Happiness is all about little things in life...

Happiness...show it !

http://youtu.be/BNbF8wpwP6A

Five Strategies on Money and Happiness

Five Strategies on Money and Happiness by Naomi Simson

Six RedBallooners Happy at our Port Douglas retreat

Last weekend RedBallooners were invited to our end of financial year celebration and kick off meeting in Port Douglas. When asked by friends “What was it like?” The only answer I had was – ‘joyous’.

The excitement was palpable as soon as we met early on Friday morning. The laughter infectious, the camaraderie obvious – the sense of connection was clear.

This sense of team does not happen by accident – we work hard together, we push the boundaries – set the bar high – and then we celebrate! And on the cycle goes.

It is pretty special to be able to get away. There was plenty of work involved – but that shared sense of experience  – and laughter ensues. It is as they say ‘priceless’.

So I read with interest this week : Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending.   We have heard since we were small that‘Money can’t buy happiness’. However these social scientists suggest that used in the right way money can improve our sense of well being.

Here are the five main points they make:

1. Time is the only commodity that every person on the planet was given equally… (we have differing life span’s of course – but we each have 24 hours a day at our disposal and how we choose to spend it can greatly determine our experience of happiness). If you were to use money to ‘Buy Time’ ie how is the purchase going to ensure you are using your time to do the things you want to do. “Time Affluence”. Thinking about time- rather than money – which means being mindful about ‘spending’ time on activities that promote well-being , like being with friends / family and volunteering.
2. Make it a treat: having too much of a good thing (ie when did party food start becoming everyday food)– Abundance is the enemy of appreciation. Have delightful things occasionally to really appreciate them. The relationship between income and happiness is weaker than many people expect, perhaps because affluent people do the things that delight them all the time, ie not too much of a good thing.
3. Bigger is not always better. Money can by bigger cars houses and toys… but there is not evidence to suggest that these make people happier. What is the point in having a large home if you have no one to share it with you? “Remarkably there is almost no evidence that buying a home – or a newer nicer home – increases happiness. People who spend their money on enhancing their leisure activities report significantly greater satisfaction with their lives.”
4. Do more have less. “The research shows experiences provide more happiness than material goods in part because experiences are more likely to make us feel connected to others,” … “Understanding why experiences provide more happiness than material goods can also help us to choose the most satisfyingkinds of experiences.”… “Collecting memorable experiences, even at the expense of momentary enjoyment, seems to hold particular appeal for those who care about using their time productively”….  “The length of an experience has little to do with the pleasure people derive from it.” [As the founder of RedBalloon of course I was going to bring this to your attention – and clearly last weekend that is what it was all about for our team... no one will every forget the day we all bundled onto a plane from Sydney to Cairns...]
5. Invest in others. Volunteer, help, listen, assist, give, donate – there are so many ways to invest in others. What about simply friendship! If people have a friend at work they are far more likely to enjoy their job. I delighted in really getting to know my colleagues warts and all on the weekend… there is nothing like snorkeling the great barrier reef together to get a sense of friendship. (You know that moment when you take off your mask and your face is swollen and as friends you all have a great laugh – as you compare notes on what you have seen under the sea.)

It might be a little effort for the team to put the weekend together but seriously the value of our shared experience is endless and forever.

Sometimes it takes MORE than medication...

SMALL things make a BIG difference...

9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

By Geoffrey James 

These minor changes in your daily routine will make a major difference in your life and career.

Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself.

With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:

1. Start each day with expectation.

If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: "something wonderful is going to happen today." Guess what? You're probably right.

2. Take time to plan and prioritize.

The most common source of stress is the perception that you've got too much work to do.  Rather than obsess about it, pick one thing that, if you get it done today, will move you closer to your highest goal and purpose in life. Then do that first.

3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.

I'm not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. Your gift can be your smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of politeness, even a friendly nod. And never pass beggars without leaving them something. Peace of mind is worth the spare change.

4. Deflect partisan conversations.

Arguments about politics and religion never have a "right" answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can't control. When such topics surface, bow out by saying something like: "Thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt."

5. Assume people have good intentions.

Since you can't read minds, you don't really know the "why" behind the "what" that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people's weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.

6. Eat high quality food slowly.

Sometimes we can't avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. Even so, at least once a day try to eat something really delicious, like a small chunk of fine cheese or an imported chocolate. Focus on it; taste it; savor it.

7. Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

8. Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

9. End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

Five Master Steps for Planning an Extraordinary Life

Most people are stressed because they’re keeping all the things they need to do in their heads. So they buy planners or download apps to get organized, and it’s a “eureka” experience because the simple action of capturing to-dos relieves stress initially.

