Viral Happiness

Your life is a series of choices, moment by moment and day by day.

The decisions you make is how you live your life. Quality choices yield a quality life. Poorly orchestrated choices yield a poorly orchestrated life.

How’s your life right now?

If you’re pleased with how things are going, you’re making the right choices. But if you’re not pleased with your life, it’s time to consider your choices. Or, better yet, consider how you go about making your choices.

It’s time to learn the art of making a quality decision.

Most people spend too much time “fretting” and not enough time doing. Do you ever find yourself thinking or saying, “I just can’t make-up my mind!”  This inability to make a decision keeps you stuck where you are.

Putting off making a decision is actually making a decision. You’ve chosen to not take action. You’ve chosen the life you currently have over the life you would like to have.

A quality decision occurs when you take a committed course. A quality decision occurs when you take action.

You may be saying, “I’m sure this approach works for some people, but that’s not how I make a decision. You see, I don’t jump into anything quickly. I think it’s best to study and plan and discern and ponder. ”

While it may be true that you feel a need to do all of these things, the studying and planning and discerning and pondering are not the decision. These activities may, or may not, somehow eventually result in a quality decision, but they are not a quality decision.

A quality decision happens the instant you take committed action.

Do you want to change your life for the better? Do you want to build a life out of great choices? Do you want to be the kind of person who strides from quality decision to quality decision?

Then pick a course and take immediate action. And then do it again…and again. That’s the art of making a quality decision. That’s the way you make a quality life.

Tags: Action, Choosing, Quality Decisions, Quality Life

Slow, difficult change is a myth. You can change as quickly as shifting your thoughts. Do you want more love? Then be more loving. Do you want more success? Then refuse to entertain any thoughts of failure. Do you want to be happy? Release thoughts of sadness and woe.

What you think is what you are. Change your life right now by changing your thinking. You can change anything at the speed of thought.

Engage life.

Don’t wait until you finish school or get a new job or lose 10 lbs.

Do it now.

Don’t live life vicariously through empty images on TV or the internet or magazines. Live life yourself, full-out, right now.

Why be absorbed by fantasy words and deeds of fantasy people?

Engage real people. Love them. Let them love you.

Engage ideas. Give yourself the gift of deep thought. Hold a thought through it’s completion.

Concentrate more on specifics and less on generalities.

Respect your own ideas. Respect your own beliefs. Don’t look to others to provide your thoughts and your beliefs.

Trust yourself to make choices.

There is power in choosing.

And we always get to choose.

Don’t wait.

Don’t hesitate.

Engage.

Do it now.

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it? A child’s question. And we should be well past such things.

But I am not past it. Here at the ripe middle age of 53, I’m still wondering.

So I ask myself, “Buz, what do you want to be when you grow up”

And the honest answer comes to me: “I’m still not quite sure.”

You see, I’m no guru. I’m a searcher, just like you. I’m on a quest…a lifelong quest.

Reading Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist, I have fallen in love with his phrase for it.

He calls it (what you want to be) your Personal Legend. I’ve been given glimpses into my Personal Legend. My quest has led me to work on Viral Happiness. It’s led to my writing two ebooks and filling notebooks with reams and reams of unpublished material.

But I long for my Legend to break forth into my psyche like a bright, guiding star. I want a beacon in my life. I long for clarity. Maybe you do, too.

One of the ways that I intend to encourage that breakthrough is to blog more and write more and (selectively) read more. Maybe you would like to join me.

You could start by reading The Alchemist. Offer a comment here or by email about your own personal journey. Let’s start a dialogue that may lead to a deeper realization of our Personal Legends.

Answering that question – What do you want to be when you grow up – is important business. Let’s start fresh giving it the time and effort it deserves.

We are imminently worth it.

It’s a New Year, and people are determined to change their lives.

They are convinced that 2010 will finally be the year that real and lasting change happens.

Many will try to change their diets or their activity levels or their work habits or their approach to relationships, and some will succeed in these new endeavors.

But the vast majority will fail.

Why?

Why will so many invest so much initial effort but never keep the pace that leads to real success?

The reason is simple and profound.

Those who fail try to change their actions without changing their thinking.

