Who Creates Your Happiness?

Who produces your happiness is a question we ask on a regular basis to our clients.

Are you looking for that missing piece of the puzzle? The piece once you have it in your possession will make whatever far better. Your physical, emotional, and economic life will ultimately get on track and you can lastly claim “I am happy!”

The thought there is something out there that will fulfill our need to be happy is not new. As a matter of fact every day we are bombarded with what will “make us happy.” We see it on social media – posts and ads, television we hear it on the radio. Marketing experts play on our needs to get us believing their product or their system will eventually bring us the happiness we so desire.

The real truth of the matter is none of it will create or have any impact on your happiness. The first step on your journey will be to recognize that. If you don’t, you will forever be searching and chasing “it.”

So what is “it”? Good question and the answer is different for everyone. The reason why it is different for everyone is that there is only one person who can truly make us happy. That person is you. Your happiness comes from within and must start with you.

You and only you have the power to make you happy.

Let’s look at this with a simple scenario.

You are a young adult who is in their final year of university. You’ve been able to study in a field you enjoy, but as you’re now in your early 20’s and have been in school your whole life, you can’t wait to graduate. Being a broke student stopped being fun in Year 1 and you know once you land a job, get settled, and can live your life, you’ll be happy.

Graduation is now in your rearview mirror, you’ve been working and still aren’t completely happy. What are you missing, maybe it’s love maybe it’s building a family? You tell yourself that is what you will need now that you’ve started your career and accept it as what is missing in your life for you to be happy.

A few years pass, and you find yourself in your forever-love relationship. You get married and a few more years pass before you start building a family. It’s the family and the love you were missing to be happy. Right?

Now in your late 40’s, you look at your otherwise very successful life, and yet there is something missing. Your happiness is not what you expect it to be, yet you’ve achieved all the things you told yourself you needed to be happy. So why aren’t you truly happy?

To additionally highlight this reality look at some all too familiar scenarios. You are in university and you can’t wait to graduate so that you can start living your life the means you desire. Then you graduate, fall in love, as well as get married.

You can see the pattern forming here. Regardless of the stage, you are in, you are always looking to the next stage of your life to fulfill what is missing to make you happy. The problem with this method is you will constantly be “wishing your life away.”

Our lives are busy regardless of the stage we are in our lives. Our everyday challenges can cause us to become so involved in external variables that will certainly supply them the happiness we yearn for in our lives, our lives and happiness are passing us by.

Alfred D’Souza stated “For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last, it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

To place it an additional way, John Lennon stated “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.”

The point is you need to be living right now. Stay in the moment; not in the past and you can’t live in the future so you must live right now. Yes, choices you made in the past could be influencing you now, but you can’t change them, all you can do is learn from them and move on.

Live in the moment. Use the information and tools around you to make the best decisions you can, and work towards your goals. If it turns out you make a bad decision, learn from it, update your thinking, and move on.

To live in the moment means you are not waiting for the next stage of your life to start before making a change. You are going to do it now. If you wait, think of all the life you will waste. Your life waiting and wishing for things to be different.

You decide, right now you control your happiness. You are the one who makes the choices, who takes the action, and how to reap the benefits of those actions for you, for your happiness.

For some this is a slight change to their mindset, for others, present company included, this was a complete revamp of thoughts and perception. As we grow up, we experience events that teach us. It’s never too late to learn and to envoke change to help our happiness.

You decide what makes you happy. Look around you, do you see it? You are surrounded by love. By the love, you have created. The riches you have cannot be advertised because they are unique to you. They are real but may not be quantifiable, like the feeling of gratitude from a child or the loving embrace from a lover.

It’s real and it fills you.

You started reading this page with the question, Who Creates Your Happiness? Now ask yourself the same question again. Can you see, or more importantly, can you feel the answer? You do. It’s always been you and will forever be you.

Philosophers, poets, scientists all agree, happiness cannot be attained through money, prestige, or power. Happiness is not a fact it’s a mindset.

Create your happiness and live your life to the fullest as you enjoy the journey of life we are all on.