Happiness is not a goal. It is a path. However, this path involves setting certain personal improvement goals that are important to feel good. Each person, in their unique and unrepeatable individuality, will have different designs according to their interests. Some are born creators and they develop wonderfully inventing or optimizing things. Other people are excellent problem solvers . While others may have a great artistic inclination and opt for painting, dance, writing, etc. Hundreds of people also have humanitarian inclinations and what really nourishes them as human beings is to help others less fortunate. Others actively seek happiness through different holistic disciplines, religions or lifestyles.
No matter what your particular combination of tastes and interests. There is no trend better than another or worse than the others. But the truth is that to achieve happiness in any of them you can not do without discipline.
Why is discipline so important? Since ancient times, the human being realized how important it was to dominate the will and put it at the service of long-term purposes. In the absence of discipline, the first Mesopotamian civilizations had never begun to turn their adobe huts into palaces, for example. Without it, Egyptian temples would never have been built. Without will, the Roman Empire would not have become the cradle of Western civilization. Not only the great achievements of humanity require a lot of discipline. Also, and mainly, individual achievements.
The point is that as human beings, we also have two tendencies that, although not bad in themselves, sometimes prevent us from concentrating on reaching a goal. The first is the tendency to leisure or inactivity . The second, the tendency to be easily distracted . Leisure as such has nothing wrong. Spending some time to do virtually nothing also helps us feel rested and emotionally clear. The problem is when leisure becomes laziness . The second, our great facility to distract ourselves, corresponds to the fact that we are curious creatures by nature. Being curious gives us many evolutionary advantages, but it can also get us off the path towards a goal.
For this reason, today I share five simple tips so you can start training your will and your concentration.
1: Find your true goal: The first and most difficult thing is to determine what we really want to do. Many times the external demands are not going to lead erroneously towards paths of "success" that do nothing more than become a gear of the enormous machinery of the economy. Ignore what the world expects of you and focus on finding what you want from yourself, so the first outline of your path to happiness will appear.
2: Once you outline what you want, help yourself with a calendar: All great achievements arise from small daily actions. It generates a real plan, with daily and attainable actions with a little will. Half an hour of yoga. Go buy healthy food at the local market. Do an hour of online research on a topic we want to learn. etc. Do not saturate yourself, or you will despair and abandon. It is best to list the pending actions and leave a good space for personal recreation.
3: Be careful with distractions: Give yourself an ideal environment to do what you set out to do. Learn to focus your attention. Having a well organized calendar of activities, we may do everything we need and / or want to do. The important thing is that you define the priorities.
4: Rest is necessary and essential. It may be that when you realize that you can do many more things that you believed in, you become saturated with activities or fall into some exaggerations. Remember that the path of happiness is characterized by being balanced.
5: It is wise to change your mind : Not because you have decided that something you like is your path in life in perpetuity. Beware of stubbornness disguised as constancy. Your life is only yours and you must consecrate it to grow as a person and feel better every day with yourself.
Regular readers of white brotherhood, tell me what is your path of happiness and what are you doing to travel it?
AUTHOR: Kikio. Editor in the big family hermandadblanca.org
To know more:
The importance of congruence and integrity today
The hidden competition; the true state of being
