Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

Thomas Leonard, considered by many to be the father of life coaching, coined the term ‘irresistibly attractive’ to describe the drawing of people, ideas and opportunities to you rather than the pursuit or seduction of these things by you.

Here are his top 10 steps to becoming irresistibly attractive, reproduced verbatim from
http://www.topten.org/public/BK/BK2.html

The Top 10 Steps to Becoming Irresistibly Attractive

1. Don’t need much.
If you need something, usually it will run away/escape you. Get your personal and financial needs met first and you’ll find yourself attracting vs seducing.

2. Think big, really big.
Attraction occurs when there is a healthy vacuum between where you are and what you want to have happen. The wider the gap, the greater the pulling power of attraction.

3. Eliminate the holes in your life.
Where are you being depleted? By whom? Plug those holes by extending boundaries, raising standards, resolving past issues, healing. Attraction won’t find you until you’re ready. Get ready.

4. Pay attention to what’s happening to/around you RIGHT NOW.
Attraction LIVES in the moment, not in the future. Are you responding fully to both the problems and the opportunities that are occurring — in force — right now, in your space? Gotta start here, where attraction can find you.

5. Learn from people who are naturally attractive.
Some people are; some people aren’t. Hang out with those who are and emulate them. And ask for help. They’ll be happy to tell you how it works. Just be ready to make changes in your thinking, assumptions, actions and behavior.

6. Increase your awareness.
Sounds trite, but it’s necessary. Attraction is a subtle phenomenon. You won’t feel it or get it until you’ve increased your awareness of yourself, those around you, how you think, your life assumptions.

7. Add value to whomever or whatever you encounter.
We all have something to add. Add it. If you don’t have enough to add, learn a new skill. When you ADD what you have to other’s lives, whether they are clients, friends, potential customers, family, YOU become much more attractive.

8. Tell the truth.
This means more than not lying. There is a level of telling the truth that will truly set you free and attract others to you. And, there is a way to tell the truth from a place of love vs power. Usually having awareness and advanced phrasing is what helps this process occur naturally. That, plus having enough reserve in your life so you can afford any consequences of telling the truth.

9. Build a reserve in all areas.
When you have enough money, time, space, love, ideas, opportunities, friends, you’ll become an even stronger magnet for what you want — because you won’t NEED it.

10. Do what YOU want to do in life.
We’ve all been overly influenced by shoulds, oughts and have-to’s. So much so that what you/we want to do has been suppressed WAY down deep.

Happiness life strategy

Leonard’s idea of attractiveness - of being the kind of person who draws to you the things you desire, rather than having to madly chase them - well, it’s a very attractive idea. But I find his steps a little overwhelming. How can we apply them in our own lives?

One approach is to read over each one and see if you feel prompted to make a particular change or take up a certain action that gels with where you are now. Then you could re-visit the steps in, say, a week or a month (I always diarize tasks I want to remember) and notice what speaks to you then. That way, you can slowly absorb this notion of becoming irresistibly attractive and allow it to permeate your life.

And if it still seems a little overwhelming, maybe that’s not a bad thing. As Leonard says, you want a ‘healthy vacuum between where you are and what you want to have happen. The wider the gap, the greater the pulling power of attraction’.

Image: mike@bensalem under the terms of a creative commons license

A recent article in London’s Telegraph (via SMH) quoted research that a person’s birth date can influence their personality.

Now before you run screaming for astrology.com, please note that Richard Wiseman, psych professor at Hertfordshire Uni, observes in the article that these findings are ‘exactly what you would expect if it were temperature related… many of the effects reverse in the two hemispheres’.

Just what are these birth-date-related personality effects?

In the northern hemisphere (the effects reverse in the south):

• May-born women show more impulsivity
• November-born women are more reflective
• Spring-born men exhibit greater persistence
• People born in autumn tend toward greater physical activity and soccer skill
• People born in spring are more cerebral and may have an aptitude for chess

It seems then that personality isn’t in the stars - but it might be partly in the seasons.

Happiness life strategy

Now if you’re a November-born gal who enjoys her daily omphaloskepsis, or a spring-babe with a fondness for Bobby Fischer, then by all means let these findings spur you on. But please don’t take personality categories as justification for being less than your best.  Avoid stories like this:

• See, that’s why I throw things - I was born in May
• I can’t get on with people because I’m a Leo/introverted/in the Dominant quadrant

They only deny you the full scope of your potential and your personality and limit your happiness. Instead, embrace personality characteristics that work for you - perhaps your compassion, sense of beauty, or analytical mind - and downplay those that don’t.

Remember too that findings like those in the article reflect an average effect - there’ll be millions of impulsive people born in other months and millions of May-borns with a calm temperament.

