What Does Happiness Mean To You? #MondayBlogs

I was invited to do a talk for a motivational group recently on the theme of ‘Heaven on Earth.' I spent a long time thinking about what that meant to me.

Eventually, I decided that happiness was the one thing that gave me contentment. But sometimes we think that happiness is out of our reach – it’s something to work towards – a goal if you like.

When I’m at home, and I talk about setting goals, I can see my kid’s eyes begin to glaze over. ‘Oh god, she's off on one of her hippie trips again!’

That’s okay; they’re young. Goals aren’t as important to them. For them, happiness is already a huge part of their life; they don’t need to think about setting goals to achieve it.

Seize Life and Live It Now - Ribbon of Life Experiment

When I ran my Motivate Me workshops several years ago, there was an exercise I did that shocked many of the ladies sat in the audience.  It was an eye-opener for all of us and a simple visualisation of how we shouldn’t ‘wait for the right time’ before we follow our dreams or action our goals.

Try it for yourself:

Take a 100cm length of ribbon and a pair of scissors.

Now ask yourself the following question; “What is the estimated lifespan of an individual?”  When we did this exercise, my group decided that 80 years was about right.  The actual figure is 79 years so they were pretty close.  If you agree, cut 21cm off your ribbon and throw it away.