Applied Happiness Coaching

This is almost trivially simple, but it got me thinking. Honestly, how hard can we possibly make it for ourselves to be happy or find happiness these days? We stress out over the biggest and smallest things, and it seems like it’s getting harder and harder to find solace or peace in these modern, go-go-go times. 

Last night I was part of a Holiday Bazaar / Ladies Night at a local country club – representing Applied Happiness and the Hypnosis I do. It was fantastic. I met wonderful people, and made some really great connections with people that wanted nothing more than to just connect and be happy with it. I even ran into an old friend and got the chance to catch up a little.  It made me really happy to be connect and doing what I love. I also learned that a fair amount of the guests were stressed out and looking for things that elevate their happiness. 

So the “short n’ sweet” of it is to follow the credo in the image above. For the next seven days, give it your best shot to appreciate more, accept more, love more, feel more, smile more, listen more, and do more.  In fact, doing more is paramount to the evolution of us as a species. With that, I’m adding one more quick exercise to this.

Learn something new over the next seven days. Learn something completely different.  Then teach it to someone else. You’ll be blown away by how good it makes you feel to learn something new and teach it to another. I promise.

Learn it (watch it) –> Do it –> Teach it

Follow that pattern and let me know how it goes for you!

Share your comments below.  What simple thing makes you happy?

Technorati Tags: appreciation, awareness, being bold, gratitude, happiness, inspiration, lessons, motivation, personal power, positive thinking, positivity, reflection, wisdom

I was reading an article in Psychology Today last night regarding Self-Sabotage (I’d include the link, but the issue just arrived and there’s no mention of it on the PT site yet), and I coincidentally notice a lot of it in my life recently.  Like the ebb and flow of life itself, doubt and self-sabotage come and go in waves. One week we’re operating on pure power – like the fire inside broke through our cracks and we’re burning to reach our goals.  The next week we’re discouraged, so we find something that “comforts” us – 90% of the time that comfort ends up derailing our progress.  The derailment makes giving up look that much more appealing.

In this light, I went searching for what people use, read, watch, and do to stay motivated in the face of challenges. I stumbled onto some amazing images, and I’d like to share them here for you all to enjoy.  I think I’ll make this a regular column here. “Get Inspired” is a great piece to make recurring, right

What images or quotes do you find keep you motivated? Do you have a favorite? Share yours in the comments below!

Technorati Tags: affirmations, attitude, awareness, being bold, clearing doubt, dream, faith, goals, happiness, inspiration, motivation, perception, personal power, positive thinking, reflection, resistance, success, wisdom

The challenge has been set forth over at www.blakehammerton.com – my personal site for Applied Happiness Coaching (and hypnosis). The challenge is to be an everyday hero for 5 days (Wednesday through Sunday) and report back.  I invite you all to stand up for the common man, and practice acts of selflessness, kindness, courage and integrity.

This video blew my mind earlier this week, and it prompted the Everyday Hero Challenge.  I’m going to consider this a trial-run of the challenge. If it gets good reviews in the comments and on facebook, I’ll make it a regular event with prizes and awards.

So head over here and read about the challenge. Then leave your examples, thoughts, and heroic stories in the comments there!

Peace, Love, and a million successes to you!

Blake

Technorati Tags: appreciation, attitude, awareness, being bold, coaching, goals, gratitude, inspiration, lessons, personal power, reflection, success, teaching, wisdom

Benny Gold: Stay Gold from hypebeast.tv on Vimeo.

Today’s inspiration comes from Vimeo (I know there have been a lot of videos lately) and focuses on Benny Gold.  He’s a NYC designer that started his own brand because it was something he loved. He felt the passion for his own creative expression, so he followed it – through the boredom of working life, and the struggles of being so meticulous. The message here: If you find something you’re passionate about, and love doing, don’t stop driving toward it. You’ll make it. Guaranteed.

Peace, Love, and a million successes to you all.

