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Happiness Tips

Discover What 50% of the Happiness Equation Depends On

fiftyWhen you take care this part of the equation (soon to be revealed), life can be pretty super fabulous each and every day. Even when there are two angle grinders working overtime at your neighbour’s place cutting up tiles and bricks, which sounds like a cat screaming on hyperdrive. So much for open plan living in Bali. It is not always dream living on the island. 😉 Actually the fact of the matter is there are inherent challenges wherever we are living, and it is how we deal with those challenges that greatly impacts our happiness and well-being.

So what is the factor considered responsible for more or less 50% of our happiness?

It will come as no surprise to you that it is the goals we set in life. But not just any goals; it is more about the meaningfulness of those goals. As Earl Nightingale once said, and as I often quote, ‘Success (and happiness) is the progressive realisation of meaningful goals.’ Again I am sure this is no surprise to you, but in my experience I have found that very few people actually have a clear idea of a worthy goal in their life, and if they do, they have not articulated it or written it down.

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting Tip 4: Its best to step up to the plate

Blog-8This Goal Setting Tip by Carl Massy is: Don’t be scared to set goals, for fear that you might not achieve them. Or might not achieve them by a set date or to a desired standard. Don’t let any fears, real or imagined hold you back from getting more out of life.

My Goal Setting tip for this month is to actually set some Goals. Don’t blow it off because of the bad wrap that New Years Resolutions get. The chances of you achieving something that you write down are about 400% more likely to happen than if you don’t write it down, according to research gathered by Heidi Halvorson, in her informative book “Succeed

I remember sitting on a hill near the ocean on Christmas Day 2001 and writing out a goal to work overseas for 5 years and save at least $20,000 each year. Well 2002-2006 saw me living and Consulting in the USA, Greece, Italy and Qatar; whilst travelling all over the world and getting to the end of 2006 with $300,000 in the bank. I not only achieved my goal I exceeded it. I believe that getting clear on what I wanted and then writing it down was key to that result.

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting Tip 3 – Reasons, Reasons, Reasons

Blog-8This month’s Goal Setting Tip is: The more powerful the REASON you have for achieving your goal, the easier it is to keep going, when the going gets tough. When you have just had a fall, or a setback or a rejection it is the power and size of your reasons that will have you straight back up on your feet, dusting yourself off and planning your next move.

It works like this: emotion drives behaviour. So the more emotion you have the more ‘drive’ you will have to achieve your Goals. Emotion is created by having a really compelling reason why you want to achieve something.

Here’s two scenarios to explain it further. The goal in this case is to learn to speak conversational Italian. Which of these individuals are most likely to achieve the goal the quickest?

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting: Tip 2 – Are you growing

Blog-8This Goal Setting Tip by Carl Massy is: It is very important to have a goal in your life that is difficult for you to achieve and will challenge you. If you don’t have a difficult or challenging goal in your life it is possible that you will feel like you are not moving forward.

Here is why: Have you ever thought what happens to a plant that is not growing? You guessed it. It is busy dying. We, like the plants, have an inherent need to grow. If we ever feel that we are not growing, it actually gives us a sense that we are stuck or moving backwards.

The other thing about growth is that we do not grow without resistance. It is like training muscles in the gym. If you use a weight that is too small (i.e. there is little or no resistance) your muscles will not grow. Muscles – like our emotions – need resistance to grow.

So…if you don’t have a goal in your life that is stretching you, or challenging you, or making you feel uncomfortable; then it is time to start thinking about (and getting clear on) what it is that you really want, which will cause you to grow.

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting: Tip 1 – Being Crystal Clear

Blog-8This month’s Goal Setting Tip is: I am doing a lot of research on Goal Setting these days and so I wanted to share with you some of the best stuff that I have found. So from now on I will include a regular Goal Setting Tip. 

 

The September Goal Setting Tip is:

When you write out your Goal (and YES you do need to write your Goal out), write it as if you were going to hand your Goal statement to a subcontractor and they are going to fulfil your request.

Here is the key: Is this subcontractor going to understand exactly what you want or is it too vague for them to know where to start? Will they get the order wrong? Your Goal needs to be 100% clear so that the subcontractor (your subconscious mind and life itself) can deliver you or bring you to exactly what you want.

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Goal Setting Tips Happiness Tips Physical Activity

What are you really capable of?

trophyThis is a story. A real story. A story of trials and triumphs. It is even a story with a happy ending. And there are plenty of lessons in it we can all take away. Myself included. It is about someone – a normal every day someone – that realised that you can continue to aim big regardless of where you are in life. Best of all, it shows we are a winner, the moment we make a definite choice and then step off in the direction of that goal. The result we achieve is much less important than the feeling that we gave it ‘our best shot’.

I met Leanne over a year ago now, through a mutual friend of ours, when she was just at the point of deciding to make her ‘comeback’ and decided to use our 30-Day Happiness Challenge as a springboard. She was 39 years old and on the cusp of turning 40. She had a daughter that was just over one year old, another daughter who was six, two young step-sons, the sometimes inherent challenges of step-family life and ex-spouses and a head full of thoughts. Hardly the stage setting, you would think, for the decision to become the number 1 Water Ski Racing champion in the world. In fact most of us would think that she was about to bite off a lot more than she could fully chew…but it was George Bernard Shaw who said “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”