But without a true system, a process of turning action items into the results you desire, the stress will ultimately return. To create a fulfilled life in which you’re achieving your goals, you’ll need the five master steps of planning:

Step 1: Capture Your Ideas, Wants and Dreams

Document the ideas, meetings, communications and results that need to be accomplished. In this step, you’re simply getting the ideas out of your head and onto paper (or into your computer or mobile device) quickly. When you first do this, it feels good. But if you stop here, you’ll just end up with a large to-do list—and stress will start to build up.

Step 2: Create a Results-Focused, Purpose-Driven, Massive Action Plan (RPM)

To create an RPM plan, ask and answer these questions:

1) What do I want? What’s my outcome? What’s the specific result I’m after?

2) Why do I want it? What’s my purpose?

3) What’s my massive action plan to get it done?

The secret to effective planning is to create the focus and emotions that produce results by organizing your objectives into specific results. This is your RPM plan. You’ll likely generate a small set of results you’re committed to achieve for the day or week. Next, take the items on your to-do list and organize them underneath each result (e.g. outcomes related to your health, business, family, etc.). Your focus will shift from the many action items you need to do to the four to six results that you’re committed to achieve.

Step 3: Commit

Now create blocks of time to work on specific outcomes. You might say, “7–8 AM, I’m working on the result of creating health. 9 AM–noon I’m working on the result of increasing my sales 5%.” This is key: If you don’t block out time for these things first, other distractions will take over.

Step 4: Schedule

It’s only after you’ve committed blocks of time to your important results that you should schedule things that must happen at a specific time, like meetings, classes, doctor appointments, etc.

Step 5: Complete, Measure and Celebrate

Now it’s time to take action: Complete the tasks needed to achieve your result, measure whether you’re on track, and celebrate your outcome. (If you don’t celebrate your results, you’ll lose the motivation to keep following through.) Instead of focusing on what you did today, focus on what you achieved!

For more strategies and tools to maximize your time, visit http://www.tonyrobbins.com/more-time.

“What’s talked about is a dream. What’s envisioned is exciting. What’s planned becomes possible. What’s scheduled is real.”

—Anthony Robbins

in8

Happiness...!

Faith...

3 Common Obstacles

3 Common Obstacles That Keep People Stuck in Perfectionism, and How to Overcome Them

by HENRIK EDBERG

Image by Mike Bailey-Gates (license).

“Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.”
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it.”
Edith Schaeffer

One of the most common and destructive thought habits but also one that is often celebrated in some form in society is perfectionism.

I have had many battles with it. Many of you have emailed me about it throughout the years.

Perfectionism can be very destructive. It can drain one’s self-esteem and become so overwhelming that it gets you stuck. And so little action is taken and few things are ever finished.

So what can you do about it? How can you replace it and minimize it in your life?

In this article I’ll share three obstacles I have faced, how I have overcome them and how that has helped me to raise my own self-esteem and minimize the perfectionism.

Just going along with the perfectionism and not seeing the full extent of it.

If you just move along in the same old rut and don’t question the perfectionism and what it is doing to you then it will likely stay with you.

And that goes for any negative habit. You have to see it from a broader perspective. You have to see and feel what the real negative impact of it has been and will be to be able to change.

This often happens naturally at some point in people’s lives when they have had enough or a crisis hits and making a change becomes inevitable.

But you can get a broader view and wake-up call today if you like too.

Here’s what you do. Ask yourself:

• How will my life look in 5 years if I continue to stay on the same perfectionist path as now?
• How will life likely become worse for me and maybe even for the people around me?

It may be uncomfortable but try to see the negative consequences as vividly as you can in your mind to kickstart your motivation to get going for that positive change.

Try to not just to see the future as detailed and as vividly as you can but also to find your very personal reason(s) for making the change.

For example, minimizing the perfectionism will help you to improve your self-esteem. That is great. But to really find the heart of your motivation keep looking for a few more minutes for the more personal answer.

That answer could be that by finally getting a handle on the perfectionism your current or future relationship with a partner could become more relaxed and happy. Or maybe you want to make this change to not have to fear that you’ll transfer an unhealthy and self-esteem damaging habit to your daughter or son.

The habit of comparing yourself to other people.

When you compare yourself to someone else then you may feel good for a while. You are in better shape, have a nicer car or house or a better social life than someone else.

But if you do that comparison often then it becomes very hard to not start to compare yourself almost automatically in a negative way too. You may discover that someone at work else has an even cooler car than you. That the neighbor’s new boyfriend is in even better shape than you. That someone else makes more money than you.

And now you don’t feel so good anymore. And since there is always someone that is better than you at most things in the world this becomes a habit that may make you feel inferior no matter how well you do.

What you can do instead is to compare yourself to yourself. It won’t work every time but little by little – if you remind yourself of the benefits of doing this – you can replace the old habit.

When you feel the need to compare yourself and your progress to other people and their progress in some way then remind yourself of how it will hurt your self-esteem in the long run. And then take a minute or two to compare yourself to yourself instead. See how far you have come.

