5 Parts Of The Daily Intentions For A Happier Life

In this podcast, we explore how to create an intention for daily happiness and the five essential ingredients of this intention. Happiness and peace can be improved on a daily basis with the right intentions. Please note: this is a lecture, not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. As we continue to explore the process of finding happiness in our lives, It isn't always easy to know what to do, What to do right now. But I got a really good question from one of our listeners, Yannick, Who lives in Ontario, Canada. Let me read what he wrote. Hello Dr. Puff. What are some simple daily intentions that I can set up to live a happier life? Also, Is there a roadmap of daily intentions that I can use to set up such intentions? I am by no means experienced or knowledgeable in the field of human psychology or behavior, But I was thinking of finding the main negative thoughts that always bring out unhappiness, Countering them into positives, And using one a day to focus on. I don't think it works for everything, But maybe it can provide people with a mindful positive intent to return to when they are spiraling into infinite negativity. Kindness regards Yannick. Here on the Happiness Podcast, We cover a lot of different areas to make our lives better, But I'm not sure if I've ever done a podcast just on daily routines or intentions for happiness or a happier life. I like Yannick's question, And it's a good one for all of us to consider, Because we are leading our lives on a daily basis, And the choices and the things that we expose ourselves to externally and internally are shaping us, Shaping us into having a happier life or often shaping us into having an unhappy life. Well, In today's podcast, I want to focus on five things that we can do to have an intention for a happier life. Well, The first thing that we have to ask ourselves is, How am I doing? Am I happy? Am I a cheerful camper, Or am I struggling with life and really finding that life is a burden and there's a lot of things I need to change? Or am I fooling myself and others, Showing them and myself that I am happy, When in reality I'm not, Because I come home every night and drink a whole lot of alcohol or turn towards foods in order to comfort my heart? There's so many things we do instead of being happy to mask our unhappiness. So to begin with, What we have to do is say, How am I doing? How am I really doing? And then from there, We begin to make changes, Because unless we're aware of how we're doing, We really can't make changes. I mean, In the extreme case, Think of like a drug addict who as long as they keep taking their drug, There's really nothing wrong with their life. They like their life, They don't want to change. They may know at some level that things are bad, But as long as they keep taking that drug, They're okay. Or probably the most common explanation I hear about happiness is, You know, I know that people out there say they're happier than I am, But I just don't believe it's true. They're really just as happy as I am or unhappy as I am, And anyone who says otherwise is just fooling themselves. Life is hard. We just get by, We try to have creature comforts along the way, But mostly it's hard. We have experiences of happiness, But mostly life is just hard. And others that say anything else are just fooling themselves. So that's one we have to be careful of. Are we settling for our level of happiness and finding ways for our mind to say, This is as good as it gets. I really can't do better. Even if there are people out there happier than I am, That's just not in my cards. My life is just hard. But the good news is, My guess is if we're listening to this podcast, We actually think that may not be true. That's why we're trying to improve our lives and get better. So once we're aware of, Yes, There are areas in my life that I need to improve that would truly make me happier. Then the next thing we have to do is focus on change. What are areas that I could begin to work on to change? Yannick gave a really good example, A good thing that we could focus on, Negativity. If we tend to spiral into negativity, Then we can focus on thinking more positive thoughts to counteract the negative ones. Or let's say we struggle with attachments. We suffer because we're attached to certain outcomes. If we're aware of this, Then we're going to say, Okay, I want to start working on having preferences and not needing these attachments because the attachments lead to suffering. Maybe we're involved in some bad relationships and they're bringing us down and we'll focus on that, Changing these relationships that we have. Maybe we're struggling with some form of addiction where we come home and watch endless hours of television or on our phone all the time, Never putting it down or struggling with alcohol or drugs. There's so many different ways we can distract from our pain and not make changes. So the key point to keep in in part two or step two is, Okay, Choose something to work on and then focus on that and work on that with a daily intention. This is what I'm going to work on. Again, Let's use an example. They have a couple of negative people in our lives that are very negative. We may choose not to hang out with them as much, Call them, See them as often, And work towards developing relationships that are far more positive in our lives. There are so many different things that we can work on, But we'll get overwhelmed if we take on too many. So choose a few and then work on them. If we come home every night and watch countless hours of television, Maybe instead we'll just sit outside and listen to nature and read a book and start developing the skill of quietness. Maybe we'll take up meditation and learn how to quiet our minds. Maybe when we're driving, We'll stop honking and say, I'm not going to honk anyone no matter what they do unless it's life threatening. Maybe when our kids do something that causes us to get angry, Instead of immediately reacting, We'll walk away or we'll pause and take a few deep breaths and then address the issues before us. There are so many things we can work on to improve our lives. And this podcast has so many episodes that we can explore in areas that we can improve our lives. So the key here is to choose a few that we can work on until they become habits. And once they become habits, We target new areas of our lives. Because with time, Anything that we do over and over again will become a habit. That's just the way human beings are wired. And so what we do is we focus on a few behaviors, Improve them, And now they're a habit. And then we choose new areas to work on that need to be improved until they become a habit. And with time, Our lives will continue to get better. But the key element of any form of change is not to get overwhelmed, Number one, And number two, Not compare