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The way to live a happy life is to find something that you love doing and find a way to make it your career! You read all the time about “finding your passion.” I never used to know what that meant. It seems like a word that is so overused.

I’ve discovered that being passionate about something means that you lose yourself when you’re doing it. The hours fly by and the next time you look at the clock, four or five hours are gone. Working an eight-hour day is practically a day off because 10-15 hour days are normal. You go to sleep at night thinking of this subject and wake up in the morning thinking of it. You can’t wait to get back to the work–in fact, you don’t even think of it as work. The subject of your passion is never far from your mind and you find yourself jotting down little notes wherever you are so that you don’t forget a particular idea to add or explore. It is my opinion that few people are lucky enough to discover their passions and even fewer are able to make a living from them. Never quit exploring though–keep looking and you may be one of the lucky ones!

Another secret to a happy life, and one that we don’t pay enough attention to as young people, is being healthy and active.

A healthy life does start with a happy life. Let’s face it when one is happy there is no stress and better yet no complications to our lives. We live in a society that is going a hundred miles per hour and seems to never stop to refuel.

Having a happy life starts with making your surroundings enjoyable and your abode a pleasant place to live in. When we come home from work we want to kick off our shoes and place ourselves in a relaxing state. If your surroundings are messy then it is hard to relax. A clean quiet room is the place to start to relax.

After you sit back and are relaxing and feeling calmed from the days work or activities it is time to think of a place that makes you happy. Be it a field of daisies or a swimming pool floating on a raft. Making you feel happy and relaxed is a crucial part to a healthy life.

In a healthy life, relaxing and meditation can be a part of you day, even at work. You can sit back in your chair and think of your relaxing place. At times doing this technique several times a day you will find you are able to deal with the work stresses in a better manner. Becoming irate toward others just makes your day bad as well as theirs.

In conclusion it does not cost you anything to relax and think of a calm place to be. Just take a bit of time in your busy schedule to do this and soon your days will be more at an even keel. You will find that you are calmer when you are faced with hectic problems!

Happiness is a choice you make and you are the only person who can make that choice. However, in order to be happy, you must feel that you DESERVE to be happy.

Feeling undeserving of happiness is a common roadblock that shuts the door on happiness for many people. Remember, you have the right to be happy and you deserve happiness. Once you believe this. The choice is yours.

Are your ready to open the door and catch some happiness? Here are 12 steps to steps to get you started.

1. Create a blueprint for a life you love. Identify what you want from life-set goals, develop a plan and take ACTION! Monitor your actions, measure your success and celebrate!

2. Practice Awareness, Acceptance, Action Be Aware of what you don’t like. Accept it. Take Action to change it.

3. Give up on being perfect. Be proud of who you are. Live your values. No one is perfect.

4. Stay out of the drama. Focus on solutions Life is for living. Stay out of the drama- focus on solutions to resolve problems.

5. Balance your life. Balance work and life. Make time to play.

6. Develop your skills and talents. Invest in yourself professionally.

7. Engage in doing what you love. Use your personal and professional network.. People are opportunities for success and they make you feel connected. Get out there and have fun doing what you love. You may even discover a new hobbie or sport you enjoy! Form networks of friends, colleagues and prospects.

8. Take care of you. You deserve the best. Take care of YOU!

9. Receive and reduce expectations. Allow yourself to receive. Don’t expect or make assumptions.

10. Replace need with fulfillment. Practice self reliance. Only you can meet your emotional needs. Reconnect with your soul and find fulfillment. Rid yourself of anger and negative thoughts. They hold you back.

11. Use your energy wisely. Identify your energy zones. They are sources of motivation leading to action and success.

12. Live your dreams. Take risks to follow your dreams. Dreams come true are happy moments. Need help contact me at carolgcoach@aol.com.

