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happiness

30 Things That Make Me Happy

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30 Things That Make Me Happy

It’s been a challenging week with little opportunity for deep, creative thinking. That can be frustrating, but I decided to shift my perception from frustrated to ‘how can I take advantage of this limited amount of time?’.

The result was to create a “Things That Make Me Happy” list!

There’s no sense of order in this list, I’ve written it exactly as it came out of my head.

The most interesting thing to me about the list is how simple it is. All these things are easily doable, but, we clutter our lives with so many “shoulds” and “musts” that it can be easy to lose sight of the easy little things we can do or indulge in every day that will lift our mood a little.

So let’s not babble on any more…here’s my 30 Things That Make Me Happy List 🙂 ! [Read more…] about 30 Things That Make Me Happy

It’s Not The Death Bed Regret Scenario

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book1We’re all marching towards it, but we’re not there yet. As long as you got up this morning and took a breath, you’re still with us. But are you making your presence count?

I was struck by a few lines from an article I was reading this morning as it was a particularly good parallel for our lives. It went something like this…

There’s a book on a table in an otherwise empty room. As you approach the book, you can see that it has your name on it. You’re perturbed and wrestle with whether to open the book or not, but eventually succumb and turn the cover.

The book holds all your unfulfilled dreams along with the excuse for not pursuing them. It’s mind blowing and you’re reduced to tears as you read… [Read more…] about It’s Not The Death Bed Regret Scenario

An Ideal Day?!

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…and b-r-e-a-t-h-e….

It was the start of a hectic day.  In this case a Sunday which should have been relaxing, but wasn’t.

You know the kind of day when you can’t seem to find a moment for yourself, when your mental to-do list is screaming for attention, but others’ demands are screaming even louder. The upshot is frustration, overwhelm and stress!

‘Welcome to my world’ I hear you say. And indeed, I hear it.

I have this utopian vision of waking up on a Sunday morning, the sun is shining, casting diagonal brightness through the blinds across the white duvet, my first cup of tea has already been placed by the bed and all is well with the world.

Instead, it was a fitful night’s sleep, punctuated with cat fights (literally) and toothache (ouch!). The morning has dawned grey (but, thankfully, dry) and my morning cuppa is hurting my aching tooth. Add to the mix a hubby with a pulled back muscle, barely walking and needing some TLC, three adult children competing for bathrooms to see who can get out of the house soonest and my mental-to-do list screaming its needs at me, and instead it feels like Armageddon! [Read more…] about An Ideal Day?!

Making Planning Fun!

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Making Planning Fun!

If I can create the minimum of my plans and desires, there shall be no regrets.

So said Bessie Coleman, the first female pilot of African American descent to earn her international pilot’s licence in 1921. Sadly Bessie died during one of her preparatory flights (she was a stunt pilot) at the age of just 34, but even by this young age, she had achieved her dream to ‘amount to something’ having gained the admiration of the people in her industry and the crowds who flocked to her stunt shows.

Stories like this inspire and dare us to live a bigger life, but in the back of our minds we often think that this kind of achievement is just too much and can only be done by others. Maybe they were driven in a way that we just don’t identify with, or maybe we’re not that much of a risk-taker! [Read more…] about Making Planning Fun!

Think Yourself Happy!

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160612 PositiveHow are your thoughts treating you right now? Are you, generally, thinking pleasant and happy thoughts or are your thoughts more inclined to stray towards the negative aspects of your life and circumstances?

It appears that we’re hard-wired to think negatively, sort of a survival instinct from days gone by.  But nowadays, we help this along with a media soup of negativity under the guise of ‘news’. It’s not unusual to arrive at work and the main topic of conversation will be the latest catastrophe to happen in the world or what happened on the soap opera last night (which is generally negative)!

Now I’m not for a moment suggesting that the bad things that happen in the world aren’t worthy of your thoughts and your empathy in certain circumstances, but why, in such a wonderful world are we continually bombarded with bad news, but spared the joy of good news?!

But anyway, that’s sending me off on a ranty-tangent, so let’s get back to the point of this blog.

The problem of course is that thinking negatively can become a habit that plays out into habitual negative attitudes. We all know of a Negative Nelly or Debbie Downer (it’s not all women by the way!) who you’d probably do our best to avoid, but what if we’re just as critical of others’ plans and aspirations? [Read more…] about Think Yourself Happy!

5 Valuable Reasons to Indulge in Self-Reflection

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Self-Reflect_1Self-reflection gets a bad rap sometimes. It has many close cousins from wallowing and self-indulgence to over-analysing leading to self-doubt and paralysis when action is needed. But this is to ignore the benefits that a good ‘ole positive self-reflection can have on our lives if we’re prepared to heed what our deeper selves have to say and then make some alterations in our perceptions, how we approach life and/or others and how we live with ourselves.

There’s also a potential downside when maybe we don’t like what we see, but with an open-mind and the right attitude, these negative revelations can also be turned around. Indeed, it’s through these most challenging insights that the greatest gains may be made.

Get To Know Yourself Better

We all think we know ourselves well, but this often isn’t the case. Can you remember a time when, after an experience, you’ve wondered why you did or said something? Maybe you felt bad about your reaction or surprised at your depth of feelings in reaction to something someone said or did? If this is the case, then maybe that self-knowledge you believe you have isn’t as precise as you think. [Read more…] about 5 Valuable Reasons to Indulge in Self-Reflection