There is an old African proverb that says “there are many of us when they count us” meaning we are more alike than different when faced with similar circumstances. So don’t be so quick to point fingers, lay blame, or pass judgements on anyone that is not you. Over the latter part of 2020, I discovered Happiness is a choice!

You may or may not agree but the mood you’re in right now is a choice and it is being reinforced by your internal moving pictures, emotions, and blurbs of expressions playing out in your mind.

I happened to stumble into the practice of positive psychology and its 20-year journey of studies which kept seducing me with concepts of how the relationship of our wellbeing connects to our happiness or overall satisfaction of life.

“Consciously choosing happiness.”

In my book, Creating Sacred Space I discuss how to tap into changing the way you see things, which is also a choice.

In the chapter on Habitually Connecting with Your True Self, I explained that scientists concluded from the study of the behaviour of quarks - which is energy or matter - that when they changed how they looked at the quarks then the way the quarks looked or appeared to them changed also.

‘A recipe for happiness’

A study was done of 300 college students with psychologist and happiness researcher Soja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside, and a few colleagues; the groups were given different tasks one group wrote their future accomplishments, one group wrote thank you notes to people they were grateful for and the third group simply listed things they had done, these results were explained in an article called ‘A recipe for happiness’ by Emily Sohn, 2007.

The study’s objective was to determine if expressing optimism about the future or gratitude about the past could make a person happier.

Fortunately, it turns out the research showed that expressing optimism about the future or gratitude for the past could make a person happier.

But ‘only people who really wanted to be happier were able to make that happen’. They chose to be happy so they were!

Simply writing it down was not enough; it was only a guide for their thinking.

For the outcome of happiness to show up in your life and positively affect your overall well being you would need to choose it.

Hence the reason for choice. You need to emotionally choose to be happy in order to emotionally experience happiness over the long-term, not random inconsistent moments here and there.

Your skill or your ability to see things from different perspectives can create and sustain the emotional outcome of optimism or a cheerful perspective. If you are able to do that then you have an advantage of creating sustainable outcomes in your workplace, home life, or personal goals and relationships that will affect your wellbeing positively.

For example, you go to work at the same job or pursue a career advancement but you’re now able to emotionally experience it differently, positively because you are choosing to see more creative ways of participation or engagement. The same goes for your personal relationship(s) you can recollect on past or current circumstances and choose to see and emotionally experience a future that you’re desiring for change to come about in your life.

The wanting it also aligns with your personal responsibility of doing what it takes to make it happen this is the moment to engage in the ‘many of us’ proverb as you take a humble approach with your efforts.

Maybe it’s to smile more often, or lighten your mood when you interact with your co-worker or family member. It is engaged conscious participation on your part, not anyone else’s, remember the change happens based on how you see things, not the other person's perspective.

So seeing 2021 as a happier more joyful experience right now can align you to experiencing more happy joyful experiences in 2021.

This gives you the advantage of creating opportunities to affect your outcomes to have a different experience, sometimes of the same thing. Life is the same wheel, our needs continue to be the same but our emotional experiences can change based on how we choose to see the circumstance or situation we’re currently facing; or how we choose to see the past we’re recollecting, or how we choose to see the future we’re desiring.

Happy 2021 everyone!