Coaching for Happiness & Success – “As coach, I ask you question to make you think. I listen deeply to what you say. I speak to where you are not to what you said. I guide you to be where you want to be. I celebrate your success with you. I am your biggest fan”-

Carol Giannantonio – Pathways for Prosperity Coaching – 2008 copyright-Carol Giannantonio-All rights reserved.

Have you ever been in the situation where you hate to go home after a hard day of selling insurance? I have.

I know what will be waiting for me, an unhappy wife. It is not that she is naturally that way; it is that she is worried about money, bills and the kids eating regularly.

If you sell anything on commissions then you fully understand. It can be feast or famine. I decided a long time ago to solve this issue. I wanted to come home to a happy wife and to leave the insurance business at the door.

I decided if I had more prospects to talk to than I could see then I would always have someone to sell to. I purposely over flooded my prospecting list with excessive prospects.

I used direct mail, referrals and seminars to provide them all for me. I always had more than enough prospects to see and often I would not get to all of them. Seems like a waste you say?

Not really. If you have an enormous amount of people who you could see then the fear of the Monday morning appointment scheduling was a thing of the past.

It was actually very easy to do and it has resulted in a lifetime of comfort when it comes to prospecting. Here is how I did it.

I borrowed enough money from the bank to fund a large direct mail program setup for 12 months in advance. I would mail 5,000 to 10,000 pieces a month with an average rate of response of 3.5%. The amount would vary based on time of the year such as the holidays. Here is the catch: If I had leads left over I could not get to because of the volume of the response, I would throw them all away. I could do so because I had flesh leads arriving in the mail almost daily. If someone did not want to see me or was hard to see I just chucked it.

It was almost like a breath of fresh air and an enormous amount of freedom. At the end of the year I added up my results and readjusted for the following year. At the end of the first year I calculated I had over 600 annuity leads that I could never get or about 50 a month.

What did I do, reduce my mailings? No I increased them by 50%.

The freedom of unlimited annuity leads for me was a breathy of fresh air. I also learned that if I had enough leads I could come home each night and I was happier which of course made my wife happier. The following year and each year afterward I have estimated that I have left 1,000 annuity leads uncalled and while it may seem a compete waste of time I look at it as the very best money I have ever spent. I have eliminated my need for someone to talk to about my insurance products and at the same time kept my home life happy.

A good lesson is this, “Happy Wife, Happy Life.”

When we’re stuck in the middle of an unhappy or undesirable life circumstance, it often feels as if we don’t have any choice at all. We feel trapped in a corner, or imprisoned in our unhappy bodies or lives.

However, no matter where we are in life there is always a choice about how we proceed. We can’t change what is, but we can change what will be. The first step to lift out of an unhappy reality is to activate ‘will.’ Will is, perhaps more than any other factor, the key to human freedom and personal power. Will is the ability to deliberately choose a specific course of action. In simpler words, will is your power of choice.

Life is filled with infinite choices. All around us are opportunities, challenges, and of course the path of comfort. In this smorgasbord of life choices, is it up to you to decide the best actions for you based on your heart’s passions. This means you have the ability to choose freely what you no longer want to experience and also choose what you do want to experience in your life. Recognizing that you have will can set you free and reward you beyond your wildest dreams.

Will is the Ability to Choose
Often, we live our lives without making conscious choices for ourselves. We accept the circumstances of our life, taking whatever comes along. One day we wake up and realize we’ve been living a life that doesn’t feel authentic. We’re not happy. We keep doing what we think we should be doing to get by, yet feel lost, empty, and maybe even depressed. Then we convince ourselves we don’t have the ability to choose differently.

For example, you feel unhappy, but tell yourself, “I have spent so many years studying for this job, I can’t possibly leave it now.” Or, “My family has such expectations for me, I should fulfill those expectations whether I like it or not.” Or, “I’m overweight and there is nothing I can do about it.” No matter how alien you feel in your situation, how trapped you feel, you believe that you don’t have a choice in the matter.

