Category Archives: Personal happiness

Rich and famous?

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A lot of people think they want to be rich and famous.  If you think you want to be rich and famous, do you really know why?  Like, deep down inside of you why?

Is that a goal for yourself, or is that a goal about how other people perceive you?  Most of us, deep down, don’t really love ourselves.  We see our own weaknesses, not our own strengths.  We see our own shortcomings, and our blind to our own successes.  We want other people to approve of us to try to compensate for our own lack of self-approval.

The problem is, if you don’t like yourself, you won’t be able to truly accept the approval from other people, because you won’t believe that you deserve it.

So, before you try to get rich or famous, make sure that you already approve of yourself, and that you know why that is your goal.  If you think that having people be jealous of the big house, or the fancy car, or the name recognition, will make you like yourself, you’ll be sadly disappointed.

The right motivation

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said something along the lines of this: When you come home from work, you don’t skip working out because you’re tired, you skip working out because you don’t have the right motivation.

So the question is, for any goal that you have, why is that your goal?  What is it that you really want?  It’s fine to say you want to lose weight, or want to get in shape, or whatever your goal might be, but really ask yourself why that is your goal.  What is it that you really want?

If you don’t know your reason, chances are you will not meet your goal, because if you don’t have a reason for the goal, then how will you stay motivated when things get hard?  If you really know your motivation, then that will give you the power to get through when things get rough.

Silver Linings

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The other day, someone said my middle name should be “Silver Linings.”  Every time he brought up a situation, I pointed out something positive about it.  I saw the silver lining.

This is a choice that each of us can make every day.  With almost any situation, something positive can be learned, or some positive experience can be taken away, but only if you choose to see it that way.  It’s easy to feel bad for yourself when things are hard.  It’s harder to be in a difficult situation and choose to focus on the positive.

We all have bad things happen in our lives.  There is nothing that we can do to control it.  All we can do is choose how we are going to respond to the bad things.  I choose to see the silver lining.

You deserve better

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One of my favorite quotes is from Stephen Chbosky’s book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower; “We accept the love we think we deserve.”  The reason that this matters so much is that most of us don’t really believe that we are deserving of better treatment, so we allow people to treat us in a way that isn’t good enough.

Like so many of our problems, this one is frequently passed down from our parents.  If they treated you in a way that was less that what you deserved, then you got used to that treatment, and came to feel that it was acceptable, even though you didn’t like it.  Now, when you’re in your own relationships, you allow people to treat you in a way that is less than you deserve.

So the challenge is; how do you break the cycle?  The first step is to believe that you deserve better treatment from the people in your life.  This will probably involve ending relationships that you are in now, and finding better ones.  You can give people the opportunity to change, but for the most part, people will keep doing what they have been doing.  It doesn’t mean you need to dislike these people.  It doesn’t mean that they are bad people.  It just means that if they aren’t making your life better, then you don’t deserve them in your life.

Find people who make you feel better about yourself.  Find people who challenge you to be a better person.  Find people who think that you deserve the best.  You know why?  Because you do deserve the best.

Celebrities

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What is the fascination that people have with celebrities?  People know more about the lives of famous people they will never meet than they know about the people who they see every day at work and at school.

If you are happy with your life, and focused on taking care of what actually matters, then you have no reason to be interested in celebrities.  The problem is that it’s easier to look outside of ourselves than inside.  Once we look inside, we will see what our flaws are, and then we know that we really should be working on fixing them.  If we keep the focus on others, then we can go on pretending.

Instead of looking at what’s going on in celebrities lives, start with your own life.  If it’s not what you want it to be, look at yourself first and get to work.  You can have any life you want, but it all starts with you.  Watching famous people on tv isn’t doing anything to make your life better.

Criticizing others

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Why does it feel good to criticize others?  We’ve all done it.  We say something critical of someone else, whether it’s true or not, and for a moment it actually makes us feel kind of good.

By criticizing others, we are trying to not look at ourselves.  Frequently, the things that we are most critical of in others are the things that we know are flaws in ourselves.  And by pointing out someone else’s failings, we can pretend for a moment that we are better than them.  We feel powerful.

But the problem is, that good feeling doesn’t last, because is isn’t real.  We still know what our own flaws are, and temporarily feeding out ego by pointing out others’ flaws only gives a temporary benefit.  Do you know what actually makes you feel good, in a real and lasting way?  When you compliment someone else.

So the next time you find yourself thinking a critical thought about someone, stop for a moment and think about yourself.  Are you actually criticizing a flaw in yourself?  Now, instead of saying the critical thing, find something positive about that person, and say it to them instead.  You’ll feel better, and so will they.

Give what you want to receive

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We have talked lots of times about giving the gifts you want to receive, but it occurred to me that it applies to more than just material things.    The same principle applies to how you treat other people.

Everyone likes to receive compliments, but how often to we pay compliments to the people around us?  The next time you’re feeling down on yourself, try complimenting someone else.  Tell a friend why they are a good friend.  Tell a co-worker why they’re good at their job.  Compliment someone you barely know, or don’t know at all, on their clothing.  You’ll find that when you compliment other people, you feel better about yourself.

Unfortunately, society often tries to teach us that we’re not supposed to talk about our feelings, or share our emotions with others.  It’s too bad that other people’s insecurity leads to this type of thinking.  If we were all more honest with each other about what we feel, the world would be a better place.  We could solve our conflicts instead of pretending they don’t exist.  And we would say positive things to the people that we care about.

For the next week, try saying at least one complimentary thing to a different person every day.  See how much better you feel when you do it.

Your body

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When you were little, whenever I took you grocery shopping with me, I would show you the magazines on display, and I would say “Look at the pictures of these women.  These are all fake.”  I started telling you this when you were far too young to have any idea what I was talking about, but it still seemed important enough to me to start telling you as soon as I could.

Women are taught to hate their bodies.  Too fat, too pale, hair too straight, hair too curly.  Why are all the women on the magazine covers airbrushed?  It doesn’t matter what her body really looks like, they won’t show it to us in its real form.

What message is this sending?  That no woman’s body is good enough.  That even the supermodels have flaws that should be changed; that should be hidden from us.  So if the supermodel isn’t good enough, how are you supposed to feel good about your own body?  How are you supposed to look in the mirror, and see your flaws, and still know that you look good?

The next time you’re at school, or in any other public place, look around at the girls there.  Really look at what they look like.  Notice their flaws, but also what looks good about them.  This is what real people look like.  Real people don’t look like the people on tv, and they certainly don’t look like the people on the magazine covers.  They don’t look like the Hollywood actresses with their eating disorders.  They look like the people you see every day.

Can you see how we’re being manipulated?  Can you see how they get us to buy what they’re selling?  As long as we feel bad about ourselves, we will buy whatever they’re trying to sell us, whether it’s beauty products or TV shows.  We’ll spend our money to try to look like the people they show us, and we’ll never accomplish that, because what they’re showing us is fake.

I know it’s hard when we’re constantly bombarded by these fake images.  And it makes it even harder that most of the people around us have all been duped by them.  Just try to take a step back from what you’re being told and what you’re being shown, and really look at yourself.  You don’t look perfect.  No one does.  But that doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful in your own, flawed, imperfect, real way.  Learn to see your beauty, even with your flaws.

Baby steps

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Changes in our lives can be overwhelming if we try to do too much at once.  Instead, try baby steps.

So many things change in our lives.  Some of them we have some control over, and others just happen to us.  Either way, changes can be stressful.  And the bigger they are, the more stressful they can be.  Graduation, marriage, having a baby, changing careers, buying a house; there are so many of them.

Sometimes, when these changes happen, we can get carried away trying to plan way too far in advance.  When we do this, we let ourselves get overwhelmed by all that is happening.  Instead, try looking at what’s coming in the immediate future.  What do you have to do to prepare for this change in the next week?  What about the next month?  Can you look at the next three months without it swamping you?

Pick a time frame that is manageable for you, and focus only on that time frame.  All of a sudden, it makes a huge change seem a lot more like a series of small changes, and that is much easier to deal with.

What can you control?

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It’s not a great feeling to have your life out of control, but that’s usually the way it is.  We would like to be able to control lots of things in our lives, but that just isn’t realistic.  Most of us are familiar with the saying “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  I had this hanging on my wall when I was growing up, but I have to admit I didn’t really give it that much thought.

How much can you really control?  The answer is: not much.  We can control our own behavior, and how we choose to react when things happen to us.  It’s hard, but we can do it.  And really, that’s about all we can do.  Our lives are just one event after another of someone else’s choices affecting us, and then us having to decide how we are going to react.

What that saying means to me is this:  focus on what I can change, which is my own attitude, and have the strength to make the hard choices to have the best attitude possible, then just let the rest happen.  Otherwise we spend so much time and energy trying to control things, and failing, and feeling frustrated at our failure.  Which of those seems like a better option to you?