Jim Rohn said, “If you want to be successful, you should study success.”
He also said, “If you want to be happy, you should study happiness.”
He went on to say, happiness is first a study, and then a choice.”
I listened to those words a few days back and was reminded that I had a book in my library called “How We Choose To Be Happy” by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks.
These 2 authors were corporate consultants who specialized in solving problems.
One day they realized, that no matter how many problems they solved, more always popped up in their place.
The decided they wanted to focus their time on helping people be happy in the midst of whatever else is happening in their lives.
So, they began studying super happy people to see if they could locate the causes of happiness.
They discovered that all happy people have 9 things in common.
1 – Intention – Happy people have an active desire and commitment to be happy, and a fully conscious decision to choose happiness over unhappiness.
We can all easily practice this by simply making a goal each morning – to be happy. 🙂
2 – Accountability – Happy people take full responsibility for the choice to create their own life and assume complete responsibility for their actions, thoughts and feelings.
They absolutely refuse to blame others for what’s happening in their lives.
3 – Identification – The ongoing process of simply asking yourself “What makes me happy?”
I thought about this all day yesterday, and at the end of the day, I was dancing with my 4 little boys, on the deck out back to great music.
As I gazed into their eyes and watched the smiles on their faces stretched from ear to ear, I realized that I was in a moment of pure joy.
BINGO!
Happiness Identified. 🙂
4 – Centrality – Once you’ve identified what it is that makes you happy – decide to make these things a central part of your life.
Doing what makes happy people happy, is a non-negotiable item.
You can bet I’ll be dancing more. (Even though, I’m a white guy) 🙂
5 – Recasting – The choice to look at problems as opportunities and finding meaning in challenges.
Seems to me, this is another word for “re-framing”, which is a word that you might be more familiar with.
The belief instilled in us by Dr. Napoleon Hill in Think And Grow Rich that “in every apparent setback lies the seed of an equal or greater opportunity” is a perfect example of “Re-Casting”.
6 – Options – Happy people decide to approach life with a full plate of options.
They’re open to new possibilities and they’re flexible in their approach to life.
7 – Appreciation – Oh the big G word. 🙂
Gratitude.
They describe it as follows – “The choice to appreciate deeply your life and the people in it and to stay in the present by turning each experience into something precious.”
8 – Giving – This is the choice to share yourself, your gifts and your blessings with the world around you without expectation of return or reward.
Napoleon Hill in “Grow Rich With Peace Of Mind” Refers to this as “A willingness to share one’s blessings”.
In the mouths of 2 -3 witnesses right? 😉
9 – Truthfulness – Happy people choose to live life being true to their inner compass by not allowing social demands to influence them to violate their inner compass.
Maybe you can remember a time when you made the decision to “Choose what was right & let the consequences follow”.
Do you remember how that made you feel?
Good sign right?
🙂
PS – What makes you happy? I’d love to hear down below.