Blake

Technorati Tags: appreciation, attitude, attraction, being bold, business, clearing doubt, dream, faith, goals, inspiration, lesson, motivation, personal power, success, wisdom

A lot has happened in the last month (I deeply apologize for my absence, by the way). One recurring theme for me has been the struggle I see other people having with the almost universal truths of life. They’re hard, but they certainly don’t mean the end of the world as we know it! I’ve worked with clients and companies in the last 30 days that really just needed to be sat down and told “how it is” for their own good. After doing so, I discovered that it was invigorating for us both. Without further delay, I want to present 10 hard truths in life.

1. You Cannot Fight Reality / Nature - It is none of your business how trees grow, how the sun rises and sets, or which way the wind blows – we’d feel pretty silly arguing with nature, right?  Yet we feel completely justified telling people (both those we know, and those we don’t know) what they should and shouldn’t do with their lives.  The reality is that people and nature are going to carry on with or without your input.  What purpose does it serve to spin your wheels trying to change everyone and everything around you?  Hell, I’m exhausted just thinking about it!
   
2. Someone Will Always Have More – That’s right, somebody will always have more, be more, or do more than you.  Get over it.  There are 7 billion people on the planet.  It was more than bound to happen.  The silver lining to this hard truth is that your desires are unique in what they will bring you.  For example, someone else may have more money, but you have more time to spend doing what you enjoy.  Maybe that wealthy socialite you envy hates what he does for a living, or is stretched so thin for time, he envies you!
   
3. You Are Going to Fail – No kidding, it happens.  Life is about experience and the lessons that come out of each one.  You’re going to totally bomb certain activities and skills once or twice.  Some things you may excel in, while others you might struggle or fail miserably.  Understand the key point to remember through all of this: you failed, but you are not a failure. Humans are mistake machines!  Hooray for being human!
   
4. Some People Will Love You… Some People Will Not - You cannot please everyone.  If you would, please read that again.  Did you reread it?  No?  That displeases me.  So what!  If you set out to please everyone you come in contact with, you’re going to find your life is much, much harder than you could ever have imagined.  Expectations are frivolously high at times, and there truly isn’t anything you can do to satisfy everyone all the time.  If someone doesn’t love you, it doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person or unlovable; it means that person doesn’t love you.  That 1 of 7,000,000,000 people on Earth doesn’t love you.  That’s billion, my friend.  You’re still loved.
   
5. Nobody Can Change Your Life Like You Can – As a coach and inspirational speaker, I completely advocate the application of tools and resources available from the self-help and healing industries, but I cannot stress enough that not even the greatest resource will help you if you don’t step up and take action. A great example is the Lottery.  People in debt win the lottery, change their lives immediately, only to end up in exactly the same debt a few years later.  Why?  They let the resources make surface changes, but the core was still the same.  When you set out to change your life, your success rate is exponentially higher than if you decide that (fill in the blank) can/will change your life.
   
6. Nobody Thinks About You as Often as You Do – Or as harshly.  We are our biggest, most unforgiving critics. We’re also blessed with such a detailed memory – bringing up regrets and mistakes we feel we made from years ago.  When you hesitate before taking action because you worry what others might think, remember it won’t make a lick of difference to them by the following week – maybe even the following day!  We all make up stories about how we think other people see us.  As an experiment, write down some names and how you think they view you on one sheet of paper.  On a second sheet, write those same names, but ask them how they see you.  Compare those answers and see just how judgmental you are to yourself.
   
