As you probably know I write this blog with no income in mind. This is why, after seeing the success of my last article, “How to make money from your website” I decided to do a little followup on something that really interests me: how to be happy.
In this post I will teach you everything I learned about how to be happy. I have been a very unhappy person my whole life, and I finally found how to be happy. In this article I will teach you my methods for becoming happier in whatever situation you might find yourself in. If you are facing addiction, financial problems or all around unhappiness with your life, then keep reading this post because it will change your life.
I will start by telling you my story about how I went from being a depressed, unhappy person to a bright and cheerful success story. Then I will tell you the exact methods that I used to do this in all aspects of my life, such as: work, romance and friends. Finally I will give some words of wisdom at the end of this post that will, hopefully, help you stay happy and make your life even better.
Let’s start with my story:
I started out as a very depressed child. For much of my childhood I have been extremely unhappy almost all the time. At first I didn’t know why I was so unhappy. I thought that I was just a depressed person and would never be happy again.
Things got worse in my teen years when I developed what is known as “Social Anxiety Disorder” . This basically meant that, at this point in my life, whenever I found myself around other people (even friends) I would get extremely nervous and would often times get embarrassed about strange things. For instance, when I ate in front of people I would worry that it made me look very un-social. When this happened I used to become extremely upset with myself inside which made the problem worse (I was already depressed).
Social anxiety is an incredibly difficult condition to have. I tried many different methods of dealing with this social anxiety, but none of them worked (including Mr. Rogers’ advice: “Worrying about being embarrassed only makes it worse” ) . The best method, and the only one that helped me at all, was to think of the worst case scenario. For example, when I talked to a girl at a party (a BIG one) , my mind would tell me that she was embarrassed by how I sounded and couldn’t wait for me to finish talking so she could go find someone more interesting . This scared me even more which made my speech even worse, and so on and so forth. Thinking of the worst case scenario was the only method that helped me a bit, but it wasn’t nearly enough to turn my life around.
After high school I went into college because everyone else seemed to be doing it at the time. By this point in my life I was still very unhappy and still suffered from social anxiety. I was hoping that college would help me to become more social, but it actually made things worse.
The main reason why college became harder was because instead of being stuck in one class all day with many people (high school) , in college you were stuck in a classroom for an hour then you were by yourself for an hour. This led to me becoming very anti-social and only talking with a few people I felt comfortable around.
Things got worse when I had to start turning in assignments that required groups because no one ever wanted to work with me. Because of this, after about six months I gave up on college and dropped out. I was very depressed, but didn’t know what to do.
At this point in my life I had no motivation at all (I hadn’t had it for many years) , so I just stayed home playing video games while working on or two a week. This was one of the hardest points in my life. I was very depressed and not going anywhere with my life.
One day, about a year after dropping out of college, an idea sparked in my head that changed everything: “This is it! If I can’t change something as big as where I go to school then maybe this isn’t the right path for me. College isn’t working so I have to change something!” This is when I decided to try Life Coaching with a man named Jack Canfield.
At first, the idea of Life Coaching scared me because I’d never really worked with a coach before and thought that it would be a lot of money. But when I learned that he offered a free 30 minute consultation session I was willing to give it a try.
The first thing we talked about in the session was my goals for the future and what exactly I wanted to do in life. After this, Jack told me something very important : “You need to change your daily routine to achieve your goals.” I was surprised by this because I thought it was only about getting a job and finding one. That wasn’t the case at all.
The next thing we talked about were my values. Jack asked me four questions: “What are you passionate about?”, “When do you feel the most alive?”, “What’s the one thing you can’t live without?” and ” What would be the hardest part about losing everything in your life?” I had never really thought of these questions before, but after thinking about them for a few minutes I knew my values. It turns out they were Passion (helping people), Life (positive relationships), Happiness (freedom to do what I want) and Love.
After this we talked about my strengths and how I could turn them into skills for finding a job that fit in with my values. Jack gave me some advice on how to find a job which was, “Don’t apply for jobs! Reach out to people you admire and ask them for an informational interview. They might be able to connect you with someone that is doing what you want to do.” After this meeting I did just that and it led me to a job at a health club as a personal trainer.
Now, even though I’m not the biggest fan of my current job, Jack’s advice really helped me put my values at the center of everything I do. When I started going to this new gym, one of the things that really drew me in was how happy and passionate everyone was. They loved working there which made me think: “If they love it so much then why don’t I?” After thinking about it for a while I realized that this is what I’m truly passionate about. Being able to help people and have them love it so much they can’t wait until their next session.
I might not be the happiest or most passionate person in the world but Jack taught me how to change my daily routine so I could find happiness. He also showed me how to change my values and know what I want out of life. This really helped me realize that happiness is in the little things because people are happy when they do something they love (like watching a sunset, reading a book or spending time with family) . So even though I don’t have my dream job right now it’s okay. I’ve learned that as long as you do what makes you happy and feel alive then even if the process takes a while your goal will come to you.
This is why changing my daily routine was the most important thing because it helped me change everything else in my life, mostly my values and goals. Even though working with Jack was expensive it was totally worth the money because he helped me change my life and now I can do what makes me happy.
Today, I’m writing this article after spending a weekend with my best friends which is probably the most fun I’ve had in awhile.