Everything in your life, for good or for ill, begins as a thought. If you want to be healthier, wealthier, wiser, and more loving in 2010, you need to change how you think. All of the physical activity and positive intentions will ultimately fail unless you first change your thoughts.

Would you like some help to get started with real change? Get a free copy of As A Man Thinketh: The Study Guide by filling in the form to the right of this post.  That’s a great way to start changing your thinking.

If you want a little something more, check out 7 Days Away From Powerfully Positive Living (a quick and simple jump-start to a better life) or Mastering Your Power of Release (an expanded version of my approach to changing your life with lots of extra information from ten other personal transformation teachers). Or do a little web research and find something else that will help you change the way you think.

Just know that real change begins in your thinking.

If you ignore that fact, you will fail.

When you embrace that fact, your success is inevitable.

I follow several Gurus just like you probably do.

Some are great, some are good, some are so-so.

I read their emails and watch their videos. Often,
I buy their products.

Lately, however, I’ve been feeling Guru overload.

It’s nothing serious, but I am trying to decide exactly
what to do about it.

I’m getting slightly bored with the ‘latest release,’
the ‘information I can’t live without,’ the ‘new
best thing.’

I’m not saying that these methods don’t work. Some do
and some don’t. Some have made huge differences in my life,
and some were throw-aways. But so much of it seems like the
same old stuff rehashed over and over and over.

Here are 3 questions for you.

1) Do you ever experience Guru Overload?

2) If you do, how do you handle it?

3) What kind of information do you most need that
you are not currently getting from Gurus?

I’d love to hear your answers.

Please share your thoughts in a comment below.

I am very interested in your answers. I want to gather and
share information that will really help us all, so please
share your ideas with me.

Thanks!
Buz

Sometimes, my life feels splintered.

Can you identify with that at all?

One travels through life, making progress upon progress, and then life pulls you in several directions at once. Family needs, business needs, community needs, personal needs – your singular vision falters and scatters into myriad directions.

And, instead of feeling whole, you feel splintered.

That’s the way I’ve been feeling for the past few days. Too many objects demanding my focus. And a focus splintered is weak focus.

You don’t make progress with weak focus.

“An organism at war with itself is doomed” Carl Sagan

When your focus is divided, it is almost as if you are at war with yourself. Your forces, instead of being gathered and pressing onward, are rushing in different directions, losing their momentum. Your progress is doomed.

So, we have identified the problem. What, then, is the solution?

Thought. Genuine, purposeful thought.

Whenever I begin to feel this type of mental weakness, I know that I have been ignoring my thinking time. And this case is no different.

I am making time for all sorts of activities, but not purposeful thought, prayer, and meditation.

I am serving others while ignoring myself. And, if that condition persists, I will soon have nothing to offer others.

Even though I blog and write ebooks and practice self development, I am not immune to forgetting that, as Steven Covey teaches in The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, I must “sharpen the saw.” It will not stay sharp with neglect.

Like beautiful orchids, we all need careful tending and feeding.

I need to feel whole.

I believe I’ll start thinking right now.

Tomorrow is 9-9-09. The symmetry & alliteration offer a moment of significance, a clear touchstone for planning and action.

And that special date offers you an opportunity to begin something special, something of real & lasting significance in your own life.

What have you been putting off?

What wonderful accomplishments are you planning when you say, “I’ll get around to it…someday.”

Well, friend, 9-9-09 could very well be that day.

I am using that particular date as my own personal touchstone, my own personal reference for some wonderful goals.

I have set specific goals to be reached in 2 months, in 6 months, in 8 months, & in 12 months…all dated from 9-9-09.

You may be thinking that this is nothing more than a gimmick…you may be saying that 9-9-09 holds no more significance than any other date. After all, they’re all just numbers on a calendar.

And, you know what? You would be absolutely correct.

There is nothing special about any date or any moment unless we make it so.

Allow me to repeat that, “…unless we make it so.”

There is nothing magic about a specific date. The key is in what we do. Success is always about what we do.

But couldn’t you use a little magic?

Why not conjure some now by using this unique date to start building something special in your life.

Use it as a springboard to greatness!

And when you have succeeded, when you have built that castle you know you deserve, when you have forged a golden link in the chain that is your life, when you are basking in the joy of your accomplishments, then you
can look back and say, “This seed of greatness was planted on 9-9-09.”