7. None of This Will Matter Tomorrow – Have you woken up the morning after a rough, emotional night and felt completely different about it?  Have you ever felt (maybe even a little) like the world was crashing down around you one night, and the next day you felt more grounded and in control?  The gossip, drama, relationship quarrels, and heated emotions you feel today won’t matter tomorrow.  See point #8 for more…
   
8. Your Life Really is One-Day-at-a-Time – This is a hard truth because we all seem to plan, plan, plan for the future and worry, worry, worry about the past. You cannot do anything about the opportunity you feel you missed 10 years ago. Let it go. Likewise, planning obsessively for the future is equally as paralyzing.  You have today to make choices and experience those triumphs, mistakes, successes, and failures. You can reflect on the past to extract a lesson or two, but regretting and worrying is a heinous waste of your time and human potential. If you plan to have one amazing day at a time, you’ll get much more out of life.
9. Yes, Sometimes it Really is You – This one is hard to take for some people.  Let’s be honest here, some of us keep getting into situations and relationships where bad or unpleasant things happen, and we blame everything and everyone else.  Please take a seat for this next sentence. “It’s not me, it’s you – Let’s not be friends.”  The truth is, patterns don’t lie.  If you have a history of attracting these men/women/animals/dead-end jobs/bad-luck, it’s your history and your problem.  Before jumping into the blame-game, take a look at your pattern.  I’ll bet if you change something you’re doing, feeling, or attracting, you’ll change everything else. Please see #5 for instructions.
   
10. By God, You’ve Actually Got to Do The Work – If you want things to happen, you have to take some action.  Nobody wants you to succeed like you do, and nobody is going to care if you don’t make it happen.  Life will go on, the seasons will change, and the world will keep going without you.  Wishing, hoping, intending, or praying for great things is a nice emotional action but won’t get you what you want.  Again, we turn to the Lottery example.  You can lay awake and dream about winning the lotto, praying every night for it, and hoping you’re the next multimillionaire, but if you never buy a ticket you don’t stand a chance.

I know these truths can be a little harsh, but you’re not doing yourself any favors by ignoring them. I present these out of love.  I love the truth that we can have, do, or be anything our heart desires. I also love that some of you will take great action steps in your life.  I love to hear about them!  If you have other truths of life from your own opinion or experience, please feel free to post them in the comments below!

Peace, Love, and a Million successes to you!

Blake

Technorati Tags: attitude, awareness, being bold, judgment, lessons, perception, personal power, reflection, truths, wisdom

Daniel Pink is one of the greatest speakers on motivation on Earth. It’s not so much about getting people motivated, as it is about the science of human potential and what motivates us to tap into that. We’ve all worked a job we didn’t like in some form or another, and I’m willing to bet one of the attributes we didn’t like was the incentive structure. This is a phenomenal talk on motivation in the corporate environment – why traditional incentive structures don’t work. It’s animated so enjoy, learn, and get motivated!

Technorati Tags: Autonomy, awareness, being bold, Daniel Pink, inspiration, motivation, personal power, Purpose, teaching, video, wisdom

Jay Shafer decided one day to remove the clutter from his world and start over.  He designed and built an 89 square foot home, and began living there. Leaving the ‘everything big’ lifestyle behind him, his life transformed. I love this story. It reminds me how frivolous some of our attachment to material goods can be. Does anyone really need a 20,000 square foot mansion? Maybe they do. I don’t know anyone with one, so I can’t just come out and ask. I’ll update this post if I ever find that answer.

This begs the question of what do we really need in our lives to be happy. It’s not so much about becoming a minimalist and throwing out everything but toilet paper and three outfits – that’s a little too frightening for most of us. Instead, it’s about removing the “noise” and “stuff” with which we all seem to fill our lives. It’s about pulling away from owning things just to own things.

Personally, I remember being younger and spending money on a whole bunch of things I found cool. Now I can’t remember a single thing I got that was important. And I certainly don’t have any of this cool “stuff” to show nowadays. Why did it all disappear? Was it not too expensive and therefore disposable? Was it simply misplaced? Stolen? What happened to all my cool stuff?!?!

It wasn’t truly important to me, so it didn’t stick around. Because it truly wasn’t that important, I didn’t miss it, and I didn’t replace it. Imagine all the things in your life you could sell off, throw out, or donate – stuff you really don’t need, won’t miss, and won’t replace if gone one day. The minimalist credo is similar to “waste not, want not” and is a great place to start.

