is you really want.

The Power of "No"

I used to say yes to whatever was asked of me. believing that way I would be liked. What I was really doing was managing my fear of not being loved or not belonging. What would happen was I would run around for someone else, then feel resentful for being “used” if they didn’t express enough gratitude. Maybe you have a pattern like that, and you’re noticing that it’s tiring making everyone else happy. Especially if it means you aren’t.

The  solution is to learn to say no. It won’t offend the other person, unless they expect you to comply to their every request, in which care why is that? If you have trouble saying “no” , then say “I will have to get back to you,”  This buys you the time  to think about whether this is something you really want to spend time on, and also means you won’t have to worry about hurting anyone’s feelings.

Once you've said you’ll get back to them, you can then think of another solution that doesn’t involve you. And maybe you’ll choose to experience courage by saying you can’t do the task.

The 80/20 Rule

We all have the same 24 hours in each day but have you noticed how sometimes that doesn't feel like enough?  This means it’s important to make some smart choice about how you spend your time and your energy. The 80/20 Rule simply means that 20 percent of all your activities are likely to produce 80 percent of the meaningful results in your life.

What is your 20 percent? What is the small number of activities that produce the key outcomes you are wanting in your life? The more time you spend on these activities the faster you will be propelled towards your ultimate life.

What are my top three 20 percent activities?

What will focusing on these activities give me?

How to Manage Your TIme and Your Life

If you’re one of those people who has scraps of paper around the place on which  notes, phone numbers, things to do and ideas are scattered, you are not alone. Have you noticed that these scraps of paper can be difficult to  locate occasionally? There must be a better way , you wonder… The simplest solution is to create five to ten files or boxes in which all these scraps of paper go, depending on their category.

For example, say your focus in your life is family, friends, work, finances, art class, exercise, self-development and gardening, all you do is create a file for each of these seven areas. Whenever you write a note to yourself, or receive some information about one of these areas, slot it immediately into the relevant file. That way when you need it it’s exactly where it is supposed to be.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It means you are organised, and has the added bonus of making possible for you to get away from the “busy-ness” of the tasks you need to do. What so I mean by this? Have you ever noticed that a proportion of your time is spent running around doing errands that perhaps aren’t that important to you? If you answered yes. you’re in the majority. Now imagine taking each of these files and instead of just making your way through the to-do--lists they represent, you ask yourself a better question… what is it I ultimately want to achieve in this area> What will achieving this ultimately give me?

Let’s look at the example of exercise. The person above wants to achieve greater fitness, but always run out of time. They also notice they want to spend more time with their family and on personal development. Why are these areas important? Because what they ultimately want is to feel great about themselves.

Can they achieve this without having to do everything that’s on each of the to-do lists? Absolutely. Perhaps they could go for walks their family, or jog as they listen to a personal development tape. Notice that these options combine activities to get even more juice into what they want. Now they are propelling themselves closer to what they ultimately want.
What this means is you are creating for yourself a smarter system for achieving your ultimate life. Instead of spending each day simply getting through the lists of what needs to be done, you combine tasks.

This system also allows you to eliminate tasks also. Say you want to spend more time on your gardening and new business idea, and find yourself spending too much time on errands. Instead of chaining yourself to the mundane tasks of dry cleaning runs and ironing, you hire a cleaner runs and ironing, you hire a cleaner, and with the extra time you’ve created you develop your business faster and more efficiently.

What if you can’t afford a cleaner? How about delegating more of these tasks to family members who wouldn’t traditionally do these things? Or how about doing them all in one hit once a week in “down-time” when you would normally watch TV?

If you eliminated TV three days a week from your schedule how much more would you get done? How much closer would you be able to be towards building your ideal life?

Getting Organised

To make the change you want in life you need to make the time and create the space for them. Cluttering your life with the noise and busy-ness of your life can get in the way of you achieving what you want. Bill Gate, who runs many companies, has exactly the same number of minutes in the day as a surfer. We all have the same amount of time in our day, the only difference is how we choose to use it.

Creating Space:

Allocate time for yourself and your goals and dreams. Don’t hope you’ll find the time one day. That’s the old pattern and it will deliver the old results. Diarise when you will take action toward your goals. .

What I have diarised:

Work out how you spend your time during the average day. This will reveal to you where you have been wasting time. Most people who do this find another half an hour to two hours per day.

Where I found I was wasting time, and commit to eliminate:

Add up how much time you spend on yourself, your goals, your personal and physical development.

The amount of time spend on myself, my goals, and my personal and physical development:

The amount of time I now commit to spend on myself, and my personal and physical development:

Develop and stick to a filing system that works. People who rely on their memory and scraps of paper to run their finances and their lives are limited by how much they can remember. 

What I have done to improve the management of my life:
If  “no time “ is a constant excuse or story you tell yourself to prevent you doing what needs to be  done to achieve your goals, replace it with a belief or story that will work.

The old story about time:

My new, story about my time and how I can choose to use it:

Declutter your house of anything you haven’t used for three years. This includes clothes, cooking implements, bedding, furniture and the rest of the useless stuff we gather throughout our lives. 

What I have decluttered:

What this action has freed up in my home, my business, my cupboards, and in my mind:

Take a few moments to answer the questions below.

What activities took up the largest proportion of your time last year?

What was the most valuable use of your time last year?

What were your five biggest time wasters last year?

Approximately how much time did you spend watching TV each Day?

Approximately how much time did you spend focusing on your dreams and goals each day?

Everyone on the plane has the same number of hours in the day.

People who say “I’m too busy” are investing in the “busy-ness” of their lives, instead of investing in what truly matters to them