The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 7 of 14)

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(…continued from last week)

Block: Being A Criticizer

Another one of those ‘not to dos’ is criticizing.

Yes, you’re smarter. Yes you have more experience. Of course you’ve been around longer, and you’ve climbed more mountains, and you’ve slain more dragons than anybody else around you. But that doesn’t necessarily make you more brilliant–that just makes you unique.

You are different, you’re one of a kind, but just like you, everyone else has opinions and thoughts and ways of working as well. People are different, they’re not better or worse, they’re just different. Appreciate some of those differences.

Instead of shortcomings you’ll see yourself and your people in a better light. Criticizing another is really tough. Now giving positive feedback can be of high, high benefit. Which is very different than criticizing, blaming, putting down, making fun of.
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The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 6 of 14)

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(…continued from last week)

Block: Interrupting Others

Interrupting isn’t just rude, it’s like saying what others are saying doesn’t really matter. “I’m not listening to you so I can say what I want to say.” “I’m not going to listen to you because what I have is more important than what you have.”

When you interrupt people you’re really putting them down. How many times have you been having a conversation with someone and while they’re talking, in your mind something pops up that you’ve just got to say. And you either interrupt them or you really strongly want to interrupt them. What you’ve basically done is stopped listening. Instead of taking in their message then saying “Okay, and here’s another perspective….” Or “Oh really, that’s interesting, and here’s something I’ve thought also.”

Do we do that? No, we interrupt people. We cut them off. We refuse to listen to them because we have this other thing that’s more important. Want people to like you? Listen! You need to be interested, not just interesting.
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The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 5 of 14)

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(…continued from last week)

Letting Go Of Happiness Blocks

For a moment let’s talk about some of those things that we can stop doing that interfere with ourselves and with our relationships. If you remember one of the things the Mayo Clinic said is we need to have rich relationships. These blocks we will discuss here get in the way of your relationships with other people, and may get in the way of a good relationship inside of you, with you.

Remember there are really only two kinds of conflict–external and internal. Conflicts inside of you, with you, and conflicts between you and others. Happiness in life, personal and professional, is often a matter of letting go of discontents and issues (getting rid of some things) as well as adding in positives or others.
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The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 4 of 14)

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(…continued from last week)

Goals & Purpose

The Mayo Clinic went on to say that for greater happiness we have to find our purpose. People who strive for goals, they have a mission, they have a purpose, they have a reason to be alive. Whether it’s growing a garden, doing a good job at work, raising a family, growing spiritually, enhancing your community – those types of individuals are happier than those who don’t have such aspirations.

In a Sanskrit poem called “Salutations to the Dawn” the ending of it says, “Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow only a vision, but today well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”

Find purpose. Move toward that purpose. Carry it with you in every word you say, in every action you take. Having goals provides a sense of direction, it gives us targets. It bolsters who we are so we achieve. It brings people together and helps us work as a community to achieve those things that are beneficial.
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The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 3 of 14)

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(…continued from last week)

The Appreciation Factor

Let people know you appreciate what they do. Let them know you’re glad they are part of your life. We all want to feel appreciated. When you tell those people who invest time, energy, and love into you, that you appreciate them it enriches both of you.

Which leads us to another point. The Mayo Clinic said we need to find way to express gratitude.

Gratitude is more than just saying thanks. It’s an openness. It’s a sense of wonder. It’s a sense of newness. It’s like saying “Yes!” to something. It’s a thankfulness for what you’re receiving from life, from work, from people. It’s feeling that positive warm feeling inside and sharing it. It’s very easy to go through life without recognizing your good fortune. Often it takes a serious illness, a loss of some kind, a tragic event to jolt people into appreciating the good things they have.
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The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 2 of 14)

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(…continued from last week)

Only Partially Situational

The Mayo Clinic said that only a small percentage of people’s reports of happiness can be explained by their situation. It really seems that the majority is determined by their personality, and more importantly, by their thinking patterns and their behaviors, by what they’re doing and those things can be changed. So you can learn how to be happy, or you can at least learn how to be happier.

Though you may have thought (as many people do) happiness comes from being rich, or from being beautiful, or handsome, or having no stress, or being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want the reality is that the people who have wealth, who are the most beautiful or the most handsome, who have no stress, whose life is just a piece of cake, on average are not any happier than those people who don’t have all that stuff!
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The Practice of Happiness
The Dozen Core Components To Creating Abundant Happiness (Part 1 of 14)

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Happiness is something that often people strive for. They seek, they hunt, and they find nothing. The reason is, happiness can’t be found. Happiness is….

It exists in side of you right this moment, but there are things that you can do to make it better. People strive to find and keep it, even when it seems to be so elusive. Being happy does not just mean feeling contented all the time, feeling joyful, having a positive sense, meaning and fulfilment within you – no one really is happy all the time.
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No More Excuses!
Controlling Your Destiny by Overcoming Excuses That Block Your Success (Part 9 of 9)

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(…continued from last week)

Choose your Reality Carefully

As I was preparing this program a couple of quotes that align with proactiveness, with the ‘no excuses’ mindset, with the champion’s mindset came to me. I collect quotes. I have hundreds and hundreds of them. I have books of quotes. I really like quotes.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said, “A positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative, he refuses to dwell on it.” Positive thinking is a form of thought which habitually looks for the best results even in the worst conditions.
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