If you don’t do it now, when are you ever going to get around to it?

Today, I watched clouds.

I sat for an hour in my backyard, and stared up into the sky.

The clouds, full and white, drifted like majestic, shape-shifting islands across the deep blue of sky.

It was magnificent.

When I was young, I watched clouds. And I watched them again when my children were young. But I had not watched them with awareness in a long, long time – until today.

And that, I think, was the biggest gift…the gift of being aware.

We spend our time rushing through life, barely skimming the surface. We are caught up in a very narrow slice of this existence. We act as though so much of what we experience is ordinary, when, in actuality, our lives are miraculous.

Our perspective is mundane, not our journey.

We allow inanity to preoccupy our thinking: “Why is that jerk talking so loud on his cellphone? Is our landscaping as pretty as the neighbor’s? Why doesn’t my boss appreciate  me?” While underneath that surface, underneath everything we experience, there is a continuing miracle.

Try this. The next time you go shopping, make eye contact with the person at the checkout. See them as someone real, someone with the same hopes and dreams and feelings as you. Try understanding your coworkers. Spend time with your loved ones. Be open and loving and available. Don’t be guarded. Refuse to feel hurt. Let other people be themselves. Don’t judge them. Just be aware of them. Be aware of their hearts. Be aware of their souls. Don’t presuppose. Take heed of emotional needs. Give yourself away.

In your heart, you know you have an important part to play. The time has come for you to play it. Don’t be afraid. You are strong and wise, even when you feel weak and stupid. Be aware of your strength. Be aware of your wisdom. Be aware of the real you.

Just be aware.

Be aware that this creation is much more wonderful and complex than we can imagine. Be aware  of your own immensity. Be aware of the voice of God.

Turn off your TV, go outside, and watch the the clouds.

I know the exact moment that my mid-life crisis ended.

It ended when I realized that I wasn’t being the me that I really am. It ended when I realized that the weak, worried, struggling soul that I had seemingly become was not really me. So I simply decided to assume my true identity.

I had been improving for months, but that moment of perfect clarity and change happened in an instant. I became who I really am, a person I had been before, although now, this version was improved – this version was wiser.

I’ll tell you exactly what happened to spur my decision to finally say…”No More!”

It happened because of a bill.

Some company sent me a bill that, at first, made me say, “Crap! Another bill to pay. When will I ever get through paying these bills.” But, even as I stood looking at the bill and lamenting my fate, there came another thought…the thought that changed me and brought me back to my true identity. And it started with one word.

“NO!”

I had finally had enough of my personal victimhood. I had had enough of feeling like a loser. I had had enough of embracing a personae that was foreign to my true nature. And that’s when I began to win at life again, the minute I said “No” to a way of being that was not serving me.

All it took was a real decision to “be” who I wanted to be. When you change your “being,” your thinking must follow. When you change your thinking and resolve to take action, those actions are now the actions of the real you. They are positive, strong, loving, success actions.

If you make the decision to be a positive, strong, loving, and successful person, then those same actions and attitudes must follow.

Think about it this way: what makes a person loving? Loving thoughts and loving actions. So the way to be a loving person is to think and act with love. If you decide that you are a loving person, that love is a part of your true identity, then it must affect the way you think and act.

This may sound like circular reasoning, but it is the only way I know that works. Decide who you really are and then think and act in a way that is consistent with the kind of person you long to be and then you are that person.

That’s why I can boldly claim (as I did in my last blog post) that you are already the person you long to be because, if you long to be a certain way, that is proof that that is the real you. And the way you release the real you is to act and think in a way that is consistent with the real you.

If you want lasting change, the last few paragraphs are worth rereading and also worth your thoughtful contemplation.

If you need further insight, leave a comment or send an email, and I will  get back in touch with you.

Once I made the decision (and I will blog about decisions soon…you haven’t really made one if you don’t take action) to be who I really am, things began to change for me. Business improved and continues to improve. I ran for office and won. I feel more like myself than I ever have before.

I am convinced that when you make a conscious committed decision to take your proper place in the Universe, you flip a cosmic switch and your life begins to immediately change for the better.Consider this quote from Johann Wolfgang van Goethe.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

It’s time for you to cast of any hesitancy, weakness, and fear.

It’s time for you to make a committed decision to be who you really are.