The Happy List A to Z

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Dalai Lama

Here’s the list. Choose your favorites!

For more help search the terms on the Internet, take out a library book, read magazine articles, visit your local bookstore, talk with a positive-minded friend or apply some systematic creativity yourself. Whatever you do, follow the Dalai Lama’s advice, and take action!

a) My personal favorite: Serve others freely – find someone who needs your help, and help them! Repeat until you feel really great!

b) Develop ‘state of mind awareness’ – frequently check in and describe how you feel.

c) Journal your feelings/attitude frequently – daily; including your developing skill in managing your happiness.

d) Keep a gratitude journal – focus on the little things that bring you joy.

e) Collect and memorize positive quotations – carry them with you; read them often.

f) Get good at creating multiple options – challenge yourself with the questions: “What would be better? What would be even better than that?”

g) Make a workable plan – things really don’t have to stay the same. Envision what would be better, develop a realistic plan, get the help you need and work the plan.

h) Identify what you can manage – and take responsibility for it. For instance, you can always manage your frame of mind; and don’t sweat the small stuff!

i) Develop your self-discipline so that you do those things that help you to be happy over the long term. An emerging future trend is managing self. That means self-reliance and personal discipline. The future will be better – happier – for those who act wisely.

j) Be early – less stress; more thoughtful time; better presence.

k) Pray regularly – ponder; meditate; a spiritual center provides profound strength.

l) Read positive books and biographies – over time, we become much like the company we keep; a good book is good company.

m) Listen to positive music – music reaches more deeply into our soul than other forms of communication. Choose music wisely with the intent to be positive and happy.

n) Watch positive videos – videos create a virtual reality that doesn’t stay isolated in a ‘for entertainment only’ compartment in our brains; fun is serious business.

o) Believe that everything has meaning to it – identify good learning in hard experiences.

p) Learn to laugh at life – be quick to laugh; because eventually we laugh at most of life anyway.

q) Turn hard times into good stories – even while you are going through the tough part, you can be thinking, “The grandkids will love this one!”

r) Avoid bad news – it’s good to stay current with the news; but we don’t need to accept the ‘bad news bias’ in reported news.

s) Read the statistics in your favor – the glass is not half empty; it’s half full.

t) Be blue for a moment; then get over it – sometimes the sad side needs its moment in the sun, but only a moment.

u) Make health and fitness a top priority. EXERCISE! Get more sleep, drink more water, less other stuff – it just works.

v) Learn from affliction – rather than simply suffering, study your difficulties to learn about the virtues that they can teach you. Pain makes us strong. Disappointment builds resolution. Failure teaches humility.

w) Ignore negative thoughts – you can starve them to death; works well for me because I can be quite forgetful!

x) Mind your own business – we have enough of your own struggles without trying to become an expert in others’ issues; forget the gossip and criticism – there is no benefit for you or anyone!

y) Say ‘please,’ ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ a whole lot – not sure why this works so well; it changes the whole atmosphere – way more effective than it should be …

z) Remember that everyone has a mother – Mothers love their babies. We were all babies once. We are all lovable.

Okay, I’m out of alphabet, so I’ll stop now.

Action: Every one of us can be happier! Select from this list (or from your own ideas) one thing that you can do to be happier. Tell another person about it, and do it! Maybe, do it together. Take action!! There is power in happiness that you simply cannot do without.

The Conversation that is in Our DNA

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Why an article about conversation in a blog on career building? Conversations are the most effective way to enlist others’ assistance, build relationships and trust, and to find and pursue opportunities. People naturally trust a face-to-face conversation. There is no single better thing you can do to promote your career than to develop proficiency in conversation.

Have you ever gone hiking or camping and slept outside for two or three nights? Life can really slow down. No TV, no phone, no email (or at least there shouldn’t be!). Not even a book to read. Maybe there is a campfire, or you just lie on your back and gaze at the stars with a few close friends. There is time to think, and to talk; and to think and talk some more.

The thought inevitably crosses your mind that the vast majority of humanity passed their lives just like this – except, they did not do it for just a couple of nights, but for their entire lives.

They became superb conversationalists. They learned to think out loud, to think together, to tell stories and to create meaning in myths. Indeed, these were the people who created language itself – these ancients in our DNA.

Our current cultures, often less than a hundred years old, have left that world behind. We now live in artificial, virtual environments; growing up in front of screens, sitting in classrooms to be talked at and often not allowed to speak ourselves; texting, emailing, with music piped into our ears.

Communication in our recently altered world is characterized by at least two profound separations from our natural origins. The first is an absence of dialogue – balanced and meaningful two-way communication. The second, is a separation of our communication from our personal reality.

