2. Discovering your innate happiness and well-being is the key to creating what you really want in the world around you.
Most people’s goals in life are made up of the things they believe will ‘make’ them happy. But as one of my business partners once said to me, ‘If the bottom line is so important, why is at the bottom?’
In other words, if what we really want is happiness, why don’t we start there?
Having now asked this question of thousands of people, the answers generally come down to one of what I consider to be the greatest myth in Western civilization…
I’ll be happy when I get what I want.
This idea has been with us for thousands of years and is endemic throughout all mythology, ancient and modern – that when you battle with a dragon and win, you get the princess and you live happily ever after. Or if you are the princess, you just need to be patient long enough and someday your prince will come and then you’ll live happily ever after.
In fact, people are often willing to endure great hardship on the way to success because they just know there’s a pot of gold at the end of their rainbow – and they plan on using that pot of gold to buy the feelings of happiness and fulfillment that they really want.
I’ll be happy when...
I’ll be happy when I’ve got enough money.
I’ll be happy when I’m in a loving relationship.
I’ll be happy when I get a better job.
I’ll be happy when my boss/co-worker/friend stops being such a jerk.
But the truth beyond the myth is simple yet profound:
If you’re doing things in order to be happy,
you’re doing them in the wrong order! When you make happiness your number one priority and allow yourself to follow your ‘happy wanting’, success is not only more likely, attaining it is much more fun.
I love this article, it has really made me realise that I often try to delay my happiness!
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