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Are you as happy as your dog?

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Could your life benefit from a little canine wisdom? Here's a fun article outlining how to be as happy as your dog, excerpted from the book, Are You As Happy As Your Dog? 

The author offers several lessons learned from observing his little dog, Munchie. Here are a couple of my favorites...

5. Entertain yourself. When I am not home Munchie finds plenty of other amusements. He chases cats, sniffs dead critters, naps, and visits neighbors. He is not codependent. The world, through his eyes, is a big playground. There is always someone or something to entertain him.

8. Let yourself be loved. When Munchie looks tired during long walks with me, sometimes I pick him up and carry him for a while (probably more for myself than him.) The moment he's in my arms, he rolls over and lets me carry him like the King of the Canines. Harboring no sense of guilt or unworthiness, he does not protest, "Oh, you really don't need to do this." or "I will carry you tomorrow." He just lays there and soaks it in. He knows he is worth it, and he receives it with a full heart and body.

9. Relax. Munchie is not a slave to the Puritan Work Ethic. He is closer to the Pure Tan Play Ethic. He doesn't have a job, doesn't lay awake at night wondering if God exists, and doesn't try to hide his little dogie erections when they spontaneously arise. He knows that he deserves love without having to earn it. Munchie is clear that his purpose in life is to enjoy every new day, and he is happy to have the Universe continually take care of him.

What life lessons have you learned from your pets?

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Is happiness the ultimate productivity booster?

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Alexander Kjerulf always has some interesting perspectives to share over on his blog, The Chief Happiness Officer. Recently he made a case for why he thinks happiness is the ultimate productivity booster. Read his post for the expanded version, but in a nutshell...

1. Happy people work better with others
2. Happy people are more creative
3. Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them
4. Happy people have more energy
5. Happy people are more optimistic
6. Happy people are way more motivated
7. Happy people get sick less often
8. Happy people learn faster
9. Happy people worry less about making mistakes - and consequently make fewer mistakes
10. Happy people make better decisions

On the whole, I have to agree with him. In my work helping people find passion in their careers, I get to see the difference in people's lives before and after finding a path that lights them up. I get to see what a difference it makes when people are happy with the way they spend their days. I've also experienced it in my own journey. And the difference is amazing.

Alexander talks about happiness being more of a productivity booster than the traditional approaches of time management, etc. Another way to look at it is that happiness is the source of energy and fuel, and the traditional productivity approaches focus that energy, making sure that more of it is translated into forward motion.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

10 ways to improve your life, right now

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My clients come to me because they want to find passion in their career. But often that career focus expands to a bigger picture. Why? Because as much as we might like to think so, our lives don't unfold in disconnected silos. What is happening in one part impacts the others.

What is happening in our work life will impact what is happening in our relationships. What is happening with our health will impact our work life. It's all interconnected.

One thing I often look at with my clients is, "OK, if I can't make a career change right now, how can I make life better?" Rather than sitting miserably waiting for life to be perfect later, it's about taking a proactive approach to improving life so they have more energy to put into creating the future they want.

I ran across this article that offers ten ideas for ways to improve your life, right now. Lots of readily implementable ideas. Read the article for the full picture, but in a nutshell the ideas are:

1.) Improve Your Attitude

2.) Smell the Roses

3.) Help Somebody

4.) Get More Restful Sleep

5.) Improve Your Health

6.) Get Your Finances Under Control

7.) Set Goals for Yourself    

8.) Learn Something New

9.) Get Organized

10.) Eliminate A Bad Habit

Regardless of where you are in life, there's always room to refine and improve it. I encourage you to go through these ideas, find one that resonates with you, and find a way to apply it.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Gratitude practices

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Yesterday I posted about the positive effect a habitual focus on gratitude can have. If you want to go beyond a simple gratitude journal (with a daily commitment to writing down what you're grateful for), here is a page with a whole bucketload of additional ideas for exploring gratitude.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Fuel the positive with gratitude

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Want a simple way to fuel the positive in your life? Try gratitude.

Developing a habitual focus on gratitude has been shown to have a positive impact on multiple levels. Take the results of the Research Project on Gratitude and Thanksgiving by a couple psychology professors out of Southern Methodist University and UC Davis, for example:

The study required several hundred people in three different groups to keep daily diaries. The first group kept a diary of the events that occurred during the day, while the second group recorded their unpleasant experiences. The last group made a daily list of things for which they were grateful.

The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved. McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another.

What I love about this is the degree to which gratitude has a positive impact on both our internal state and the way we behave in the world.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

The Happy at Work Manifesto

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Kammie over at Passion Meets Purpose recently had a link to a great blog called The Chief Happiness Officer by Alexander Kjerulf (he's got a book coming out called Happy Hour is 9 to 5 - I love the title!).

On it, I discovered a draft version of his Happy at Work Manifesto, "a declaration of principles and intentions for those of us who have decided, that we want to be happy at work." It gets a little long and maybe over-detailed, but it has some great points. Here are three of my favorites:

3: My happiness at work is my responsibility
4: Knowing what makes me happy or unhappy at work is my responsibility
5: Letting others know what makes me happy or unhappy at work is my responsibility

Taken together, these three are HUGE. Your happiness, your delight in your work, your feeling of fulfillment in what you do, are 100% your responsibility. There is no happy-fairy who's going to float down and shower you with magic happy dust (yeah, I know - that was a tough one for me to swallow too...sorry to burst your bubble).

