Finding Your Happiness

Hey guys!! I'm really excited to share this post and these feelings and findings with you all. Originally I thought my next post was going to be on a different topic entirely, more focused on nutrition and what I've learned in that sense. But lately I've just been feeling overwhelming feelings of positivity and happiness and wanted to share it with everyone. Maybe help someone else to create and experience the same feelings because it really is changing to my life.

It's truly amazing to wake up every day and feel happy and excited for your life. Even if your life isn't some incredible journey of living on an island or traveling everywhere working remotely or working your dream job or having all the money in the world or anything crazy like that. I have a very average, normal, every day life in my opinion and I'm working towards the point where I can be living my ultimate dream. But I definitely feel like I'm living my dream right now. My simple yet wonderful dream life. I look forward to every day. I wake up and look forward to living my life every single day and it's truly an indescribable blessing to feel that way. I feel like I've learned what true contentment of life and happiness is. I've definitely thought at different times in my life that I've been happy, and I'm sure I was to a certain extent, but at this point, I feel complete happiness.

"Create a life that doesn't just look good on the outside, but feels good on the inside."

I want to share some things that I use regularly to strengthen my mind and ultimately my life that I think everyone should put into practice. In learning these things and adding them into my life it has made a world of difference in a short few months and I'm so excited to see where I can go with this journey.

Personal development is such a powerful tool that too many people either don't know about at all, or don't understand to what capacity it can alter your entire life and therefore they don't practice it. It's truly incredible the difference in mindset and quality of life that being on this journey has made. And it's honestly hard watching so many people struggling in life and feeling like you have the answer they need, but can't show them why it's the answer because they have to do it for themselves. Change your mindset to change your life, guys!! I'm not going to lie- it's hard. It's work. It's hard work. It's frustrating and overwhelming at times. It seems so much easier for someone to just throw their hands in the air and say "Oh well, this is the best that I can be. I am who I am." But it's a cop out. So you don't have to put in the work and the effort to get to your highest potential. And really, you're only hurting yourself by doing that.

So anyway, back to my little tidbits I wanted to share! Personal development encompasses a multitude of practices and techniques and so many different things to strengthen your mind and build you up to your highest and best self. It's a true lifelong journey and I'm just getting my feet wet. As of now, I have three practices that I feel like have made the biggest impact on my mindset and quality of life thus far, and these are what I want to share with you.

I'll start with one simple emotion that I practice every single day, one feeling that can really set the tone for your day, week, month, year, life... and that is gratitude. Gratitude is an incredibly powerful tool that people fail to practice on a daily basis. It's simply forgotten. If you are always worrying and stressed and focusing on these negative feelings that you're having, it's going to be really difficult to see the good in everything and see the things you truly should be grateful for, and therefore to be positive, and therefore to be happy. It's going to be difficult to have an optimistic mindset. We take so much for granted every single day it's really mind blowing. Everyone gets frustrated or angry or annoyed or distracted even, but you can't let yourself stay there. It's so easy to get stuck there and then in a constant state of negativity and worry and frustration, etc. Try to start your morning with some gratefulness. Wake up and while you're eating breakfast or having your coffee or wherever it fits into your morning routine.... be silent and be truly grateful. Think of all the things in your life that you are grateful for. If negative thoughts come to mind, immediately counteract that with healthy thoughts. It's absolutely wonderful to also think of things that you want to change and better about yourself and your life, but in the morning you're setting the tone for the day. And that should be gratitude, positivity and happiness. This isn't going to be easy at first. You're going to have to be consistent with this every day and really train your mind. You may forget to do it some mornings, you may wake up in a bad mood and not feel positive, but making this a daily habit will have the biggest impact.

"It's not joy that makes us grateful, it's gratitude that makes us joyful."

Something else that is really powerful and truly necessary in my opinion to lead a happy life is self-acceptance. This right here. This is something I have truly struggled with for my entire life, and I have no idea why or where it started from. If self-acceptance is something you struggle with, I will tell you it is not an easy road to get to the other side, but it's great over here and it's absolutely necessary. I'm still working on it daily but I am already feeling a major difference and now have a glimpse of a life with full self acceptance. And self acceptance is not an excuse to not better yourself or to say that you can't change anything. What it is, is accepting yourself completely for the way you are, while simultaneously being aware of your flaws and weaknesses and working on them continuously. "Self acceptance is an individuals satisfaction or happiness with oneself and is thought to be necessary for good mental health. Self acceptance involves self understanding, a realistic albeit subjective, awareness of ones strengths and weaknesses." This is the best way to describe self-acceptance in my opinion because it all starts with awareness.

"You carry so much in your heart. Give some to yourself."

And that is the last of the three practices I want to share with you today. Awareness. This is the beginning of everything for personal development and such a powerful tool completely on its own. It is incredible what you can realize and learn about yourself by just becoming aware of your thoughts, your actions, your mindset, your daily habits, and so much more. One way to begin self-awareness is to really take the time to think about and learn what your strengths and weaknesses are. Write them down! It's really helpful to see where you're at with your self development. Understand that we all have strengths and weaknesses. No one is perfect. Not even close! This part was very overwhelming for me. It's hard to feel like you're staring at yourself in a real but negative way. All your flaws, demons, weaknesses are hard to have to focus on. It's definitely difficult and overwhelming feeling like you have so many things you need to work on. But it's so important to do that. Again, it truly is life changing. To practice full awareness, being aware in the moment is crucial. It'll come more with time, but pay attention to yourself. Your emotions, your thoughts, your actions and reactions... everything. Taking notice and being aware of all these things is how you gain a 360 degree view and understanding of yourself. From here is where true betterment and greatness can come!

"Awareness alone can be curative"

I would also like to mention that I don't think people realize how much of their subconscious mind affects their every day life. Even when you're joking around and saying negative things about life, it's going to be embedded. It's going to be easier for your mind to go to the negative thoughts than it is to go to the positive thoughts. I think I said before, but I'm not sure, that working out your mind is just like working out your body and your different muscles. If you don't go to the gym and work out your biceps, your biceps are not going to get bigger and they're not going to get stronger. If you don't work out your mentality, your mind is not going to get any stronger. You are going to be a victim to what your mind has created for itself over the years in your subconscious. It's going to have to do with your environment, the way that you were raised, the friends you've surrounded yourself with, the music you listen to, the television that you watch, the news, society, government. Just so many things that you don't even realize have created your entire mentality and unless you have consciously and consistently worked on it yourself, you have had no control in creating all of your beliefs and thoughts and so many things.

All of these qualities, mindsets, traits, whatever you want to call them, come with a lot of practice. I have so much further to go in my lifelong journey of becoming my best self and that only makes me excited. The point of this post is to share the beginning steps of what I believe will lead to full happiness, which is going to look different for everyone. What makes me truly happy will not be the same as what makes you or someone else truly happy. But these steps will lead to different insights tailored to each individual. Start with these, put in time, and find your true happiness. No, the journey doesn't stop there. You then create your life of happiness, with a lot of time and effort. But the journey, although filled with hard work, is beautiful along the way. Personal development absolutely relies on habits and consistency. You cannot do it for a month, stop for two months, pick it back up for three months, stop for a month, etc. Again, creating habits using consistency. But don't be afraid to ask for help! This is not a journey you can do alone. I have many outlets I use to help me through my journey including my boyfriend, a few close friends, my therapist, also the books and YouTube videos are huge to help me stay on track. I've made a commitment to either study my book or watch at least one video per day. Ted Talks videos are great when I don't have a lot of time to sit down and commit an hour to watch a video. You can listen to them in your car on the way to work! When I do have time, my favorite to watch are Leo's videos which are found on YouTube by typing "actualized.org". I have included a link to his videos for each topic I mentioned in this post as well as an overall "How to Feel Happy" video in the beginning all linked within the quotes. If you enjoy any of these videos, definitely look through his YouTube page! He truly has an endless amount of videos and I'm sure you can find some that speak to you.

Lastly, another powerful tool that I haven't fully dove into yet but am looking forward to adding to my support system is forums! Again, personal development is not a popular thing, as far as my experience goes. And using online forums can be huge for people who may not have friends and family on this same journey or maybe don't have a therapist or whatever the case. A place to find people on this same journey with whom you can share all your thoughts, feelings, and questions!

I would like to close just by saying that you are in absolute control of your thoughts, your emotions, your environment... your life. Sometimes we just sit back and let life happen as it will instead of taking control and creating our life how we want to create it. There is a major difference in that. Find your happiness and go out there and create it. I truly believe starting here and beginning your own personal development journey are the first steps that can lead people on this path. "If you don't like where you are, move. You are not a tree." I love that. And that goes for anything. If you don't like something about yourself or your life, change it! You do not have to accept it by any means. It will take time and work, but will be worth it.

"The primary cause of unhappiness is not the situation, but your thoughts about it."