Well Being Wednesday - Are You Alive Or Just Living?

What does Friday mean to you? To some it's a massive sense of relief that the working week is over... A release from the mundane routine of early mornings, late nights, rushed meals, empty promises to go to the gym... And a big high leading into the weekend... Where they will consume all manner of unhealthy foods and a weeks worth of 'medicinal' alcohol in one night... Sleep in and waste half a day.. Carry out their chores... And then all of a sudden... It's Monday morning... And the 'crash' happens!!!

Sound familiar..???? That... My dear friends is what you call the rat race!!!

But it needn't be like that... Why should you accept that this is the way It has to be... Why accept it just because it's the norm.. Well I for one cannot and will not accept it!!!

I won't accept that I am destined to live a life of 'drone' type days Monday to Friday and then cram all my fun into two days... I'm definitely a 'work to live' kinda guy.

Does that make me less committed, less driven, less focused, less inclined to go that extra mile when needed? NO!!! It does not.

I frequently get comments at work 'Lee you're always so happy'... And to some I'm sure that's very annoying... To those people I say 'there's nothing stopping you being happy all the time too' and just because you have chosen a life of 'half empty' it doesn't mean everyone else should'.

So why am I always so happy when I have the same workload as my peers, I have the same commuting challenges as everyone else, I have bills to pay the same as everyone else, I have things missing from my life that others have... Children and marriage... So why aren't I unhappy?

Well, I can only give my reasons... Not the reasons why other people are happy/unhappy...

Once I accepted that whilst I could allow other people to affect my mood... I also recognised that I didn't want them to and so I took control of my mood... Decided that no matter what other people said or did, it wasn't going to affect my life, and certainly not going to stop me having fun.

We spend most of our lives at work in one form or another.. It would therefore seem natural to assume that we spend most of our lives in this 'dull.. I can't wait for work to finish so I can have fun' mentality...

How about this... Why not make the conscious decision to go into work happy... Be happy all day... Smile.. Laugh... Support and encourage others...reprogram your thought patterns so that being happy becomes the norm... 

Now, here's the truth.. Yes it is very very difficult to sustain this for long periods of time and even I 'crash' at times... So I simply recharge by going to play golf with my buddies Disco and Shaggy.. Who are equally as happy as I am and so they kinda take the reins and I feed off their positive energy and I'm ready to go again... Oh and yes.. Of course a holiday always does the trick too :-)

I appreciate that for some it isn't as easy as others to just flick the switch to become happy, so clearly there are small baby steps you can take that will put you on the right path.
 

1. Become more aware of your moods, how they can affect others, and how you carry yourself ad how you reply to being asked 'How are you'.  The British mentality is to answer 'Not bad thanks'...or 'I'm ok' (said with no enthusiasm). 
2. I challenge you to start by making one day a week your 'happy day'... And here's the catch... It can't be Friday!  Notice how people will actually ask you why you are so happy... And I can tell you this.. There's nothing more satisfying than replying 'there's no specific reason, I just am!'
3. Start to practice possitive affirmation.  Each morning when you wake, repeat as many times as you feel neccessary to yourself 'I am great', 'I feel great', 'I look great'...which ever of those works for you..or all of them!  Over time, as your confidence builds and you become more comfortable with your self talk and start to believe your own words, you can switch the word 'great' for 'Awesome'...this takes it to a whole new level, as you have to be really careful with this one that you don't start to annoy people with being all over hyper or 'American'...sorry to my American friends :-) it's about finding a balance...but certainly about breaking free from the negative chains. 
4. Look at who you spend the most time with.  The people you spend the most time with can absolutely have an impact on the way you think.  Like attracts Like... so make sure you don't spend too much time with people that are hell bent on being negative, because it will either become very draining for you, or worse...make you become negative too.

In short, the hardest part is making a start, but I truly believe that once you change paths, you will not look back...you may relapse at times, at that is ok, we all do it...me included..I then revert back to these basic principals and rebuild.