Friday 23 November 2012

The Word of the Week - What's in your head?



It only takes a small shift in your perception to become a more optimistic person and increase the amount of joy in your life on a daily basis.  If you were to review your days over the past week, analysing how many hours of the day you were genuinely happy, what kind of percentage would you come up with?

I set myself this very task, and can honestly say that 75% of my days are now filled with joy.  Unfortunately, I would not have been able to make this statement a few months ago, because my days weighted very heavily upon me being very unhappy with only a few moments of happiness occurring throughout the day. Thus,  I would have given myself a rough estimate of about 25% happy and the rest of the day spent in the doldrums.

I would look at the perceived negatives in my life, desperately hunting for a solution only to find myself mired deeper in a depression because I could not find one.  All I did was attract more of the same feelings and found myself on a  proverbial merry go round.  The more I thought about it the more unhappy I became!

There were two key elements that helped me turn my happiness percentage so high, first I developed a high level of gratitude on a daily basis for everything that I had  and secondly, my optimism!  Once I took ownership that ALL my feelings were generated by the thoughts in my head, I made a conscious decision not to blame anyone or anything outside of myself as the cause of my misery. 

I then asked myself two questions to everyone one of my worries, “what is the very worst that could happen and is it happening right now?”  Usually the last part of the question would result in an emphatic answer of no because most, if not all, of the scenarios that I was concerned about, were created in my head and that is the key to unlocking your unhappiness! Get out of your head with your usual way of thinking because if your percentage is quite low (less than 50%) it is a clear sign that you are in need a new way of thinking!

Have a very thoughtful weekend. 

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