November 6th, 2013
4 Surprising Things That Are Preventing Your Happiness
Just popping in to give you a little Wildheart Update and to pass along some tips on how to get the happy back in your life!
The doors for Wildheart enrollment have been closed for about a month now while I’ve been preparing behind the scenes for the grand re-opening which will be happening SO soon!
Since we’re still a few days away from all of that, I wanted to give you some helpful advice on some common happiness killers.
As a life coach, people are always coming to me wanting to find happiness. And it seems that they all think happiness is something that happens once they GET something. Whether it be a new relationship, more money, or that business they’ve always dreamed of getting off the ground.
And the more people I coach, the more I realize that happiness really isn’t about GETTING anything.
But rather, it’s about releasing the things that aren’t working, to make room for the things that will.
Here are 4 things you might be hanging onto that are (very likely) getting in the way of your happiness.
1) That Toxic Relationship
I’m not gonna lie.
Love and relationships are the most important things on the planet.
They have the power to completely change our lives, make us happier than we’ve ever been, but they also have the power to completely take over our lives in a bad way.
Everything in our lives is connected. If things are going terribly in your love life, it’s going to spill over into business, fun, family and happiness.
And since relationships tend to have more power over us than anything else, if things are not going well in your love life, the rest of your life is going to suffer tremendously.
We all know when we’re in a toxic relationship (and yes…a toxic relationship is different than just having some quarrels). There’s a pit in our bellies. Or a general feeling of “this is not right.”
You will try to talk yourself out of it. And say things like “I just know this relationship is here to grow me,” or “I can’t leave…what would I do with the (house, kids, dogs, parakeets, whatever).” or “I will leave WHEN x, y, or z.”
But these are all excuses and preventing you from living the life you’re truly supposed to live.
The sooner you leave a toxic relationship, the closer you’ll be to finding happiness.
2) Your Bad Attitude
We are all powerful beings and we create our lives. When we think things are shitty and everything is going wrong, guess what? We’re going to find that everything is shitty and we’re going to look for the things that are going wrong.
Now…I understand why you do this. It’s the same reason I do.
We, as humans, are much more used to and (somehow) much more comfortable with things not being very good.
Think about it…think about the last time someone asked you how you were doing? How did you respond?
My guess is that you rattled off 10 things that are going wrong in your life: The kids, your work, your boyfriend, all the things that are stressing you out.
The more focus we have on things that aren’t going well, the harder it is to see the things that are, and the more we do this, the less happy we’ll be.
Dont know how to do this? No worries. That’s what the Wildheart Revolution is for.
3) Your Bad Habits
How often is it that you experience the same exact problem?
Like, “Here we go AGAIN! This guy is exactly the same as the last guy I dated.” or “I didn’t write a blog post today AGAIN, I’m such a loser.”
If you want to see change, you have to change the way you’re doing things.
I know this is easier said than done, but at the same time, I actually think it’s much more simple to do than you think.
Whenever I am getting the “oh great…not this AGAIN” feeling…this is what I do:
a) Recognize what pattern I’m currently in
b) Think of how I would normally react in that situation
c) Do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I would normally do
I swear…enough times of doing this, you will form a new habit that serves you much better than the old one.
4) Your Same Old Story
I don’t know why we do this, but humans LOVE to hang on to their old stories. This is what that looks like:
“Well I have never been able to complete a task. I mean I just start things and never finish them. And it’s always been this way. I remember being in the third grade and starting softball, then quitting. And then I started dance and quit. I’m just a quitter. That’s how I’ve always been and probably how I’ll always be.”
And you’ll tell this same story to yourself and others over and over and over again. It’s on replay in your mind.
And the more you hang on to it, the more you’re going to a) see it play out in your life; and b) create it in your life.
This story that you’re telling yourself is causing you pain.
Think about it. If you truly believe that you’re some quitter loser who never follows through, how likely is it that you’ll start something you love and continue doing it?
Not likely. Because at the first sign of familiarity, at the first sign that this is following a similar to path to all those other times in the path, you’ll want to react the same way.
And you will. And then you’ll feel bad about yourself. And feed the story. And you’ll be right back in the cycle.
One way to get rid of a story is to create a new one.
You can do this:
a) Find out what story you’ve been telling yourself
b) Look for the evidence that disproves it
c) Create a new story based on all that evidence
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -Barack Obama
I know these things may seem impossible to implement. After all, you’ve had your entire life to form this way of being.
But there’s some GOOD NEWS for you!
It’s actually easier than you think to change. And I’ve discovered the formula.
Change = Learning + Action + Support.
And the even better news is that that’s exactly why I created the Wildheart Revolution
To be the place where you learn awesome lessons that make your life better, have actionable steps to see them play out in your life, and be among a group of people who are invested in your success.
The Revolution is currently closed for enrollment but make sure you get on the waiting list so you know first thing when it opens up.