Will is about knowing that you always have a choice. It is about trusting your instincts and deciding where you want to go in life. Will involves the creative spark of independence and self-determination. Will is your determined purposefulness, conviction, and resolve to live a life beyond the confines of should’s, have-to’s, and feeling trapped.

Is Your Power to Choose Strong?
If you find that your will to choose is not fully developed, you feel out of control. If you have not learned to use your free will, you feel fragile and vulnerable. If you were brought up to obey others while denying and disowning your unique personal choices, you feel lifeless. If your will is ignored, suppressed, or hidden, pain will arise.

Look closely at your own will. Is it frequently:

o Pushed around by the will of other people?

o Influenced by the opinions of others?

o Suppressed by your own feelings, such as depression, guilt, anger, or fear?

o Immobilized by inaction and lack of direction?

o Weakened by self-doubt?

Notice if you generally do what you wish, from the core of your being, because you have willed it, or does some other factor dominate? Do you mold yourself to the expectations of others? What happens when you tell yourself, “I can create my life exactly the way I want it, in all dimensions – body, work, family, relationships, community, and the larger world?” How does your inner voice respond?

Will Versus Willpower
Will is not to be confused with old-fashioned willpower. Stern, harsh, self-critical actions are not what we are talking about here. Willpower contains the heavy emotional burden of what you “should” be doing, instead of what you want to be doing. It is filled with “trying” and “hoping” to do things while having doubt and lack of intention and confidence.

The true function of will serves to provide direction, not to impose upon you. Will involves no threat or sense of guilt or punishment. Instead, will springs from within your core and contains life, excitement, and even passion. Obviously, moving forward in your life with will also requires effort and determination. It’s not easy to create change or set out in a new direction. Yet when your actions are born from free will, you move forward knowing that your efforts are important to you.

Will Strengthening Exercise
Activating will implies that you act from clarity of self, rather than impulse, desire, or habit. How can you strengthen will? By becoming aware of your choices! Instead of living your life on autopilot or by force of habit, become aware of your everyday actions and behaviors. There is an opportunity to strengthen will in each moment. Here are just a few ways of activating will in various situations throughout life:

o Try something new.

o Make a plan and then follow it.

o Do something extremely slowly.

o When facing a minor choice, choose without hesitation.

o Act out of character.

o Refrain from saying something you are tempted to say.

o Do something that makes you feel insecure.

Activating and strengthening your will is a conscious choice. It is also a courageous choice. Will requires that you take risks, do things that are different and often out of your realm of comfort. At times you may fail or others may judge you. But you can do it! You can strengthen your will, give yourself freedom, happiness, and live the life that is meaningful to you. It is only possible to be truly happy when you are first true to yourself!

Life after divorce is something that most people who are going through divorce think about. Thinking about having a life after divorce or thinking about how your life will be after divorce, are common because people tend to fear for themselves. In fact, think about having a life after divorce while getting a divorce can be a sticking point for some people because they just aren’t sure what their life will “look like” after divorce.

Here’s 5 things to keep in mind so can have a life after divorce:

Life after divorce item 1: Think about your emotional stability…if you wanted the divorce or not, you must face it head on.

Divorce is tough and whether you’re going through it or your are already past it, your emotional stability is of vital importance because you might tend to be somewhat touchy after going through an emotional ordeal. Keep in mind that your life after divorce can be great but you must admit that you will go through (or have gone through) a trying time in your life. Admitting this and facing your situation head on is important to your emotional stability and critical to you having a happy life after divorce.

Life after divorce item 2: Look at the bright side, having life after divorce could be a new start for you!

How may times in your life do you wish you could have just started over knowing what you know now? If you answered “many”, don’t worry, that’s a common thought most of us have. Having a positive mental attitude about your new beginning will make a huge difference in how happy your life will be after divorce. Life after divorce can be fantastic and it can also be very tough if you don’t remain positive about a what’s in front of you. Look at the glass as being “half full” and realize that, in order to be happy after divorce, you must take advantage of the opportunity to get a fresh start!

