This week, I’ve personally found there are the 4 parts in life that determine happiness. Over the last week, I’ve had a life changing revelation.
Decisions: First, I recognized that every moment in our lives requires us to make decisions. Every second of our day, we are making numerous decisions subconsciously and consciously. By you reading this, you’ve made a decision to continue reading the rest of this posting. Your continuing to read thereafter is another decision not to stop. Life is made up of the constant decisions you make every moment. Realizing this is the first step to taking control of your life and making it worth something.
Choices: We make decisions based on the choices we believe that are available to us. When someone says, “I have (or had) no choice, it’s a belief to them, not a fact. If you are sitting at a desk reading this, you have multiple choices you can make if you choose to explore your options. At this very moment you could stand, walk away, jump, turn off the computer, sing a song, continue reading, get something to eat, etc… Your choices are abundant at any given moment. How many choices you see will all be based on the next item.
Focus: Your mind has an unlimited ability to create choices for you to make. What you choose to focus on at any given moment is what will determine the types of choices you will think that you have. If you’re hungry, obtaining food will undoubtedly pop up as an option for you. If you are under pressure to complete something, you may limit yourself as to how many choices you give yourself to get a task done. All of your focus will usually be due to the following.
Satisfaction: Your satisfaction in the moment will determine all of the above. For me, this was the key to everything. The 4 steps are cyclical, and therefore puts everything into a never ending system of realizing that you are first and foremost in charge of your life. Here is how it works for me:
- In the beginning of my day, I choose to focus on how satisfied I am in life. I look around and Thank God for all the blessings I have around me and how fortunate I am. This in turn changes my focus for the day.
- Now that I am in the mindset of how blessed I am, my focus turns to looking at everything that is great around me. (As you can imagine, I am already in a better mood)
- With all the decisions I have to make for myself from the moment I wake up, my choices seem abundant and uplifting. I now see every choice available to me as a blessing.
- At this point in the process, it doesn’t take much to satisfy me. Since I have such a newly revived sense of being blessed, my choices are much different than they used to be. I used to make choices based on trying to get never ending satisfaction, now I make more choices to satisfy others. This doesn’t mean I’ve become completely selfless. I am still a selfish human being, but it just seems that my mental state has become a lot less “me focused” now that I have a such an awareness of how grateful I am for what I have. Turn on the local news for a few moments, and it can really make you realize how much tragedy is going on for others around you, and things could be a lot worse.
Be grateful…