This artificial social environment is the very opposite of natural and organic. It is not in our DNA. We lack opportunities to build close relationships, understand the meaning of our own reality and even to speak from our minds and hearts. We develop stress-related and developmental disorders that appear very much like those experienced by animals in some zoos and other environments contrived in the interests of others. We certainly do not experience anything close to our peak performance.

Just as people in contemporary societies must make a point of getting the physical exercise that was naturally part of life throughout the ages, people in the information age must make a point of getting practice in conversation that, likewise, was simply a part of living until relatively recently. Whether you are a counselor or computer tech, the power of conversation will be critical to your career.

Action: Try one of these approaches for developing your skill in conversation.

1. Go with a friend to a quiet place – outside is best if the weather allows it – and away from any electronic communication device. You could go to a park, to the beach, on a picnic – a place where you can talk, face to face, with your friend. Just talk. You might have to start with a short period of time, and gradually extend your conversations. All of us would do well to rediscover the lost art of conversation.

Thomas Edison’s Secret to Career Success

Thomas Edison may have been the greatest inventor in history. He is number four in terms of the total number of patents held, over 1,093 in the United States alone, with many others held abroad. But his total number of patents is only a small part of the story because his inventions spawned whole industries, including electric power generation and distribution, lighting, sound recording, motion pictures and mass communications.

Edison was also a leader in the field of business, combining the principles of intellectual property and mass production to produce huge enterprises that enabled the launch of nation-wide industries. This necessarily led him to political activity that became another field of endeavor for this most prodigious of men.

And he is proported to have worked virtually all of his waking hours. Yet, this is the same man quoted to have said –

I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.

I shudder to think that I might be misunderstood as suggesting that the key to career success is to work 20 to 21 hours a day like Edison! You’d carry me away in a body bag after a couple of weeks if I tried that!

No, that’s not the magic of his story. Edison found his passion and worked at it – or rather – played at it. Nobody works like Edison (or even some fraction of Edison) without enjoying it.

The secret to Edison’s magic is not hard work, it is fun! It is the fun that enables us to be engaged, creative and persistent. Teller puts all that time into his magic – figuring out what to do and how to do it – because he is having fun, and not because he is working extra hard so that he can earn a paycheck! (He can, after all, make money appear out of thin air!)

You want to have a successful career like Edison? Like Teller?

Well, find the fun!

From the Trenches

Working for over 30 years in college, business, government and career coaching, I know the central role of work in our personal and public lives. I have experienced both how challenging, even discouraging, our careers can be, and how very rewarding they can be.

Usually, our career is how we earn a living. On the other hand, dedicated people may forego monetary reward as they assume careers in raising a family or improving social conditions. Feelings of personal mission, fulfillment and even self-worth are often intimately inter-linked with career. We expect a lot! Making a great choice and then succeeding in that choice is critical to the happiness and fulfillment we will feel in our work.

Many have shared with me their experiences with a career-life that has become more challenging and changeable. Some of what they have shared may sound familiar to you –

I sunk a lot of money and effort into my education and training, but I’ve had a patch-work of jobs since graduation. I get the impression as I look for work that my spotty employment record is starting to be more significant to employers than four years of hard slugging at university. I feel pretty cheated by the way it has turned out.

After five years I had a great reputation in my company, I was promoted early and had a good salary and set of benefits. I was told I was on track for middle management and above. The way I was treated, it was easy to believe. But it all changed when I got pregnant and took maternity leave. When I returned to work others had assumed my responsibilities. It’s not that I was out of a job, but it certainly became apparent that I was out of opportunity.

I’m a university student. I want to have a great career, and I’m really concerned. The job market looks nasty. I don’t want to just settle for anything. I actually want a dream job! How does a person do that these days?

I’ve sent out over 150 resumes in 3 months. Not a single reply.

I have a good job in a good company, actually. Just the same, I really know that there is more inside me and would like to take the next step. Nobody in my company is noticing me. What does it take to move up? It isn’t happening for me.

I guess perplexed is how I feel. I’ve been with my organization for longer than most and was known for doing some pretty impressive things. Then a new set of top management moved in. My reputation was gone overnight. I was just another line on the payroll. Now what?

I’ve been in the same line of work for 20 years and it’s time for a change. I want to enjoy work, and make a difference. But I’m afraid – what if I end up out of a job? Or I retrain in a career that doesn’t work out. I feel stuck in my security, but I have only one life. I don’t want to live it stuck.

I worked steady for 15 years. Now, I’ve been unemployed for over a year. I truly wonder if I will ever get a job. Am I just pegged as a ‘has been’ in the job market? Maybe it’s over for me.

I graduated from law school, and I’m working as an office assistant! I never wanted this, and I want out. I want a career – a decent job as a lawyer, but if not, then what? I don’t want to stay an office assistant!

Any of that sound familiar? If it does, you have picked up a book that can change your life. Supporting others in finding the career that they are passionate about, is the career that I am passionate about!