Daily Gratitude: William James was a very wise man and this quote reflects that wholeheartedly.

Have you ever gotten bogged down in all the details of a project ? I have. Once you’re buried, it’s hard to dig yourself out.

If you can stand back and look at the entire situation from afar, you Have a better chance of staying afloat and not letting that rip tide pull you under.

You must know what the true purpose of this endeavor is so that you can examine each aspect closely. Why do you need to do that? So that you can determine what is needed for each component – is it something only you can handle or is it something that can be delegated to another member of you “team” (here team means any group of people with a common desire or purpose). Maybe you can even identify things that don’t need to be handled right now or perhaps not at all.

You have to have the necessary knowledge in order to make the proper assessments but with practice and discipline it can be done before you get swept into the quicksand of overload.

In the beginning it helps to get people to help you make that determination. Group efforts benefit not only from more ideas but also from the increased energy of having multiple minds working in concert.

Daily Gratitude: Does this ring true for you? It does me. This is also an issue with a never ending to do list.

It’s so hard to get everything done on that darn list. I don’t know about you but I have always just put them on the next day’s list. And inevitably, the same happens tomorrow … and the next and the next.

I begin to feel so overwhelmed and overburdened and then I feel like a failure because “what’s wrong with me that I can’t seem to get anything done?”

What would be more beneficial would me pick a number of days I’m willing to have something on my list. Let’s say I pick 3 days. If at the end of those 3 days it’s not done then i have to re-evaluate its importance. If it’s not vital, then I will put it on a miscellaneous list that is not anywhere prominent in my office space.

Why do I put it on another list? To keep it from cluttering up my brain. But this is not a list that is important. It’s just an idea bank so to speak.

It’s a big relief to have that not hanging over my head any longer. The absence of that weight and resultant fatigue gives me more energy to work on the truly important things on my list.

Why not try this if you keep rolling things over on your lists.

Daily Gratitude: You can choose to be happy. You don’t have to keep searching for it.

What doesn’t work is the “I’ll be happy when x, y, or z happens (you can fill in what your x,y, or z is).

Even if getting what you want gives you some temporary happiness, it won’t last. And soon you’ll realize that it’s a feeling of success, not real happiness. There’s nothing wrong with success but it will leads to the desire for more success and thus the roller coaster ride begins.

“I’ll be happy when I lose 20 pounds”. What if you lose 18 pounds? Will that keep you from being happy?

“I’ll be happy when I get a raise.” When you get the raise how will that make you happy? Inevitably we spend more money when we make more money. Then what.

And so on. Not everyone behaves like my examples, but if the loss of some weight is all it takes to make someone happy, what does that say about your happiness?

I say again you can choose to be happy right now, no matter what you weigh or what your salary is.

Happiness is it elusive if you rely on external factors.

I was never happy and even more sad is that I wasn’t even searching because I figured things were as “good” as they were going to get and I had “no chance.”

But in the last 5 years happiness has shown up in my life in more ways than I could ever imagine. And that’s all from my work with IFS (internal family systems).

I had stopped looking for happiness and I started looking within (with IFS). And look what showed up. I am finally happy after 77 years