The business world is fantastic. It's also challenging. Over the course of your career, you'll face ethical, cultural, political, and personal dilemmas in the workplace. You'll work with difficult people. You'll find yourself in compromising situations. You'll have to balance who you are as an individual with what your employer asks of you.
Can you stay true to who you are without sacrificing your success? Absolutely YES.
*** A BIG thank you to my readers now in 75 countries around the world! Wow. ***

Be Happier

Want To Be Happier?
Give These Things Up Today

I couldn't resist sharing this insight.
I felt happier immediately just for having read it.
Today I'm sharing an article that you may have seen making its way around the world online. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and read it today. If you have read it, but can't remember the details, read it again. It's one of those lists I wish I would've written. The next best thing? To have been lucky enough to read it.

Here are fifteen things you can give up to be happy. Starting today.


15 Things You Can Give Up To Be Happy

An excerpt from an article on World Observer Online | Author unknown | April 25, 2012


1. Give up your need to always be right. 
There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it... is your ego really that big?

2. Give up your need for control. 

Be willing to give up your need to control everything that happens to you and those around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether loved ones, coworkers, or strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are.

3. Give up on blame. 

Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your power away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. 

How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted, and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.  

5. Give up your limiting beliefs.

Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, don't allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly.

6. Give up complaining. 

Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy.  No situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. 

7. Give up the luxury of criticism. 

Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved, and we all want to be understood. 

8. Give up your need to impress others. 

Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something you’re not, the moment you take off all of your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you - people will be drawn to you effortlessly.

9. Give up your resistance to change. 

Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Embrace it – don’t resist it.


10. Give up labels. 

Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different. Try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. 

11. Give up on your fears. 

Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.


12. Give up your excuses. 

Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Give up the past. 

I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. 

14. Give up attachment. 

This is a concept that, for most of us, is so hard to grasp. You get better and better at it with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from things, you become peaceful, tolerant, kind, and serene. 
[Note from Lisa:  Attachment is a tricky concept, but the general idea is that if you can feel love, excitement, and connectedness to people, thoughts, and things without becoming overly attached... you gain perspective and peace with regard to the outcomes that may come your way. Here's what I mean. Be informed and passionate about your ideas, but remain open to new insights. Admire and enjoy material things, but don't become obsessed with them or driven to obtain them to the point of missing out on other things. Work toward positive changes in your life, but don't limit yourself by focusing too intently on any one outcome. Love others, but accept them as individuals and let them flourish both with and without you. Like I said, tricky to understand and challenging to do. SO rewarding when we get it right.] 

15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. 

Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. Don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.
[End of Article Excerpt]

Bottom Line

It should be easy to be happy. People say you should just choose happiness, and I agree in concept. How you approach your life and your work is absolutely a choice. The hard part is that many of us don't know what to do differently on a day to day basis to be happy. It isn't about plastering a fake smile on our face. And it isn't about one big choice to be happy. It's about many smaller choices made over the course of every day.

If you want to be happy, choosing to give up these fifteen things is a great start.

More soon,
Lisa

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