Finding Your Daily Joy
With an intention to build your business and your life from an Inspired place, you hear a lot that it's about "feeling good." And it is - but it’s common to hear that as - Only do those things that bring you joy and happiness.
But that’s not how it works.
In the process of building a business, there are and will always be things we must do that are not the thing that brings us the most joy.
There are always mundane, routine, and sometimes downright challenging tasks required to be successful in this material world.
So what is one to do?
You must create your joy!
How do you do that?
Well, it’s not about what you’re doing it’s about how you’re doing it. It’s all about the attitude you bring to the activity.
You can choose to bring an attitude of “Ugh, not this again. I hate doing this/being here/etc. Why do I have to do this? This is no fun.” With this attitude, you are guaranteed to experience negative thoughts, negative feelings, and ultimately create a downward spiral that ensures these activities stay challenging, or even un-done.
Fortunately, you have the power to choose to bring an attitude of joy and inspiration to all tasks – even those you typically dread. The fact is, you and you alone are responsible for the attitude and energy through which you choose to approach your work and your life.
Just as a negative attitude brings about negative thoughts and feelings – a positive attitude – an attitude of joy and general positivity will leave you feeling good – even if the task itself is boring or less-than-inspiring.
So how can you actually shift your internal state?
Here are three quick and easy ways to practice bringing the energy of JOY into your life:
CULTIVATE GRATITUDE
This starts with acknowledging what you are grateful for. At Inspired Income, we have a process called the Gratitude Minute, and it’s about truly feeling gratitude in your body – once you’ve experienced that, you can call up that feeling whenever you need it.
When you start to experience resistance or negative feelings in any situation, you can shift your state of mind by calling up the feelings of gratitude. From this feeling, you can look at your task in a new light, and be empowered.
This process is greatly enhanced by a simple gratitude practice – daily, grab a piece of paper and write down at least 3 things you are grateful for in this moment. I love the idea of a gratitude journal, but I also like to keep things simple – a lot of times I just jot these down on a sticky note. See, it’s not about the keeping of it, it’s about the feeling in the moment.
FLIP YOUR NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
Ah – duality. It is both the bain of human existence and the gift! Everything in life has an opposite – a positive and a negative – like a magnet. Since we’ve already said that you can choose your attitude – your perspective – you can also choose to experience the alternative to what you are experiencing now. Here’s how – turn the opposite into a question!
Imagine that you are feeling or thinking “I hate writing a sales letter,” you can turn that into, “How can I write effective sales letters that are resonate with my value system?” When you do this, your brain and the universe immediately go to work on this question! It can become fun and interesting, rather than difficult and uncomfortable.
(By the way, did you notice that there’s not single right answer to the question you are exploring? There are lots of answers to all of our questions in business, and when we define them in this way, we gain power.)
SMILE!
How profoundly simple! It’s been scientifically studied extensively, and everything points to that fact that we don’t just smile because we are happy – we become happier when we smile. Of course, we don’t have to go to science for this one –
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes
your smile can be the source of your joy.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Smile, and you’ll keep finding more to smile about!
We’d also love to hear from you –
What do you do to bring more joy to your life, no matter the circumstances?
Tell us in the comments, and we promise to respond to every one!
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Good to hear from ypu. I started my journey with ypu in September 2012.Have had marvellous adventures, and a wonderful 2 year Sabbatical.Travelled to Sweden, Canada and Greece, got divorced after38 years, had 3 interesting relationships since then, moved to Cape Town. Found joy tears and excitement along the way……..and now ready to start a brand new chapter.Thank you for the courage to be.