Appreciate the effort you have put in and be inspired by the small and bigger things you have accomplished so far.

An environment of inhuman standards.

Emotions are contagious. So is perfectionism.

So one of the smartest and most effective things you can do is to shape your environment to lessen the influence of perfectionism.

Take small steps and rearrange your world so that it becomes more and more supportive of you and of human standards rather than perfect standards.

Reduce the perfectionism in your world by reducing or cutting out the media sources that every week try to reinforce it in you. Read magazines, blogs, books and watch TV-shows and movies with kinder and more realistic expectations that resonate with you.

Spend less time with nervously perfectionist people. And spend more time with people who are trying to improve themselves and/or are living a good life in a positive, healthy and relaxed way.

The surprising truth about what motivates us...

Letters of Gratitude...

A little ANGEL !

It’s Good to Be a Kid

It’s Good to Be a Kid

12/5/12 |by DR. WAYNE W. DYER

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. When you watch children playing, notice how totally involved they are in what they’re doing, how they run everywhere they go. Notice how they are oblivious to future problems almost as if they have given themselves permission to be free and they show it by becoming totally absorbed in their play. To be more childlike, you don’t have to give up being an adult. The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously. Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.

Here’s what kids know how to do best:

Laugh!

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better. They will go out of their way to linger with anyone who makes them laugh, who can go along with their jokes.

Keep Fantasy Alive

Children love to dream, to make up stories, use their imaginations—and so would you if you’d let yourself. Remember how you loved to draw, make up verses, or songs, hear stories, make up your own games, wander aimlessly into your fantasy excursions with anyone who was willing to listen or participate? That rich fantasy life was not only great fun but also one of the healthiest aspects of your life as a whole. All of life’s best realities start with “childlike” fantasies.

Be Spontaneous

Notice how children are willing to try anything on a moment’s notice. The child inside you wants to be impulsive and adventuresome, without always having to plan things in advance. Spontaneity is in many ways the key to all childlike behavior. That ability to stop suddenly by the roadside when something interesting catches your eye leads directly to childlike immediacy and “wonder in the face of the world.”

Accept the World as It Is (Be Trusting)

When the infant comes into the world, it has no thought that the world can or should be any different from what it is. The infant just opens its eyes in wonder and fascination at what is out there and makes its way in that world as best it can. The child inside of you knows how to take things as they come, how to deal most effectively and happily with everything and everyone it encounters on this planet. If you can recapture that childlike essence of your being you can stay “forever young at heart.”

These glorious childlike qualities that can help you enjoy your life each and every day are no further from you than your fingers are from your hands. They are an inalienable part of you. If you really love that child within you, and really care to be a child again in the ways I’m talking about, you cannot help but be at peace with yourself.

When you have inner peace, you can do just about anything. Give yourself more of that childlike inner peace today, by letting yourself be that spontaneous, in-the-moment, fun-loving child again. Or, as Friedrich Schiller put it, “Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.”

NO more Excuses...

The Story of a Father's Love

Simple way to Success...

YOUR...Journey!

The Key to Happiness

I came across is very interesting article by Brian Tracy...

Your ability to achieve your own happiness is the key measure of your success, of how well you are doing as a person.

You learn the key to happiness that has been the same through all of history. You learn how to dispel the two myths that may be holding you back and how to achieve more happiness in everything you do.

1. Dedicate Yourself to Your Best Talents

The key to happiness is this: dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do, and doing it better and better in the service of a cause that is greater than yourself.

This is a big statement and a big commitment. Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest. In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life.

2. Please Yourself First

In Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano is asked why he is so intensely individualistic and unconcerned with the opinions and judgments of others. He replies with these wonderful words: "I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things."

Your happiness likewise depends upon your ability to please at least yourself in all things. You can be happy only when you are living your life in the very best way possible. No one can define happiness for you. Only you know what makes you happy. Happiness is an inside job.

3. Your Happiness is Up to You

The biggest myth about happiness is when people say that it is not legitimate or correct for you to put your happiness ahead of everyone else's. Throughout my life, I've met people who have said that it is more important to make other people happy than it is to make yourself happy. This is nonsense.

The fact is that you can't give away to anyone else what you don't have for yourself. Just as you can't give money to the poor if you don't have any, you can't make someone else happy if you yourself are miserable.

The very best way to assure the happiness of others is to be happy yourself and then to share your happiness with them. Suffering and self-sacrifice merely depress and discourage other people. If you want to make others happy, start by living the kind of life and doing the kind of things that make you happy.

Action Exercises

Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, define for yourself the activities that you really love and enjoy, at home and work, and then organize your life so you do more of them.

Second, believe in yourself and trust your own feelings. Then, please at least yourself in all things.

Third, determine what it is that you do that brings the most happiness to others and then organize your life so that you can do more of it.

Show Gratitude and Pay it forward...!