happiness, how to be happy, the keys to happiness

The keys to greater happiness – living the life you want!

Welcome

Let me start by saying that I’m very grateful to have you here and I’m excited that I have the opportunity to share with you some of what I know.

I’ve developed this online series on the keys to greater happiness – living the life you want from what I have learnt and applied from extremely successful and knowledgeable people and masters in the areas of fulfilment, really living the life that you want and experiencing greater happiness.

In particular, what I will be sharing is drawn from behavioural psychology, neuro-linguistic programming and also coaching strategies and tools.

The most important thing is that this information and the tools for change really work to shift our state (our emotions, how we feel) and consequently our behaviours to create a much more rich and fulfilling reality.

I trust that you will receive some great learnings that will be extremely valuable to you.  They certainly have been in my life and that is why I share it as much as I can.


About Me

You can learn more about me on my About Us page, but just briefly, my name is Martine Brooks and I’m a Sociologist, Teacher, Trainer and Mindset & Behavioural Coach.

My background has  been predominantly in the government and not for profit arenas certainly for the last 10 years or so at least and has been mainly in the areas of health and education.

Education is my passion and of course as you know education impacts on our health enormously and I’m not necessarily talking formal education, but just education generally.  Informal education along with formal education has been a huge part of my own journey too.

Let’s get started on discovering the keys to greater happiness and living the life you want!


Intention

Now, a great way to start is to set your intention about what you would like to gain from or how you are going to approach this session, so whether it be new information that you can apply, a little gem that just rings true for you, something you want to learn more about, it may be to just be open and receptive to what’s being said.

So, set that intention now because at the end I will be really curious as to what has come to fruition for you based on your intention – very powerful stuff.

My intention for this session is to serve you to the best of my ability and to provide you information of great value and worth and I am coming with the knowledge and belief that I know that anyone can create the life that they want, they have it in them, they just need to be shown how.


Happiness Formula

Happiness is really about fulfilment – this is when we are most happy and alive.

We can have moments of pleasure (for a moment or two – it’s not lasting), fulfilment is when you feel your life “matters”.  So, we need to know what fulfils us, because this is where the pull and the drive towards something will come.

The formula for happy is when our current life conditions match our blueprint (and our blueprint is what we believe our life should be or our expectations of life.

Our blueprint is our view of the world and incorporates our beliefs, our values and it’s very specific.

So, if there is a lack of congruency we will be dissatisfied, unhappy, disillusioned – a whole host of adjectives to describe a dis – ease.

So, we need to align our blueprint with our life conditions or our life conditions with our blueprint.  either change our blueprint or change our life conditions.

Now, what drives us is our blueprint but also our state, our emotional state and that’s where we’ll move too next.


The Triad of Emotion

When you master your emotional health you will master your life.

There are 3 forces that determine what you feel.  These forces are called the Triad.

In order to master your emotions and consciously choose the emotions you want to live in, you need to understand these three forces and how to use them to your advantage.

The 3 forces are Focus, Language & Physiology.

So, let’s look at focus first.


1.  Focus

Happiness and focusI have written more about focus in my article How to be successful in life – success principle number 3, so if you want to delve even further please click the link.

What you focus on expands (it’s what you get) to the exclusion of everything else (whether you want it or not).

Conversely, what you stop focusing on ceases to exist.

Where focus goes energy flows.  That’s why you need to focus on where you want to go, what you want to feel and not on what you fear or what you don’t have or what you don’t want to happen or what you want to avoid.

So your patterns of thought and focus will determine what you feel and then how you respond, how you act and in what way you will act.

Most people wait for the environment to change their focus.  When we do this, we are not choosing consciously what to focus on.

So, empower yourself, give yourself greater choice and you choose what to focus on.

Your focus (thoughts) and the meaning you place on events & situations will generate emotion and will influence your action (or inaction) – your response.

When we can be aware of this and tap into this we have greater choice and we will respond as opposed to react and this will be much more resourceful for us.

So, let me give you a very simple example.

If I am focusing on how hard life is, how irritating people are and that nothing ever works out, what do you think I will get more of?  What do you think my experience of life will be, my reality will be?

I can recall being in a state of frustration and annoyance a few years ago, I was strapped for time, everything just seemed difficult, I was rushing here and there and I was just feeling annoyed and irritable.

Now, the bank called me and said that someone had tried to use my credit card and I needed to cancel it and of course that meant no access to money, going to the bank sorting things out there, changing automatic payments that I had in place – all of that sort of thing.  So, what did I get more of the same, more hassle, difficulty and more irritability.  And to boot on the same day I got a car parking fine – more irritation and annoyance.  A clear example of what you focus on is what you get!

So where is your thinking and focus?

If it doesn’t empower you, shift it.  Ask yourself the question – is what I’m feeling right now resourceful or not – is it leading me in the direction I want to go?

Choose, choice, happiness, living the life you wantChoice is the big point here.  You can shift in seconds. 

People who experience abundance are experiencing what is within them now and it’s the same for lack.

If I use the analogy of a torch and its beam, what it captures within its light is what it is focused on.

Everything outside of the beam is excluded, it can’t pick up what it isn’t focused on. Our lives and how we experience our world is the same thing. We will simply not be aware of the things beyond our focus.

The next level of this is around fear and appreciation. If we focus on something and it causes us to feel fear or pain, what we can’t experience is appreciation.

The solution is to focus on feeling appreciation. If we can tap into what it is about a situation we can appreciate, then fear fades.  To learn more about how to feel gratitude or experience (even in times when you’re not feeling it) click here.

So, you can ask yourself, what am I focusing on? Does it work for me to focus on this? Is what I am focusing on resourceful? If it’s not, it’s a simple matter of shifting the focus.

Someone who focuses on what they want will get more consistent results because they will focus on where they are going rather than what they want to get away from.


Where are you heading?

It’s a bit like driving a car and constantly looking in the rear-view mirror. What happens eventually if you keep driving like this? You crash.

Focus on where you have been or on what you don’t want and that is where you will head.

Focusing on what you want and where you are heading means you feed your mind what is good, what is working and what you like. You are keeping your brain in top condition by feeding it a mental diet of possibilities.


Do something with it!

We can be given a lot of information over a life time and we can learn a lot, but the key to change is applying what you know.

So, I would encourage you to do something with this new knowledge.

If you’re life isn’t working, you don’t feel good more often than not or even if you are just going through the motions of life without any sense of joy or excitement, I think it’s safe to say it’s time to do something differently.

And you, your life and experience of life is really important.  It’s worth doing something about.  If you feel resistance, it’s probably fear.  So, make a choice. Dare I say, choose life over fear.

Your task between now and the next session: 

Start to become aware of where your thoughts are, and what you are focusing on.

If you find this difficult, just look at what is happening around you or “to you”, what you have and what you don’t have but want.  This is often an indication of where our minds are.  The external reflects the internal.

And often times it is not until after the fact that you can reflect and think “ok, what have I been thinking about, what was the thought that preceded this outcome, event or experience?”.  Reflection will give you clues and you might just have some lightbulb moments.

It’s important to start to see the connections between what you think and what you experience (the good and the bad).

So, gradually become aware and if you can write down any repetitive thoughts and beliefs (thoughts) that come up and start to re-frame them.  That is, write down opposing thoughts and/or beliefs that serve you.  We need to break the pattern and start to fire new pathways. We also need to start to get really clear on what it is we do want or those things that we want more of.  Get specific.

To learn more about beliefs, read my article Can beliefs be changed – how to change beliefes to change your life.

Join me soon for my next session where I will cover the next aspect of the Triad of Emotion – Language and how the language patterns you run play a significant role in the meaning you give a situation and the emotion that situation creates in you.  This has a massive impact on our experiences of life and the actions we take in creating the life we want.

Subscribe to my site so you don’t miss out on the next session.

Please leave any comments or questions below and I’d be really interested in learning about what came from the intention you set at the beginning of the session.

Until next time, good luck, start to begin to raise your awareness and enjoy the experience.

Martine

9 Comments

  • Mick

    Hey Martine, first and foremost, I really enjoyed the article.

    Not heard of the Triad of emotion before so thanks for enlightening me there.

    I was that person a few years ago but got into meditation and Reiki and now a much different person.

    We are always living in the past and dragging it through to our present. Meditation helps you to clear and focus on the present.

    Don’t know whether you have come across Dr Joe Dispenza. Might like to check him out!

    Once again thanks for sharing.

    Mick

  • Tom

    Hi Martine,

    I really enjoyed reading your article as I think I know what I need to do to keep finding my happiness. I really think that some friends and family would love your article too, so I have passed this one onto them. I have encouraged them to comment and if they have any questions then they should get in touch.

    Happiness is a choice and we must work on ourselves every single day to make the right choices when it comes to our happiness.

    Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work.

    All the best,

    Tom

  • Susan

    Hello Martine, thank you for this post. My intention at the start was to really focus on the exact meaning of the words you wrote. It´s very easy for me to lose focus literally when I´m reading so I really had to work hard to concentrate on the words. It´s a weakness of mine that I´m trying to overcome. I totally agree that what we focus on in life can impact our reality. Thinking positive thoughts makes us happier and this is a lifelong challenge for me. Thank you for pushing me again towards this way of thinking.

  • Rick

    I loved your article and it’s so true, what you focus on does indeed expand while everything shrinks. The problem is trying to balance everything so some things shrink entirely away and don’t come back while the things you want expands and get better.

    I find it a lot harder to do and eventually my mind seems to wonder back to the things I don’t really want and don’t spend enough time on the things I do want. Life gets in the way and then I am not reading daily or the project gets put on hold.

    It helps a lot when I read your articles, it’s new and helps to keep me focused to get back on track again. Thanks for the article.

  • Jeff

    The Key to Greater Happiness Living the Life You Want is full of very good tips to guide everyone on the right track to enjoying their lives more, you know for most of my life I had no idea what it was that would make me happier. I wonder how many other people are experiencing the same thing, so maybe this would be a good post to write for readers like me

    Jeff

  • Alejandro

    I very much enjoyed reading your article Martine! Some of what you said I had heard before, and I am glad to see that you are reinforcing my belief that happiness is a choice. I firmly believe that we are individually responsible for our own happiness.

  • Francis Obico

    Martine

    This is a lovely and informative article, besides the highly interactive site and impressive loading speed. I may become a student of emotional health soon.
    Well done!

    Francis.

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