Do What You Love And Create Your Happy Self

Sometimes it can be a little hard trying to keep on the right track, doing the things you love or completing a project or regime you have committed to. You’re working hard to build a career, or building your business in order to keep on top of the bills. Maybe you have been socialising to keep in touch with your friends or are a busy parent trying to keep the house/family together.

When you are continuously distracted, it is easy to push your own personal priorities to the back of your mind and forget about doing all the things you find great happiness in because they often take a back seat over everything else! But participating in the things you are passionate about is just as important to your health and well-being as trying to keep your life and family afloat in your busy lifestyle. When you don’t have a healthy balance between doing the things you love, and taking care of the day to day stuff, you become more stressed and unhappy as a result.

If you have a sense of emptiness or feel like something is missing even though you have everything you want, think about the last time you took some time to really think about what love to do. Who do you like to spend your time with? What do you like to learn or want to do more of? Are you happy in your career?  Maybe you have some changes you want to make but are not sure where to start.

Try this exercise, you can do this with your eyes open or eyes closed:

Imagine you have a large box in front of you. See it full of all your favourite things, memories, experiences, future life, everything and anything which makes you happy. Maybe there are pictures in there of your family, your friends, an old pet, an old family seaside holiday. Your favourite hobby, favourite food, a job that you have dreamed of doing, a relationship you deeply desire. Grab some paper and write everything you deeply love and care about, you could also do this with magazines and cut some pictures up.

Take some quiet time and spend a good hour really focussing on the things that bring you joy and make you happy, imagine waving a magic wand, what would you bring in? Write them all out on a piece of paper, or take pictures from magazines and lay them all out in front of you. This is your personal box of joy!

Once you have completed the above exercise, imagine another box, next to your box of joy. This is your box of present time. In this box see your life as it is now, the people and places you spend your time seeing or going to. Your job, your family, your feelings are in there too. Maybe you can see, hear or feel some fears in there that could be stopping you from moving ahead into your future. Take some quiet time to notice what is in it.

On your piece of paper, answer these questions:

• What can you see that might be stopping you from getting that job or relationship you have yearned for?
• Is there anything you would like to change about your present self or life?
• Is there something or someone you would like to spend more time with?
• What do you notice?

Now you have both your boxes in front of you; is there anything you would like to take out of your box of joy and bring into your box of present time? Bring in all the things you want to add to your box of present time and write them out onto a separate piece of paper.

• What would you add in?
• Would you take anything out of your box of present time?
• Is there anything you want to replace or change?
• If so, what would it be?

Once you have added all the things you want to your box of present time, make sure everything is there for you to enjoy, either presently or in the future. Imagine you are about to unwrap it as a gift to yourself.

Doing this simple exercise allows you to take a step back and notice what’s important to you. Notice if there is anything that you need to change in order to improve your life. It allows you a chance to see things from a different perspective and re-group your inner most desires and priorities so you can live a more happier and fulfilling life!