If you don't a) figure out what makes you happy and b) put it out there so others can help you get there, your chances of finding it are slim.

At the heart of the system I developed to help people find passion in their career is an internal compass I call the Passion Core. In a nutshell, it consists of the underlying characteristics of what lights you up.

Identifying your Passion Core (i.e., knowing what makes you happy) is beneficial because it helps you focus your efforts in a direction that leaves you feeling energized and engaged. It's also valuable as a tool to help your boss know how to get the most out of you (if you love what you're doing, you'll likely to it better and have more energy to put into it. Everybody wins.).

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The Happiness Project

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Every once in a while a blog title on the "newly updated weblogs" list catches my eye and I mosy over to see what the author is up to.

That's how I found this very cool blog, The Happiness Project, written by Gretchen Rubin.  As she describes it...

I'm working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT--a memoir about this year, during which I'm testing every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I can find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. I’m gathering these rules for living from everywhere I can, and I’ll report what works and what doesn’t. This happiness blog is part of my larger project.

I've only scanned through it thus far, but one of the things I really notice is how much this project seems to be leading to a conscious awareness of what she is doing, and how it leads either to or away from happiness.

That conscious awareness is a powerful thing. When we're not aware, we're a puppet for whatever it is that's calling the shots. We don't get to evaluate and say, "Is this really what I want to do? How I want to respond? How I want to be?"

But when we ARE aware of what's going on, we can start to make choices that will lead us towards the life experience we really want to have.

Check it out. Some good food for thought there. And who knows? You just might start a personal happiness project of your own.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Loving the little things

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"I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind."

- Leo F. Buscaglia

It's so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day of our lives that we plod through it,  scarcely noticing all little things that could make life exponentially juicier if we'd just stop a minute to revel in them.

When we want more happiness in our lives, we tend to think in terms of the big fix. "I want a new career. I need a new/different/better relationship." While those things may be true, they are inevitably long-term paths.

The immediately available potential lies in the little things.

What little things could you stop and revel in? Make a list. Plant the question in your head as you go through your day. Look for things that you would get enthusiastic about if you remembered to notice.

It could be just a fleeting experience. For example, the thing that immediately popped into my mind as I thought about this was stopping and petting the cherry blossoms. Yeah, I know. I'm a freak.

A couple weeks ago out on a walk when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, I kept finding myself drawn to just stopping under the trees and reaching out to gently stroke the flowers. They're really soft. I have this picture in my head of myself petting the cherry blossoms with a contented little half-smile on my face, feeling their softness and enjoying their beauty.

Another picture that comes to mind is walking on the beach last fall at the Oregon coast. A wave splashing on the rocks had soaked me (I was leaning down to record the sound). Since I was already wet, I decided to go wading even though I was wearing shoes and jeans.

I suddenly got the urge to spin wildly in circles with my arms stretched out. There was a hotel on the bluff overlooking the beach, and I almost stopped myself, worrying that anyone looking out their window would think I was weird - long pants, up to my knees in the ocean, and spinning madly in circles.

Then I thought, "What the hell do I care?" And I spun. And spun. And spun. It was a giddy, little-kid-cutting-loose kind of feeling. It made me laugh out loud. When I stopped, I looked up and there was someone looking out their window at me. I smiled, waved, and kept walking, happy that I had let myself go.

It's the little things.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Get more juice out of life

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Want to get more juice out of life? Here's an article that offers a way to do it in four simple steps. According to the author, Jason Garcia, those steps are...

1. REALIZE YOU'RE IN THE MOMENT
The first step is to realize that you are in the middle of something good. It could be a beautiful day on your family vacation, or a perfect afternoon with your children. You are the judge of what moments you'd like to appreciate.

2. TAKE A STEP BACK
This is the main part of the system. Once you realize you are experiencing a moment you'd like to have last forever, stop yourself for a moment and take a Step Back.

Take yourself away from the situation. Take a short walk, a quick break, or simply close your eyes.

Once you are removed from the situation, think about it as if it happened in the past.

Picture how happy you were, the details of the scene, and the others around you. Feel the emotions you felt, see and hear the faces and sounds. Remember how much you enjoyed the time, and how much you'd like to enjoy it again.

3. MAKE YOUR REENTRY
Once you feel the happiness of the moment, think about this; it's no longer in the past, it's right now! You just thought about how great you felt in that past moment, and now you can live it in the present.

You just appreciated the current moment by looking back on the situation. Once you are in the middle of the moment again, remember...

4. ENJOY YOURSELF
This will be a moment that, like all others, will eventually pass. With this in mind, really let it sink in. Take a look around, and realize you are in the middle of something great.

Not a bad technique, eh? And the best part about it is that you get all that extra juice for little or no effort. What's not to love about that?!

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Happiness and success

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One of the benefits of having a career you love is that you're happier with what you're doing. Happiness is a worthy aim in its own right, but it can have a very real impact on career success as well.

Psychologists Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside and Laura King of the University of Missouri-Columbia examined the results of tens of studies that tested the links between happiness and success.

They found that those with a song in their hearts are more likely to, among other things:

• Get a job interview
• Be employed
• Perform well at work
• Get higher evaluations from bosses
• Make more money
• Have jobs with more autonomy, meaning and variety
• Avoid job burnout

Add these results to my overview of the benefits of passion, and it's clear that passion isn't a frivolous goal. It can have a very real, bottom line impact on your career - and on your life.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM