Three Steps to Achieving Happiness by Beth Banning & Neill Gibson

Do you hear the phrases “self-love” or “loving yourself” and wonder what that really means or how to go about doing it? Are there things about yourself that you’re not sure you even like, never mind think that you could love? No matter where you are in your life, or what you may think about yourself, read on to find self love techniques that will bring more happiness and satisfaction to your life.

Whether you’re single, married, or divorced, the sooner you start loving yourself, the faster all of your other relationships will be filled with fun, closeness, caring and happiness. Why? Because what you focus your attention on grows. When you start noticing all the wonderful things about yourself, other people will have no choice but to see them too.

In this article, we will focus on the three beginning steps toward self-love and achieving true happiness.

Step one: Investigate your thinking. Believe it or not, the things that you think a/bout determine how you feel about yourself and everything else in your life. We are raised in a culture that teaches us to focus on what’s right and what’s wrong. When you’re always focusing on what’s wrong with yourself, you’re bound to feel bad. Practice investigating your thoughts by using your feelings as an alarm. The next time you feel uncomfortable in any way, try to identify what you were thinking about just before you started feeling uncomfortable.

Step two: Know what’s deeply important to you. The fastest way to achieve life-changing results is by discovering what’s most important to us. These things are hidden beneath the storm of feelings that we experience every day. Using step one, you have now identified what you were thinking about just before you started feeling uncomfortable. At this point, you could start asking yourself questions such as: “What is so important to me in this situation that makes me feel this way?”

For example, underneath profound sadness, there might be the regret of a dream lost. Hidden within confusion could be a strong desire for understanding. Beneath anger, there could be a need for effectiveness. When you can get beyond your feelings to what you value—what’s deeply important to you—you will start to notice wonderful qualities about yourself that you can enjoy and can easily learn to love.

Step three: Remember that you’re never alone. Although at times you may feel very lonely, once you learn to pause when you start to feel uncomfortable and identify what is most important to you beneath your feelings, you will find that you always have YOU. Using these self-love techniques you are guaranteed to find the best friend you’ve ever had and will be well on your way to mastering the true art of happiness.

Finding authentic happiness isn’t as impossible as it may sometimes seem. If you’d really like to boost your self-confidence and learn to consciously raise your self-esteem, sign up for our thought-provoking and motivational Weekly Action Tips eMail series at: http://www.FocusedAttention.com/cmd.php?ad=081030

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Article Source: Self Improvement Articles from PositiveArticles.Com

Awareness of mental health problems is constantly rising, making it easier for people to recognize the signs and know what help is available. Counselling is regarded as an effective form of treatment for many mental health issues.

The initial decision to take the plunge and accept help is undoubtedly one of the hardest parts of the whole process. However after this decision had been taken, a whole new set of questions can arise with regards to actually finding the counselor.

There are numerous issues to consider – practical and otherwise. What about, for example, location? Despite counsellors’ assured complete confidentiality people may prefer to see a counsellor that is perhaps outside their local area, but still in surroundings they are comfortable in.

And what guarantees that the counsellor is the real deal? There are no laws in the UK that govern counselling, so what’s to stop anyone setting up shop to listen to people’s problems? There are qualifications and professional bodies, but these can often be confusing and over-whelming.

Counselling can take many different approaches – from person-based to psychoanalytic, and it’s important to choose a counsellor with an approach the person will be comfortable with and respond to well.

Counselling Directory was set up to provide a simple, easy, and most importantly un-daunting way of connecting people that need help with the people that provide it. A comprehensive searching tool, the site allows postcode, town and country searches, and produces a list of counsellors registered in this area. Each counsellor has a profile, listing a bit about themselves, their approaches, what areas they deal with, and all their training, qualification and experience and fees.

The site shows which counsellors are registered/accredited with a professional body, and full profiles are only displayed after insurance and qualification documents are checked or membership with a professional body has been verified.

The site has also become a huge information bank – there are articles written by the counsellors, as well as comprehensive information on all kinds of distress – from depression to eating disorders to abuse, to help people identify their problems and become informed, not scared.

http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk

Wind and water are, first and foremost, natural elements (two of the five elements that comprise all of nature). Wind is the earth’s breath, and water is the invigorating lifeblood of everything that exists on our planet.

Both wind and water have tremendous energy that drives Feng Shui’s practices and techniques to fill your life with positive energies. Feng Shui, at its very core is a means of arranging the basic elements of life—and all the things that you surround yourself with on a daily basis— to create the optimal and harmonious flow of vital life energy, just like the flow of water and wind.

How Feng Shui works

Feng Shui is no magic. It is a collection of practical, time-tested solutions based on the fundamental properties of elements that are used to change the negative aspects and introduce the positive aspects of each element to your living environment—and change your life for the better.