We all have a spectrum of behaviours open to us. Although different people may have access to different spectra - by virtue of genes, upbringing, habit or even birth season - there’s never only one narrow path we’re forced to tread. Whatever your spectrum, aim for the pole that brings out your best.

To open up your potential for happiness, don’t let yourself be pigeon-holed. Nurture the personality traits that serve you and choose to rise above the ones that don’t.

Image: pyrator under the terms of a creative commons license

If you think alcohol is a good way to feel good when things go bad, think again. A recent SMH article shed light on liquor’s little secret - it can lead to depression.

‘Compared to people who drink because they’re depressed, there are more people who get depressed because they regularly drink too much’, says Professor Sitharthan Thiagarajan of the Australian Centre for Addiction Research.

Why this is so is not clear. It may be that excessive alcohol affects mood centres in the brain. Or perhaps drinking too much causes distressing work or family problems.

The good news is that drinking less can reverse the problem.

‘We know that when people drink a lot over a long period, their mood goes down - yet when they start to drink less, their mood goes up’, says Thiagarajan.

In fact, a 2,500-person study of the Centre’s Controlled Drinking by Correspondence Program found that learning to drink less improved people’s mood. And we’re not talking intractable alcoholics, here - the participants were generally people with education, employment and relationships for whom alcohol had simply become a 6+ drinks-a-day habit.

Happiness life strategy

If you turn to booze as a daily staple, think about other ways to relax or feel good. I like watching comedies and reading fiction, and I have friends who enjoy a dip in the pool, walking, playing drums, cooking, dancing, chatting to friends on the phone or listening to music.

Opt for a little less hootch in your life and you just might find yourself with a little more happiness.

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Image: antoinedemorris under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence.

Teenage affluenza is spreading fast

This video has done the rounds, but it’s well worth revisiting, even at more than 5 minutes. If you haven’t seen it, please do - your time and attention will be rewarded.

It brilliantly highlights the effect comparison has on how we see our lives. If we compare our bodies with those of supermodels, our bank accounts with those of media moguls, or our track times with those of Olympic athletes, it probably won’t do much to boost our happiness. But if we’re a little wiser, we can choose to see our lives in a more realistic light, and recognize just how much we have to be happy about.

The video is so cool because of its humor.

Humor is also how David Rakoff’s recent essay collection makes his point about our culture of excess. It’s delightfully titled:

Now, Don’t Get Too Comfortable:
The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems.

Happiness life strategy

UrbanDictionary.com defines first world problems as:

Problems from living in a wealthy, industrialized nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at.

The truth is, most of our problems fit this category. We live in the first world, so it makes sense that social slights, iPods and overweight are the kinds of concerns that occupy us. But the reminder from commentators like World Vision and David Rakoff to run the occasional reality check on our perspective, expectations and points of comparison is worth heeding.

Choosing to see our problems in perspective leaves us with less to worry about and more to appreciate. And that’s a great life strategy for happiness.

Only last Tuesday I was savoring the joy of getting jiggy with Ziggy (my black iPod Video 30) on this blog. But as of yesterday, he is no more.

l often listened to Ziggy while doing chores, tucking him into my shoulder strap if I didn’t have a pocket. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

There I was, belting out Bob Sinclar’s Rock This Party. I reached across to straighten something in the bathroom, thinking as I did, I’d better not do that - Ziggy could fall into the toilet - but before I could finish the thought he’d plopped right in. I quickly fished him out and dried him off but alas, my efforts at resuscitation were futile.

(I have no words of wisdom to mark Ziggy’s drowning. I can only post this note to commemorate him. He was a much-loved gadget, a noble gadget, and he shall be missed. *sniff*)

But life goes on - as do music, audiobooks and podcasts. So today I’d like to introduce Ziggy Jr.

He’s a Nano - 8G, black, and with that gorgeous Cover Flow that almost makes the audio redundant. I went for sleek teeniness and sacrificed space - so there’ll be a period of adjustment as I learn to have only 8G with me at a time.

ONLY 8G! I remember having a SONY Walkman (that’s a cassette player people!). It was such a pleasure to have music on the go that I never thought anything of having to rotate tapes.

Happiness life strategy

Which brings me to a very valuable happiness strategy: picking the happy brain filter - the part of any situation, person or thing we focus on. As Abe Lincoln said:

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns,
or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

(Dang that was a smart president! Remember when presidents used to be smart?)

There are always thorns - it’s part of what makes this life and not heaven (however you conceive each to be). But don’t let thorns blind you to the magnificent blooming thing hiding there at the end of the stem.

Ziggy Jr is a tiny work of art, a truly beautiful union of function and form - and I already love him. So what if I have to limit my mobile audiobooks, podcasts and playlists to 8G at a time? So what if I have to do a little manipulation when I sync? I’ll get used to it.

And if I don’t - well, there are always gardening gloves.

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Image by by saroz under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.