Documenting Your Journey to Happiness
Keep a journal. Document your journey to fulfillment in a journal. Journals provide you with a space to process your thoughts, evaluate your fears, and dream your dreams. Writing regularly in a paper journal or maintaining a daily blog will allow you to track your progression to happiness. Writing about your day and your emotions forces you to become more self aware. Note what brought you joy that day and jot down what made you anxious. Document an interaction with someone that is doing exactly what you want to do. As you move through your journey, periodically flip back through your journal to see how far you have come.
Start a video diary. Instead of writing about your journey to happiness, keep a video diary. Use your phone, computer, or camcorder to record your thoughts, aspirations, and realizations. Unlike journaling, keeping a video diary allows you to verbalize your thoughts—it forces you to get out of your own head. You also don't have the added stress of starring at a blank page! Maintaining a video record will allow you to assess your growth. Rewatch the short films to see how you have changed—have your goals shifted significantly, are you more aware of what makes you unhappy, or do you have an idea of what might make you happy? Allow your realizations to influence your understanding of happiness and fulfillment.
Take pictures. Documenting your life through pictures is an excellent way to capture memories! Snap pictures of people, places, and things that make you feel happy—take pictures of your 91 year-old grandma, a tree changing colors, a successful project. Take pictures of scenes that move you to action—snap a picture of a riot, a police officer standing guard, or a lost dog. As you collect these images, analyze their significance to you. What do they make you feel and why? Do they reveal something about your life? Are there any images missing from your collection? Apply what you discover about yourself to identify what makes you happy!
Bringing Your Dreams Into Focus
Ask yourself what you really want. There is no incorrect reply. Your response may be silence, a shrug, or “I don't know.” You may reply with a vague, hazy answer or a toned-down version of what it is that you really want. Sit with the answer, mull it over for awhile. Consider why you don't know. Identify the glimpses of your honest response in your hazy reply. Capture the essence of your toned-down answer. If your answer is silence, a shrug, or “I don't know,” overcome the fear that you may never find happiness or that you don't deserve to feel content. Respond again with a fresh perspective! Let go of any guilt and recognize that your hopes and dreams have evolved. What used to make you happy no longer satisfies you and that is perfectly normal! Your happiness does not need to be defined by what your friends, family, or coworkers think brings you joy.
Push your response to the next level. Elevate your response by expanding upon those glimpses of honesty in your hazy answer or extrapolating the essence of your toned-down reply. For example, if your original reply was “I want to be happier with my career” you would elevate your answer by identifying people, places, or things that make you feel happy. Continue to push your answer further until it is specific enough to be attained. For example, if animals make you happy, consider pursuing a career as a vet or volunteering at a shelter in your spare time. If working with kids brings you joy, consider becoming an elementary school teacher. If helping others creates feelings of fulfillment, search for a job in the service industry. This process may take awhile. Remain patient, allow yourself to feel frustrated, but never dwell on the impossibility of your answer.
Embrace your answer. Allow your answer to guide you to happiness. Don't worry about the when, where, or why. You can't control those factors. You can only control how you pursue your happiness. Make an effort to pursue your happiness every day. This will require you to step outside of your comfort zone. The risks, however, will force you to grow into a brazen, driven, and happy individual.
Finding Your Calling
Identify your gifts. Your gifts are your strengths, they are what you are good at doing. Compile a list of your strongest skills. Your list will include practical skills, like filing taxes, social skills, such as listening, and interpersonal skills, like evaluating a situation or having a high level of self-awareness. In addition to self-reporting your strengths, take a gift or skill inventory test. The results may reveal new gifts or affirm your evaluation of your strengths.
Recognize your passions. Your passions reveal what you care about. You may be passionate about the environment, animals, social justice, education, or children. Your passions move you to action. What moves you to pick up a sign in protest? Do you regularly donate to an organization? If you struggle to readily identify your passions, take time to explore different issues. Educate yourself on global warming, familiarize yourself with immigration reform, dedicate yourself to social justice. Over time, you will discover your passions.
Examine your values. Values are a set a principles you live your life by. Often, our values are derived from our religion, family, and society. Your values guide your decisions and actions. If you value integrity and honesty, you strive to tell the truth and appreciate when others are open with you. You may value equality, freedom, or family, generosity or dedication. When you work or live in an environment that does not respect your values conflict and tension naturally arises. Identify your core values by completing a series of easy exercises. Consider which characteristics are present in the people you respect—how do your parents, mentors, and teachers live their lives? Evaluate which issues inspire you to take action and why these issues excite you. Assess your community and determine 1 thing you would change. Review your answers and search for common themes. The themes and principles that emerge will resemble your values and beliefs.
Find your calling. The key to finding your calling requires you to meld your gifts, passions, and your values. Find a way to lend your strengths to a cause you are passionate about while maintaining your values. When you reach the perfect balance of all three, you will experience a feeling of satisfaction—you will have figured out your life! Finding the perfect balance between your gifts, passions, and values may take awhile. Don't expect to perfect the formula on your first try!
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