Feng Shui has had a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe—and you can have its benefits work for you! By simply changing the interior of your home, changing the colors of your walls, or relocating the furniture in your bedroom, you can enjoy the positive effects of Feng Shui.

Feng Shui information – some Key Points

Good Feng Shui requires an open mind, heart and spirit.
Feng Shui releases negativity from your house and life. It opens up a whole new space within you for positive thoughts, love, contentment and prosperity. Don’t let negativity enter when you practice Feng Shui.
Holding onto negative emotions and past anger can only hinder you from making progress through Feng Shui and creating a wonderful future for yourself.

Practicing good karma is a cornerstone of Feng Shui. Be generous and give of yourself in order to receive in kind from the universe and others around you.
You are living a life that is ill-suited to you, your personality, your dreams, your family, your essential self…and your home is symbolic of this.

Feng Shui helps you to enhance your living space by changing one or more elements in the room. As you learn more about Feng Shui, you will begin to understand the significance of each and every practice that is related to Feng Shui.

By embracing Feng Shui, you embrace the fact that you deserve balance, harmony, and spiritual fulfillment. You deserve empowerment and clarity. So, let Feng Shui help you reach out and take hold of all those things—you, your life, and your future all stand to benefit immensely if you do!

Remember that Feng Shui is not only about changing your physical surroundings, but it is also about changing yourself from within. The Spiritual Feng Shui is a spiritual technique that transforms you at both physical and metaphysical level.

What is it that you desire? Often people do not have a clue what it is they want, they just know what they do not want. Now is a good time to evaluate your goals and determine the end result you want to achieve. Put your goals in writing and place them where you can see them throughout the day. Read them frequently to keep them fresh on your mind.

• Be inquisitive. Research and learn as much as you can on how you can achieve your goal. Use all possible resources such as books, CDs, courses and people. Yes, people. Talk to as many people as possible who are already successful in what you want to achieve. Ask, ask and ask some more about what they did to reach success. Do not limit your contacts to only the people you already know. Introduce yourself by phone or mail, explain your purpose for contacting them and ask for a tip. The worst thing that can happen is that they ignore you. The best thing that can happen is that they become your mentor and offer support and encouragement. Chances are you will receive at least one great tip from many of the people you contact. This method is the least expensive and most rewarding.

• Be unique. Next, take the ideas you learn, embellish them and come up with your own creative process. Think of how you can approach your goal in a way that no one else has. Dare to be different. Don’t be afraid to take risks. What do you have to loose? Write out a list showing the worst things that could happen and then list all of the best possible outcomes. Always maintain your concentration on your desired result.

• Be better than your competition. When you were a child and saw your older siblings or friends riding a bike (without training wheels), you didn’t look at their scraped knees and elbows and say, “Whoa, I could get hurt doing that.” Instead, you begged to try it for yourself. With a great deal of practice and often pain, you gradually learned how to maintain your balance. Before long you were trying to “out do” your friends with your speed or fancy tricks. When you fell, you would get back on and try again with even greater determination. From your very first effort, you believed in your mind that if you got back on, you would eventually learn to ride. I bet you even knew in your mind you would be the best in the neighborhood, in your school, in the state, in the world!

• Be positive. If you see obstacles before you, then you will also only see problems. If you have hesitations that you plan will not work, then it will not work. If you are influenced by the power of negative people, then you will never be any better than they are. Believe in yourself and what you are capable of achieving.

When your desire to succeed is stronger than the pain, fear or frustration of failing, there is no turning back. I challenge you to view your goals just like you did when you were a child before you learned about self doubt and negative criticism. Remember, anything is possible as long as you believe. Make a commitment that you will not let anything or anyone, including yourself stand in your way of reaching your goals.

No matter how much wealth we manage to accumulate in this world, it is virtually useless without good health. This is tied closely to the knowledge of our own mortality. Deep down, we all know that we only have a handful of decades on Earth and then it’s over.

In light of that, what becomes important then? That is indeed an interesting question. What is important cannot be money, because we can’t take it with us when we die. What is important can’t be our possessions because, once again, they are not going with us. Having money and possessions is very temporary. Those things cease to matter to us when we die.

Some turn to their relationships when they realize this. They feel that family and friends must be the most important thing then. Yet, we will lose contact with family and friends when we pass away too.

Some people die and then come back. They call this the near-death experience. Many of those people talk about what they saw in the state of death. They also talk about how they feel which is almost universally wonderful. There are a few that report going to a very bad place, but the majority feel good. They are free from the pain and suffering of their mortal bodies.

