Tap Into Happiness

If you find yourself feeling a little low here’s an exercise you might want to try to make you feel HAPPIER.

Find a photo of yourself from a time when you were really happy.

Take a few moments to just sit and stare at it; immerse yourself in those happy memories. Try and allow all the sights, sounds, and scents from the occasion to flood in. Really take yourself back to the moment.

As you do this there are actually some physiological changes taking place which will be making you feel a little better.

Dwell in the moment a little longer, then pop the photo somewhere like your desk drawer or inside your diary. (I find the effect fades if I’m too profligate and look too often, but a peek now and again works wonders!)

The more observant among you may have noticed that the photo bears a resemblance to me. It was taken on my 50th birthday when I was surrounded by family and friends and having an amazing time. My brother took it and captioned it ‘pure joy’. He was right. Looking at it always makes me smile, and now I always wear a (toy) tiara on birthdays!

When was your last ‘pure joy’ moment!

Plan to Worry

Here’s a quick tip if you find yourself worrying too much about something.

Don’t try and ignore what’s worrying you but, if you can’t immediately do something about it, give yourself a worry time. Decide that at a certain time you will spend some time giving the worry your full attention.

Put it in your diary and then when one o’clock, or whatever time you choose comes, sit down and think about it for your allotted time.

You’ll come back to the issue refreshed and may even get a much better solution!

How do you cope with your worries?

How to Profit From Your Mistakes

We all mistakes. We have to or we’d never learn anything at all! My Father’s best bit of advice to me (as I crawled home from a disastrous love affair and having dropped out from my first stab at University) was:

“Well, you’ve made a mistake, everyone has to make their own mistakes. The trick is not to make the same one twice”

It’s good advice and I’ve quoted him often when coaching. Mistakes in life are inevitable but it’s what we do with the knowledge gained from making those mistakes that’s important.

So here’s a few tips to help make your mistakes profitable experiences for you:

1) Don’t give yourself too hard a time. Identify what it is you actually did wrong, and don’t rubbish everything about yourself. For example, don’t tell yourself how stupid you are, but that the thing you did wrong was stupid. It’s quite a subtle, but powerful, distinction and will help you distance yourself enough to really look at how you behaved in a way that’s helpful to you.

2) Try to put the mistake into perspective. You could use phrases to yourself like “Well, at least I didn’t blow up the house, I only left the iron on”. Or, “Will this be important in five years time?” Reframe the situation.

3) Be honest and admit the mistake, first to yourself and then with others. Once you admit something is wrong you can set about putting it right and also begin to learn from it. If you stay in denial there’s a strong likelihood you’ll keep repeating the same mistake, and that profits no one!

What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

Are You Playing Enough?

In my professional training I studied academic tomes on the importance of play in a child’s development. Then when I had my own children I learned about it all over again, from a very practical perspective.

And later still, when I set up a local playgroup, I learned about it in both a theoretical and practical way.

And when I worked therapeutically with adults I learned that playing can be healing and powerful.

And what I know with absolute certainty is:

PLAY NEVER STOPS BEING IMPORTANT for both our learning and our emotional well being. Playing is very good for you!

We just become a little more self conscious at throwing ourselves whole heartedly into it, but give us adults an opportunity and we love it (which is why we have a lot of fun as well as serious stuff on my courses)!

Why You Should Play More

Play will help you be more creative, imaginative, add to your problem solving capabilities, develop leadership skills, aid your concentration, and boost your confidence. Just a few good reasons to make sure you make time for some play in your life!

When was the last time you played and had fun? What’s your favourite play activity?

Be a Good Friend to Yourself

How many times day are you rude to yourself? Stop and think about how you talk to yourself for a moment or two. Do you use phrases like: ‘I‘m so stupid‘, ‘ I never get that right‘, ‘What an idiot I am‘, ‘I’m so fat, I have no will power’.

Talking to Yourself?

We all do it from time to time with varying degrees of rudeness! And much of the time it doesn’t matter. But sometimes the balance tips and we can actually create self fulfilling prophecies in our lives; we make ourselves feel worse and less able to combat the behaviour we want to change.

I have an exercise in my RenewYou course when we look at some of the self talk that goes on almost unnoticed in our heads, and the negative impact it has on our behaviour. I call it ‘Internal Mail’, some of which should go straight to the junk box! That exercise doesn’t translate well onto the page but below is one that does.

Try This Exercise

Pay attention for one day to the way you speak to yourself. If you can, jot the offending phrases down and what was happening when you ‘said’ it.

At the end of the day, review what you have written. Now imagine yourself with your best friend and that she/he is telling you of similar incidents to the ones you have experienced. Do you tell them they are stupid, or do you offer support, encouragement, advice and sympathy? I have no doubt it’s the latter. I am sure you are a much better friend to them than to yourself!

Try the exercise again, noting down your self talk. Only this time respond as if to a friend. Give yourself the same level of support, encouragement, advice and sympathy that you give to your friends. Be a best friend to yourself for a change!

Question

What’s the worst or funniest thing you say to yourself?

Dream and Be Happy!

It’s true that happiness is in the now, but thinking about positive events you’ve experienced in the past (and anticipating those you might have in the future) can actually increase your happiness levels in the present moment.

I was reminded of this following a conversation with a friend planning for a forthcoming wedding. He was concerned that all the anticipatory talk would lead to a sense of anti climax when it actually happened. On the contrary, I replied, often all the anticipatory talk adds to the overall enjoyment of the event.

“Savoring past pleasurable experiences boosts your positive emotions in the present, and positive emotions are the key to happiness,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness (Penguin, 2008).

The Happiness Bank

However, this doesn’t work if thinking of good times fills you with melancholia because those times are in the past. The key is to tap into the pleasure and good feelings the event provided, not bemoan the fact that the experience is now behind you. I treasure happy moments as they are happening and also metaphorically deposit them in my ‘happiness bank’. If you can use all your senses the experience can be even more vivid; conjure up the smells, sounds, sights etc..

And the act of anticipating happy events — even one as seemingly banal as watching a comedy show — can be equally as uplifting. Recent research has even shown that you don’t need to actually laugh to reap the effects. People who were planning to watch their favourite comedies had a significant increase in mood-enhancing hormones even before the programme started.

So, if you don’t have time today to spend a little time in pleasurable day dreaming, record an episode of your favourite funny show and look forward to watching in the evening!

What’s the best memory in your happiness bank?