This becomes MUCH easier after a values exercise. You get a solid sense of your values, what motivates you, and what you need to move forward. You can then ask what this “thing” brings you that you cannot be without. If it doesn’t fill that space inside you, it really doesn’t have to fill that space in your house.

Try your own version of living little. See how it goes, and let us know!

Peace, Love, and a million successes to you all!

Blake

Technorati Tags: appreciation, attitude, clearing, goals, inspiration, lesson, personal power, reflection, teaching, wisdom

Brian Mattocks over at Rent-A-Smart-Guy has a great post on setting real, achievable goals. There are several variations of the S-M-A-R-T acronym, but this is the original. Read on!

“Many people use goals to drive to a more ideal future. Some goals can’t easily be achieved because they don’t seem to convert well into the SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achieveable, Realistic, Time-Bound) goals criteria. Desires like new skills, future beliefs, or perspectives are often very difficult to get to a level of specificity or measurability. Don’t fret. There is a simple question based process to get you to some very specific objective goals.

“Objective Goals typically fall into the category of SMART goals. Most objective goals can be specific, measurable, achieveable, reasonable, and time bound. Such goals often relate to objective properties in the real world that you can appreciate with your senses. In many ways, setting these goals are easy – because they make sense. It is also easy to get help with objective goals.

“Subjective desires on the other hand are much more difficult to work with. Subjective desires often relate to feelings or perspectives on a situation or problem. Desires like “I want to get better at handling stress” become much more difficult to work with in SMART terms. Others such as  ”I want to have more self confidence” are just as challenging.

“Fortunately, there is a simple series of questions we can use to turn Subjective desire statements into Objective goal statements and make them easier to work with. Here they are:

1. What would different if you achieved your goal? This is a good question because it helps you get to specific behaviors and circumstances you can work on or create. Each of these statements of difference help to describe a potential objective goal or action step.
2. What am I doing now that I should start/stop/continue doing to help achieve my desire?
   In the same way, this question can help you get to specific actions or behaviors that you can change to achieve your desire. Each of these start/stop/continue items may be made an objective goal very easily. For example if you want to stop thinking judgmental thoughts, simply start counting them. Such a goal might be worded “I want to think 15 less negative thoughts a week by the end of the quarter.”
3. What is the emotion/need behind the visible desire?
   Often times, what we think we want is a “desire symptom” of a deeper emotional need, or desire. For example, many people want to lose weight in order to feel more attractive and be more confident with themselves. Others want to lose weight for the more “objective” reasons of health.

“Asking these three questions should get you from a squishy desire into a much harder objective goal. If not, keep asking them. Eventually such questions will drive into an objective statement that you can work with.  This is the key to taking a desire out of the realm of inaction and fantasy and bringing it into a place where you can work to make it happen.”

Rent-A-Smart-Guy is a great resource for getting all your questions answered. They cover topics on business, motivation, sales, networking, IT, engineering, and more. Check Brian and the team out! www.RentaSmartGuy.com

Technorati Tags: desire, goals, lesson, motivation, smart, success, wisdom

I write over at Rent a Smart Guy as well, and this is an article that another contributor, Brian Mattocks, wrote over there that I think goes well with the most recent post here. Definitely head over there and read what we can do for you!

Wisdom is a business worth billions of dollars a year. Many companies, individuals, and social organizations claim to understand it enough to teach it – but few of them bother building the business case for wisdom. Why? Fundamentally, it is because the very notion of wisdom is difficult to understand. What is it, really?

Wisdom in a Nutshell

When I was young, upon coming to a door that was stuck closed, I would attempt brute force to open it. After a few minutes of thrashing and pulling and sweat inducing effort I would give up on that method. Then I would analyze the door and see if I could understand where and how it was stuck. Only after trying to understand the problem could I then devise an approach to open it. Thirty seconds of looking at the problem and 2 seconds of finesse resulted in an open door.

Wisdom is a form of knowledge – but processed in a special way. Wisdom is the applied understanding that comes from knowledge. When looking for wisdom in an employee, they call it experience, insight, expertise, savvy, or know-how.

