Daily Gratitude: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

Isn’t this beautiful. And most of all, it’s actually fairly easy to get these three things aligned.

The problem comes sometimes when you think one way but you’re too afraid to say something that correlates with your thinking. This can occur when you feel you have to be politically correct or you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.

Here’s an example:
A neighbor asks you for help moving a few boxes in his garage. You agree to help. You spend thirty minutes on a Saturday moving boxes and chatting with him.

Your action and speech are aligned. But inside you’re distracted and even agitated: ‘Why couldn’t he find someone else to help? I should be with my family right now.”

In this case, your thought is not in alignment with your action and speech. This misalignment creates dissonance in an otherwise normal situation and prevents you from showing up as your best self.

If you’re having to do this constantly then it will definitely interfere with your happiness. But if it’s an occasional occurrence, then it probably won’t interfere with your happiness that much.

It would be wise, though, to look at how you’re feeling and if you’re not very happy take a look at these three things and see what’s off. I guarantee at least one will be off.

We need to review our lives to see where we are and what we can change to grow and to improve our happiness quotient.

Otherwise you’ll just float through life and most likely won’t have much of a purpose and possibly not be unhappy. Awareness is essential for growth and change.

Daily Gratitude: “We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.”

This is similar to many others I’ve written but I think it’s one thing so many of us aren’t aware of.

We’re always telling people “that was a good learning experience for you.” But maybe that’s not what we should be saying. Perhaps it would me better to simply say “that was quite an experience you had. What did you learn when you looked at it (or reflected on it)?” In other words, we can help direct them and encoder them to do that reflection.

I bet you can find times in your life when you thought something was either “horrible” or “benign”. But if you took some time – either back then or now- you’d find out you actually learned so much.

It’s not uncommon for a “horrible” experience to turn into the best time of your life. And I don’t mean “best time” as in having fun or enjoying it. I mean that in the long run, your life turned out better than you could possibly have thought.

Take some time to reflect on this. And then help people who are going through tough times now.

Daily Gratitude: “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become.”

The same applies when you don’t accomplish your goals. Often you learn more from not achieving something. The challenges you come up against teach you great problem solving along with resilience.

If you could just make a wish (list a goal) and have it come to fruition, what would you have learned? How would that have prepared you for what’s to come in the future?

You become more courageous when you go after something you really want. Fear seems to take a back seat when there’s something in your life that lights you up! The enthusiasm and energy propels you forward, often making you forget that you need sleep and food. When I see that in someone I get excited and when it happens to me, it’s ecstasy.

It’s those things, the excitement, enthusiasm and energy, that makes you a better person and teaches you so much about life. It’s possible that you may not realize it at the time, but at some point, you’ll understand how much you’ve changed.

Look back and see the events in your life that have produced change in you.