The Keys to Happiness
When I recently did a search for “Keys to Happiness” on Google, there were over 54 million results. Wow! That’s a lot of keys to happiness. And although any key to happiness is probably a good key, 54 million keys can feel quite overwhelming. In The Get To Principle, I share four keys that I find are most fitting in finding happiness. In this blog, I’m going to focus on the first one: Having purpose.
As I’ve contemplated and looked at my life over the years, I’ve realized that I feel happiest when I’m just being me. When I’m not searching for something or trying to do anything or be anything that I’m not right now. My purpose: Just be me.
Once I’ve found a sense of happiness in that feeling, I’ve also found that when I am doing something positive - with a direction, with a goal - I also feel happy. It’s like a secondary purpose. Be, and then do. When I’m pursuing a goal such as studying Japanese, playing my guitar, or playing with my kids, I feel alive and happy.
It starts within yourself, reflecting on what you, as a being on this planet, are wanting to achieve, to experience, to feel. Sit for a moment and think, “What do I want in this life?” For many, if not most people, one purpose is simply having peace of mind and happiness. I love that and have it as one of my top goals in life. For others, their purpose might be to raise children to be successful adults. Or maybe it’s to create a lot of money and things. (In my experience, material wealth doesn’t usually bring happiness, but if that’s a purpose for you, go for it. I’ve met some pretty miserable rich people, but I’ve also met some really happy rich people as well.)
Regardless of your secondary purpose (and we can have many), it is important to keep in mind the following definition of life:
“The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.”
Continual change. Life is full of ups and downs, struggles and joys, sun and rain, tears and laughter. Change is life. The expectation that, poof, you have peace of mind and happiness, your children won’t get sick, or that your stocks will keep going up and up, and you’ll live happily ever after is, I believe, the biggest hindrance to getting happy. Acknowledging that bad things happen, and that you are going to have good days and bad days, is a way of helping you stay on purpose.
For example, along with being happy, one of my purposes is raising healthy, well-rounded children. I have two teenagers. For the most part, this goal feels fantastic and on point. But, needless to say, there are times when it doesn’t feel so good, where my parenting is not up to par or, in their exploration of life, their choices aren’t the best. But remembering that this is all part of change, part of the flow of life, keeps me on the path of happiness.
The question is always, what do you want to experience and who do you want to be during this lifetime? Start with just being you. I take my own advice often, referring to The Waking Up meditation app by Sam Harris. He has a way of having you point your finger back at yourself and realizing there’s no one there to be pointed at. You are just you. Everything is just arising in consciousness, including all of your thoughts. You are just you. It’s pretty fantastic.
From there, having goals is a great way of enhancing that happiness. Recognizing that it comes with all the other stuff, too, is paramount to actually experiencing it. Accepting it all, the good and the bad, keeps you on track to staying on purpose: Being you. And in the end, being happy.
-Ted Larkins, author of The Get To Principle
For more on living a life full of joy, check out The Get To Principle>>
The Magic of the $10 Million Mindset
I'm all about waking up. Not in the sense of waking up in the morning, although I love that, too. I'm talking about waking up to what is really going on in life. Waking up to the present moment as it is, without distraction from the movie in your mind of regret (of the past) and worry (of the future). When you say, "I Get To," in that millisecond, you wake up with compassion for others and a feeling of being grateful for what you have. And tapping into the powerful force of gratitude can change how you are in the world and bring you to experiencing the present moment, just as it is. The mantra is, Get To – Smile – Do it. Say it enough times, and you wake up more and more.
But there is also another waking up I want to share. It's about waking up from the limitations that we put on ourselves regarding the goals that we have. There's a great quote from Richard Bach's book, Illusions: "Argue for your limitations, and they're yours."
If you say you want $1000. You'll usually, with some struggle and time, get $1000. When someone asks, "Why not go for $10,000,?" you might say, "$1000 is a lot already. I can't get $10,000." Argue for our limitations…
In the chapter, The Magic of the $10 Million Mindset from The Get To Principle, I talk about a way of creating more than $1000, more than $10,000, more than $10 Million, more than whatever it is you currently want. It's about creating a mindset of who you need to become to get what you want to get. It doesn't matter how much or what it is. The point is to create beyond what you think you can.
One way to do this is to increase by ten times the amount you "think" you can get. Let's say you think you can make $1000 a month. You then say I'm going to go for ten times that. In this case, it would be $10,000. As soon as you think, "I make $10,000 a month", you might hear yourself thinking or even saying out loud to yourself, "No way, I can't do that" or "Who am I to want that much money?" But here's the thing: as uncomfortable as it is, just by saying it, creating that larger goal for yourself, on some level, your mind automatically starts to make plans for you to get it. You begin to BECOME who you need to be to make $10,000. You could make your goal $10 million. It doesn't matter. Whatever you want to experience, state it, believe it, and it will start to create for you.
When I first heard of this idea, that 'what you think creates your reality,' I was pretty negative about it. "It just doesn't work that way. Those crazy 'new-agers,'" I thought, even though I pretty much am one. But when I started exploring it, it made sense. Here's a simple way of looking at it: When you say, "I want x," you start looking for ways to make x appear in your life. Even if you don't believe it, your mind, on some level, begins creating that.
Let's say you want to play the piano. When you say, "I want to be good at playing the piano," your mind kicks in: you buy piano books, get a teacher, (of course buy a piano if you don't have one), and get to practicing. If you keep at it, before long, you'd be good. It is that simple. You think it; you create it.
But where the $10 Million Mindset comes in is when you go to the next step and instead of saying, "I want to be good at playing the piano," you say, "I want to be a concert pianist." Nothing really changes: In the moment of saying, "I want to be a concert pianist," your mind will visualize you up on a stage, and you'll start doing things to get you there. The difference is because it's outside of what you're comfortable with, your mind might also say, "No way! I'll never be good enough. Why try?" But here's the thing: Saying "I am a concert pianist" creates a mindset, and you start looking for ways to make it happen. Get through the negative thinking, and you start becoming who you need to become to be a concert pianist.
So what's the key? Decide, and then stick with it. No matter how long it takes, no matter the battle in your mind against the negative thoughts, keep with it. Do whatever you can toward the end that you are wanting to create. Allow yourself to become who you need to be to get what you want to get. And before long, that's what you'll have.
-Ted Larkins, author of The Get To Principle
For more on living a life full of joy, check out The Get To Principle>>