In the near-death experience, many talk about the life review process, where they see their entire lives displayed before them. The good things they do and the bad are right there. In addition they see how their actions and words affected others too. Apparently it can be quite painful to recognize how much we hurt others and caused others pain.

They also get to see the good things they did. I remember one woman who went through the life review process said that the most significant act in her entire life occurred when she was a little girl. She said that the most important action out of her entire life was holding a little flower in her hand and giving it unconditional love. That was it, out of her entire life that was deemed the most significant thing she ever did.

In light of that, we can conclude that what is important is not who we were but how well we treated others in this life. Therefore, when we contemplate our lives and set our goals, maybe it would be a good idea if we thought about others first.

Life is not temporary, but life on Earth is temporary. How are we going to face all those people who are watching what we do, when it is all over? Hopefully, we will have done things that we can be joyous about.

See the rose, not the thorns; see light, not the shadow; see the half-full glass, not the half-empty one.

Though one could be infinitely happy by just enjoying the nature and family and all the human-made things, there are still millions of people who are unhappy. In the developed countries there is the very fortunate circumstance of having both God-given and man-made things. Still a lot of people seem to be unhappy.

In the developing countries, where for millions there is a real scarcity of even basic needs, many people seem to be happy. There are some people who are engaged in difficult tasks and in warfare, and even incarcerated in prisons, and are still happy! We have just discussed the factors of happiness. Millions of people have them, still they are unhappy. There are millions of others who don’t have them, yet they are happy!

You would then say that the mere availability and abundance of God-given and human-made things is not enough. There is something else which should be right to be happy. Of course, it is our mind that must have the right attitude towards life for the ability to be happy.

Milton in Paradise Lost says,

‘The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’

One can give various examples of how mind can influence our body::

• Pavlov’s dog starts salivating at the sound of the bell without any food in sight.
• If we are tense we often get headache, backache, etc.
• Heart attacks are directly linked to worry and tension.
• Right mental attitude helps in curing many bodily maladies.
• By self-talk, motivation, and positive attitude we can become happy and successful.
• Through hypnosis one can have command over another person’s mind and body.
• Through meditation one can have a healthy body and extra sensory abilities.

The mind has extraordinary powers, and as far as happiness is concerned, it has the ultimate power. We should, therefore, have a positive attitude towards life. Instead of concentrating on bad things in life and people, we should concentrate on redeeming features in them.

We should not keep on thinking about past failures and bad experiences but be encouraged by our past success and good experiences. Similarly, we should not be unduly anxious about future as our anxiety is not going to have a positive effect, but we should plan and work hard for the future.

In whatever circumstances you are, you can never have total lack of God-given and man-made happiness. You cannot completely take away nature from somebody; you cannot take away all man-made things from somebody. Even if everything is taken, one’s family and friends are there.

One’s precious body is there. And, even if you chain somebody securely in a dungeon, one’s mind is free. One is free to be happy in one’s mind! Mind is difficult to be mastered by oneself, but it is impossible to be vanquished by anybody, any authority, or whatever conditions or situations.

Abraham Lincoln beautifully expressed it: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

BE HAPPY!

Use Your Unconscious Mind

Use your unconscious mind to do your problem solving. Start by outlining a problem in your mind before going to sleep. Then tell your brain to go to work. Albert Einstein had good luck with this technique, sometimes getting his “ah-ha” insights while shaving the next morning.

Instruct your mind to keep working on the problem while you do other things. There is more than we know going on inside our heads. If you first work on a problem, then move on to other things while waiting for and expecting a solution, an answer may come to you when you least expect it.

You can also try working on problems when you are in a drowsy state. This is usually an “Alpha” state, and can result in more creative solutions. This is one of the best problem solving strategies for artistic work.

A Systematic Problem Solving Strategy

Train yourself to solve problems with one or more techniques. Just use a technique for several weeks, and it should become a habit. Here are a few to try:

1. Assumption-challenging. If you are assuming you need a better or higher-paying job, ask “do I really need a better job?” You could get a raise, or somehow make the job you have better. Starting a business on the side might be an option too. Never let your assumptions limit the possible solutions.

2. Solve the parts. To buy a house is a big move that is really a bunch of small steps, which is true of many problems. Address the components of a problem individually, and it may not seem so overwhelming. It is easier to motivate yourself in this way.

3. Ask other people. Whether or not they have good ideas, this helps you be sure you’re not overlooking anything obvious.

4. Write the problem down. Find another way to express the problem and write that down. Keep writing down solutions and ideas that come to mind. Later you can pick the diamonds out of the dirt.

5. Change perspective. What if you were rich, poor, a child, a visitor from another planet? How would you see the problem from this new perspective? Einstein imagined riding on a beam of light, which lead to his theory of relativity, so this technique has been known to work.

