Happiness

When people are asked what they want, “to be happy” is a frequent reply. I too would like to be happy, so I can hardly argue, but how do we make that happen?

Happiness is different things to different people. You may want a bigger house, your friend may want a steady job and I may want more clients, but when we eventually acquire these things, then what? Will that be it? Will we be happy-ever-aftering?

Unfortunately not, because happiness is a drug and the ‘high’ diminishes over time. Research has found that even lottery winners, though they are ecstatic for days and weeks after the big money bonanza, within months are no happier than their friends and colleagues who were not so lucky. Indeed, the winners may eventually become slightly depressed when the post-win reality fails to deliver what they had previously imagined.

And you can have too much of a good thing. Yes, really! Despite the hosepipe bans, I would have a hard time finding a buyer for a single glass of tap water in England. However, in the middle of the desert, when you had been without water for three days, the same glassful would be priceless.

Happiness with any outcome also diminishes because, with desires fulfilled, ambition moves on. What we’ve already got becomes ‘ours’; it’s taken for granted; it’s the norm. Now we want something different to give us, again, the high of happiness.

But what exactly is happiness and why do we seek it? Is it a holy grail – a fabled object never seen, but avidly sought, having powers based solely in fairy stories, myths and legends?

Not so, because we’ve all known happiness before. And because it felt good then, we would like some more now. So, we set off on a Da Vinci Code quest to find it. But wait! Happiness is just a feeling, so how can we capture it?

For the lotus-eaters among us, that’s good news. Since happiness is an internal state, rather than an item in a wheelbarrow, the search for happiness is a quest for the already possessed. We can, by the simple process of vivid and intense recall, actually think ourselves back into a time when were happy and recreate that internal state for ourselves, repeatedly, as and when we need it. It’s there for the taking.

Can that be true? Life can change so rapidly from being just dull to seriously awful. What then? Who could possibly summon such wonderful feelings in absolutely dire conditions? I believe it is true and it is possible, and I have some unimpeachable sources for its validity under the very worst of situations. People like Nelson Mandela and Viktor Frankl have testified to the fact that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.

So, go forward. What you seek is already yours; decide to thrive.

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Many people set out to look for the forest and get lost in the trees. In your dreams coaching gives you the space, time and tools to break out of this self-perpetuating cycle, get a clear picture of what you want and helps you design a suitable route map to your chosen destination.

Your first success has been recognising the need for assistance.

Your second is having the good sense to call for it.

Call Paul Hayward on 01234 831631

"Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is."

~ Maxim Gorky