There Is a Shortcut to Happiness (Just Not the One You Might Have Thought)
Alright friends, so the theme of the moment is...
Personal responsibility.
I know, I know, ugh. Maybe not the most enticing topic, but bear with me.
The human brain is constantly on the lookout for shortcuts in the name of efficiency. Shortcuts to health, to love, to success, to money, to happiness.
So when we're in our mind's default (unconscious, habitual) mode, we'll do just about anything we can to avoid taking full responsibility for shaping the moment-to-moment inner experience of our lives.
The mind convinces us it's easier to blame other people or unwanted circumstances or the stars not aligning for us not being as happy as we'd like to be.
So we distract ourselves with ruminating, with worrying, with judging, with blaming, with eating, with shopping, with Netflix-binging, with beating ourselves up, with doing more, more, more.
We try to fix and problem-solve our way to happiness.
We tell ourselves, I'll be happy when I get more clients... meet my soul mate... get ouf of this job... get back from that yoga retreat…
We're always looking for the silver bullet that will magically and permanently make us happy.
This was a theme a wise, kindness-driven coaching client had noticed in her life for as long as she could remember, and which came up a lot in our sessions together.
She was always looking for the silver bullet — for the one thing that needed to come to her for everything else to fall into place in her life.
But after a few months of inspiringly committed inner exploration on her part, she recently shared a game-changing insight.
She came to our session excited to share that she'd realized there actually is a silver bullet to happiness, it just isn't in the form she thought it would come.
She realized the silver bullet to her happiness is choice.
With this a-ha, she realized she didn't have to keep waiting around passively hoping she would start to feel better someday or resigning herself to the notion that she may not.
She started rinsing and repeating with mantras like: "I choose happiness" and "I choose to feel joy."
With that new focus, she started taking small, simple steps in her days that pointed toward joy.
And wouldn't you know it, she started to feel a whole lot better (which makes sense, since energy flows where attention goes)...
And she opened the channels to receive an intuitive hit of clarity about a major life shift she'd been wanting to make for a long time but was feeling stuck around, as the cherry on top.
If you're looking for a silver bullet to your own happiness, what if it really is that simple?
The pathway to joy flows through self-responsibility.
While yes, we don’t get to control how we feel in every moment, the more we choose to take control of our capacity for conscious choice, the more joy and abundance tend to start to open up for us.
Pretending we don't have the ability to slow down, tune in, and choose how we respond to the moments of our lives does not a joyful life make.
And a potent upside to taking 100% responsibility for consciously creating your inner experience is that you get to stop waiting around crossing your fingers and hoping what you want or how you want to feel will magically arrive at your doorstep.
You get to choose how you want to feel, then do something that steps you toward feeling that way.
No need to wait for the stars to align. You get to start designing how you feel from the inside out right now.
If that kind of self-designed life experience sounds good to you, maybe try on a new type of Silver Bullet Mantra for yourself over the next few weeks.
I choose happiness in this moment.
I choose to find joy in this moment.
I choose to make a conscious choice in this moment.
Write your own favorite choice-empowering phrase on a Post-It and stick it on your computer monitor or bedside table.
Set reminders on your phone to pop up with your mantra periodically throughout the day.
Write it on your bathroom mirror in dry erase marker.
Then just notice...what happens when you choose to choose?
(Spoiler alert: Get ready, because the answer may be just about everything.)
Lots of Love,