The definition provided above explains the key problem with businesses and institutions that focus on providing wisdom. Such businesses like self-help publications and seminars; and social constructs like religious institutions; can’t directly teach wisdom. They can only teach around it, because wisdom emerges from the experience of an individual.

The benefit of wisdom is in the outcomes it creates. Wisdom cultivates enduring, positive outcome generating environments. Beyond the single result – when applied, wisdom lays the foundation for more results, or paves the way for more wisdom. An added benefit of wisdom is that it often provides business value along more traditional dimensions like: quality, speed, or cost.

A wisdom based approach to problem solving, for example, looks for “everybody wins” scenarios. A wisdom based approach to patient care is comprehensive. A wisdom based approach to sales focuses on relationships. Each of these approaches build better outcomes than “me first”, “symptom management”, “close the sale” approaches.

There are a few ways to acquire wisdom in a more direct fashion. First, cultivate relationships with those who provide honest and meaningful feedback on your behavior. Second, put yourself in situations that you have not experienced before. Third, cultivate mindfulness. While these aren’t the only ways, they are the clearest path to acquiring wisdom.

However you may acquire it, it is clear that wisdom is a good investment.

Brian Mattocks – Rent a Smart Guy – www.rentasmartguy.com

Technorati Tags: business, coaching, employee relations, investment, lessons, teaching, wisdom

“Once an old woman came to Buddha and asked him how to meditate. He told her to remain aware of every movement of her hands as she drew the water from the well, knowing that if she did, she would soon find herself in that state of alert and spacious calm that is meditation.”

“Water, if you don’t stir it, will become clear; the mind left unaltered will find its own natural peace.”

Sometimes we get so caught up in the rattle of everyday life that an overwhelming blindness washes over us. We’re blind to the true nature of the world around us, our place in it, and what we really want for ourselves. We are so in tune with the ‘noise’ that the voice inside becomes inaudible, and we often end up somewhere we don’t feel we belong. Some of us lose our way from time to time, right?

Stillness is such a powerful tool for reconnecting to that little voice. When the mind tunes out the noise, and instead, listens to the calm repetition of breathing, the soul can often take the moment and speak up – often with such clarity. Mindfulness meditation is an easy way to reach this stillness. I personally use an activity (one in which I can focus, and be on autopilot) as a catalyst to stillness. I wash and wax my car to ‘tune out’ the noise.

The calm I get in slowly covering the car in soap and rinsing her clean is immense. I’ve done this a few hundred times, so it’s nothing I really need to concentrate on, but I couldn’t have a conversation while doing it either – and why would I want to?!? I let my mind slowly shut off by focusing on the movement of my hands across the paint, and the shine that I reveal. Before long, I can hear my heart telling me how satisfying this activity is, and what parts of my life it also feels satisfied. I get a chance to really reflect without the rattle of my mind coming into play. This stillness of my mind is priceless.

In the Karate Kid movies, Mr. Miyagi puts Daniel(son) to work by having him wax the car and paint the fence. This not only teaches him Kata Karate movements, but it introduces him to stillness and mindful meditation. It’s often in the stillness that we come to great realizations. It’s almost cliche now, but how many times have you fallen in love with someone in the stillness between the two of you? Think about it!

The homework this time is to practice stillness, my friends. If you know how to meditate, please do that and listen to what your mind and body say when you tune the ‘noise’ out. If you do not know how to meditate, try to simply sit quietly with your eyes closed and concentrate on your breathing only. Concentrate on breathing slowly in your nose, and out your mouth. Soon enough your mind will unravel from its grip on the rattle, and you’ll find peace. That’s where you’ll also hear that inner voice speak to you. It’s incredible what he/she has to say sometimes.

Peace, Love, and a million successes to you all,

Blake

Technorati Tags: appreciation, attitude, awareness, Buddha, gratitude, happiness, lesson, love, peace, stillness, teaching, wisdom