You Need To Feed Your JOY

Apparently Christmas is the season to be joyful. So how about being joyful all year?

I’ve spent a good deal of my life researching happiness. It fascinates me and I even developed a formula for happiness. What has become clear is that people believe that happiness is relative and has to be earned. Joy is different; it is free – and it is a choice.

Joy - it’s from the Latin verb Gaudium, via an ancient French distortion into joie. So, it’s not so much a feeling as it is an action-  Gaudium – to rejoice.

You have a choice. You can decide to look at the world with joy. Viktor Frankl worked this out through his experiences in concentration camps in the Second World War. He realised that, whatever our circumstances, we have the power to choose:

‘I have understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss’.

What’s more, with joy you can do more than choose it. You can generate it. You can seek it out, amplify it and harvest it. You can make joy a habit.

It might be useful for you to do the following test.

Do any of these look familiar? Do you -

• Spend all your time energy and thoughts on how to achieve some future happiness? When I have enough money… When I’ve got the perfect partner… When I’ve been promoted… It’s a rat-race. Always chasing the next big thing convinced it would make you happy.
• Live in the now with no goals or ambition? What shall I buy? What can I eat? What shall I do right now? It’s all about instant gratification and pleasure as a substitute for happiness. It’s the hedonist’s tendency to live in the moment.
• Allow your past to define you and cling to it as your reason for action and inaction. If only my life had turned out differently. If I do this, it will turn out just like it did last time. If people could see the true me, they wouldn’t like me. That concern with the past makes you a nihilist – expecting disaster in your every action and convinced that happiness isn’t to be had.

They are all forms of living in your head – of overthinking and of judging. So, it’s time to dig a tunnel out of your head, directly down into your heart.

If you are in your heart, you feel rather than think. Instead of concerning yourself with When or What or If you enjoy the concepts of Where and How and Who. You embark upon a voyage, with a destination in mind and with every intention of enjoying the journey and sharing that pleasure with everyone else. You have a project to become a better version of yourself.

So what is the secret to living a joyful life? Try these steps...

Step 1 – find something to be joyful about. Be the joy-generator for yourself. Do something silly or look at something in your life actively seeking the joyful aspects of it. Enjoy the moment.

Step 2 – move out of your head and into your heart. Whatever you experience – don’t think about it… feel it! Feel the joy, the passion, the love for the world around you.

Step 3 – share those feelings. Take a few small actions to pass the joy you have found on to other people. Smile at someone in the street; post something joyful on your Facebook page; invite someone round to enjoy the moment with you; tell someone you love them.

Step 4 – decide to get away from the rat-race, hedonism and nihilism. Set yourself goals for 2017 which are clear and inspiring in their right and which fill your heart with joy. Plan the journey to get there and share it with at least ten people to get their help and support as you.

Pete Cohen

Pete Cohen is one of the world’s leading keynote speakers and the author of the best selling book, Shut The Duck UP.

Hundreds of thousands or people from all over at the world have been motivated and inspired by Pete’s presentations. Pete coaches business leaders, executives, corporate teams and sporting stars to achieve their best.

Pete excels at keynote presentations and inspires his audiences to think outside the box, believe in themselves and get motivated to take positive actions. Working with companies such as IBM, Boots, Pfizer,

Robert Half International, BAA, Royal Bank of Scotland, Boehringer Inelhelm and Thomas Cook.

Pete’s interactive style is fun, thought provoking and leaves a lasting impression. He has professionally impacted on the lives of thousands of people worldwide, including business executives, professional athletes and the everyday person.

Pete focuses on the importance of having a strong belief in yourself. He teaches that you need to be positive and have to develop self-confidence to achieve your potential and be successful. He is the author to 17 published books, several of which have been best-sellers across the world, including Shut the Duck Up, Habit Busting, Life DIY, Sort Your Life Out. He has also presented his own show on TV called The Coach and was the resident Life Coach on GM TV for 12 years. His background is in psychology and sports science. He specialises in taking self help and personal development to the masses in a way that is easy for people to understand and apply.

Working in sports performance coaching, Pete has helped world class sporting stars and teams reach their peak performance, including Sally Gunnell, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Ellen Macarthur, Roger Black, Kent Cricket Team, and the Arsenal Football team.