yourself to anyone else. Let's say, For example, We wanted to lose weight. We're 100 pounds overweight. Well, Number one, If we try to lose it in a week, We will get very overwhelmed and most likely quit within the first day. However, If we choose areas that we can improve upon, Like perhaps having more salads, Drinking more water, And work on those until they become habits, Because life really boils down to our habits. Do we have good habits in place? Do we have bad habits in place? If we have ones that we need to change because of our awareness now, Step one, We work on changing them. We don't take too many on, Otherwise we'll get overwhelmed. But we work on the areas that we can improve upon in regards to our happiness. Like I said, Perhaps we're negative. And we work on that. And we just keep working on that until the new habit, Say being more positive, Becomes a habit. And once it's a habit, We choose other things to work on through awareness. And with time, We just will keep getting better. Our lives will improve. As long as we do two things, One is which we just talked about, Not taking on too much, Just taking on a few things that we can work on through intention on a daily basis until they become habits. And then we take on new tasks, New intentions that we can work on until they become good habits. And we just keep going for the rest of our lives. So the next thing we're going to need to do in order to create a daily intention of happiness is to work very carefully on not comparing ourselves to others. This is really important for two reasons. One is there's just always someone doing better than we are. So why compare and contrast our behavior to others? They have different experiences. They've had different backgrounds. It's rather silly to do that, Because we can always find someone doing it better than we are. But it also is very discouraging when we compare ourselves to someone doing it better than we are. Wouldn't it be far better just to say, How was I doing yesterday or last week or last month? Because even when we compare ourselves to ourselves, Sometimes in the distant past, We hadn't gone through some of the experiences that we're going through right now. Like someone we loved died recently. That makes our life harder. We may not be doing as well. So we have to compare ourselves to the recent past and then say, Okay, What can I work on to improve this? And only compare ourselves to ourselves. Because like I said, When we compare ourselves to others, It can be very discouraging at times. It can be nice to know that people out there can do well as a word of encouragement. But we have to be careful to say, But I'm not doing as well as they are. If we say, Well, I want to do as well as they are, And I can, That's okay. But if we get caught in do, They're better, I might as well just give up. There's no point. That can be very discouraging, Of course. So let's be very careful not to compare ourselves to others, Unless it is encouraging. And then mostly just focus on, Am I doing better than I used to be a few months ago, A few weeks ago? Am I continuing to improve? Because we can. All right, Step four is realizing that everything ultimately matters. What we're exposing ourselves to externally, And what we're thinking internally, Matter. Experiences that we have are going to affect our level of happiness. If right now the love of our life has asked us for a divorce, It's going to impact us. But our thoughts are going to impact us even more. If we create stories of doom and gloom, That's what we'll experience. If we create stories of, That was a good chapter of my life, I wonder what's next. It just all matters. What we eat, The friends we hang out with, What we watch on television, Everything matters. It doesn't mean that we have to do things perfectly. There is no perfect solution. It's just everything matters. And given that, We ask ourselves through our awareness, Step one, What am I exposing myself to? Both externally and internally. In a sense, It's like what we eat, We become. What we expose ourselves to affects our level of happiness. So through our awareness, We really begin to examine our lives and say, Okay, What choices am I making throughout the day that are impacting me? And everything matters. Making fun of someone matters. Suppressing our feelings matters. Watching mindless television that is critical matters. Participating in conversations that are harmful matters. Hanging out with people that are cruel matters. On and on I can go. It all matters. And it's not that it's bad or good, It's just that it matters. So given that, Through awareness, What am I exposing myself to? Both externally and internally. So part one, Awareness, And part four, Everything matters, Are very much tied to each other. When we realize that as we get better and we are finding that our hearts are happier throughout the day, We say, Guess what? I can keep going. Because everything matters and any improvement that I keep making will make me happier. So that's the final step. Step five is keep going. We can keep going to the day we die. This is awesome. We can keep finding more happiness, More peace in our lives, All the way to our last breath. It's like finding an investment opportunity that only goes up and keeps getting bigger all the way to the end and no one can take it away. It just keeps getting bigger and better and bigger and better. This is awesome. So in summary, If we want to create a daily intention for a happier life, We need to do five things. Step one, We need to be aware. How are we doing? Step two is, What can I focus on to change? The few things I can focus on, Not too many. Step three is, Don't compare ourselves to others. Step four is, Everything ultimately matters. And step five is, Let's keep going all the way to the end. We truly can have beautiful lives that keep getting better. It's work, It's effort, But it's worth it. So let's keep going. Let's keep improving our lives so that each day we find more happiness, More peace in our lives. Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast. If you are finding these episodes helpful, I would love for you to share your experience with others. The easiest way for new people to listen to this podcast is just refer them to www. Happinesspodcast. Org. That's happinesspodcast. Org. Or if you want to do more and leave a review, On that site you'll find a Yelp link, A Google Plus link, A testimonial link, Or perhaps even the site you're listening to this podcast on. Often you can leave reviews there too. The reviews are an awesome way to encourage people to start listening to the Happiness Podcast. And until next time, Accept what is, Love what is.

Reviews

Inspiring, insightful and enjoyable podcast! Thank you Dr. Puff!

Thank you very much. Full of common sense and insight with practical applications to daily life. Soothing, inspirational and empowering.