There are dozens of good techniques you can use to solve problems. There are also other general methods, like clearing a space to work in, or alternating between intense analysis and intuitive daydreaming. However many ways there are, though, it is using them that counts. If used well, you only need a few good problem solving strategies.

We all had dreams of becoming something great, like a fireman, a teacher, or a rock star, just to name a few. Well, how did you do? Maybe you never aspired to be what you set out to be or said that you would become. But then again, things change. The older we get, our tastes change, our view of the world changes, even our goals change.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned during my career path is to do something you love to do. Why is this important? I feel that if you enjoy what you make a living at, you end up being happy in more ways than one. Life itself becomes much more interesting and fun.

You find yourself speaking passionately to others about your work. The experiences you have along the way become much more rewarding, and enrich your life in many ways. You meet fascinating people.

I know people who have turned favorite hobbies into small businesses, and have succeeded. Sure, they may have had to sacrifice a steady paycheck for their happiness, but not one of them either turned back or gave up. Their passion carried them through to success.

While no job or business is perfect, the important thing is to enjoy it, even learn from it. If you are unhappy in your current situation, why not take steps now to change it? Somewhere out there is a job or business that is perfect for you.

If you are already there, I applaud you. If not, realize that it may take some time to figure out what you really want to do, and even more time to actually get there. That’s all right! I can tell you from experience that finding and doing what you love is absolutely worth it, every step of the way. All of the research, training, and hands-on experience has made me a stronger, happier person. Feeling in charge of my own destiny…well, there just is no greater feeling.

Do what you love, and love what you do, whatever that may be. You’ll be happier for it, trust me. I promise you will never look back.

With the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we keep motivated? Try on the tips I prepared from A to Z…

A – Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

B – Believe in your self, and in what you can do.

C – Consider things on every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.

D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once, twice, more than thrice before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation as your steering wheel.

E – Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.

F – Family and Friends – are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t loose sight of them.

G – Give more than enough. Where does motivation and self improvement take place at work? At home? At school? When you exert extra effort in doing things you get extra results.

H – Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment, but these little stars will be your driving force.

I – Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to get the best of you. Stay away from toxic people – the kind of friend who hates to hear about your success.

J – Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

K – keep trying no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, eventually he sees a harsh life finally clearing out, paving the way to self improvement.

L – Learn to love your self. Now isn’t that easy?

M – Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into work clothes.

N – Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.

O – Open your eyes. People should learn the horse attitude and horse sense. They see things in 2 ways – how they want things to be, and how they should be.

P – Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us learn repertoire and ways on how can we recover from our mistakes.

Q – Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?

R – Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before others will get on their feet and try to push us around. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.

S – Stop procrastinating.

T – Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement.

U – Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and to be understood second.

V – Visualize it. Motivation without vision is like a boat on dry land.

W – Want it more than anything. Dreaming means believing. And to believe is something that is rooted out from the roots of motivation and self improvement.

X – X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to put on “extras” on your life like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.

Y – You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to spend it once.

Z – Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!

About Self Interest

We are self interested. When we sacrifice for others, even this is motivated by our own desires. Those desires include good feelings and wanting to see or make the world the way we want it to be. Forget this, and we become bitter trying to “do the right thing.” In order to avoid this bitterness that comes with “duty”, we need to see how being a good person and doing the right thing is just self interest.

We can also point out the self-interest of others when we want to correct their behavior. Tell a man he’s wrong, and it isn’t usually enough to change his behavior. It’s better to show him his true interest – that behaving in a better way is better for HIM. Don’t forget the normal and healthy self-interest in dealing with others AND with yourself.

About Mistakes

Salvador Dali said, “Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.” Maybe you see this as negativity, but recognizing the truth is never a negative act. We all make mistakes. The greatest man or woman alive – whoever he or she is – has done some stupid things.

This isn’t an attack on human greatness, but a recognition that it isn’t dependent on doing things perfectly. Perfectionists certainly suffer for their demands upon themselves, while others hesitate to act for fear of mistakes. Accept that making mistakes is normal, and don’t dwell on the the possibility or the reality of those mistakes. As Lao Tzu says, “Do your work, then step back – The only path to serenity.”

About Learning

Our mistakes give us a chance to learn, and so avoid even bigger mistakes. Of course, we also can learn from our successes, and from the successes of others. Why not view mistakes and successes – both our own and others – as the great opportunities they are. Just seize that chance to learn more and so live better.

About Change

Probably you have seen people that appear to learn nothing from their mistakes, right? Haven’t you also known and read about those who turned their lives around? A less important truth is that people often don’t change. The far more important truth to remember, and the most important of these enduring truths, is that we CAN change.