Life after divorce item 3: Surround yourself with people you like in your free time.

Too often times people start new relationships with just about anyone because they are lonely while getting a divorce or after getting a divorce. Sparking a relationship, romantic or friendly, with anyone and everyone who will spend time with you can contribute to unhappiness in your life after divorce. Stop and think about the people that you spend time with and ask yourself, “Once my emotional turmoil has ended, would I really want to keep the relationship going with this person?”. Life after divorce is tough…so, when you’re deciding about divorce, going through one, or already have been through a divorce, make sure that you carefully choose who to spend your free time with or you may fall into more negativity in your life after divorce.

Life after divorce item 4: Make it a point to spend time doing things that you like to do every week.

Make sure that you spend time enjoying your life after divorce – don’t forget to ’stop and smell the roses’. Some people vent, work, go into hiding, or just plain go haywire after getting a divorce and their subsequent life after divorce isn’t as healthy as possible. At least once a week, take the time to go and do something that you really enjoy doing…it will help you deal with your life after divorce in a more pleasing manner.

Life after divorce item 5: Set specific goals and implement a plan to achieve those goals.

Life after divorce is a tumultuous time, your life can seemingly be ‘in the balance’. In order to make sure that you feel good about yourself and enjoy the feeling that accomplishment brings, think about a goal or set of goals that you’ve always had but never attained. Then, prioritize those goals and devise a plan to obtain them, one by one. Implement each plan and be happy (in fact celebrate) once you’ve reached your goal. Your life after divorce will be markedly better and healthier if you take this concept to heart and follow it.

Visualizing your life after divorce (and thinking about what your life might be like after divorce) is a sound and logical thing to do in order to be happy after divorce. Your life after divorce does not need to be a continuation of the pain you might have gone through or are currently going through.

Life after divorce can be extremely liberating if you act based on logic plus positive emotions rather than negativity. If divorce is eminent or you’ve already been through divorce, take the time to actually plan your life after divorce.

Many people do not recognize that their life should have a purpose. They muddle along in a swamp of despondency, just running on automatic, and carrying on with what they perceive to be “the daily grind” of life. If you are one of these unfortunates, discovering your life purpose will be a mind blowing revelation that will change your life forever.

Your life purpose is more than some empty, mystical phrase. It is as real as the air that we breathe and if you decide to search it out, you will reap real rewards and benefits.

True life purpose is on the spiritual plane. It has nothing to do with fame and fortune although many people mistakenly think that it does. The old saying that money can’t buy you happiness is very true. It can only buy you the material trappings of a life that we may think we want, but once found, can still leave you feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied.

Your life purpose is very much to do with attitude. Far too many people have developed an attitude that they are doomed to under achieve; that whatever they do, something will go wrong; and of course, inevitably it does. This is what is called the law of attraction.

It’s nothing to do with the physical attraction between man and woman; without wishing to sound too mystical it’s the attraction of the universe. It is patently true. If you harbor thoughts of under- achievement, you will under-achieve. If you only ever see the negative side of things, you will only ever reap negative results.

You can change this by simply looking for the positive. There is an old saying that “every cloud has a silver lining”, and it is true. Always look for the positive, and you will find it. By thinking positive thoughts, you attract the positive and encourage positive action.

To find your life purpose you must look within; you must find your true inner self; not the one racked with fear and doubt, or worry and stress, but the unblemished, untouched inner self. Our true life purpose, each and every one of us, is to be the best person that we can, to live our lives spiritually and ethically cleanly, and to help others.

It is by practicing this philosophy of life, while at the same time remaining positive and seeking the positive in all things, that we begin to attract all that is good.

There is no better feeling in knowing that you have helped someone, that you have made a difference to their lives. It underpins another one of the old sayings; “it is better to give than to receive”. Anyone who prefers to receive is still bound by the physical, material possessions of this world, and whilst pleasant to own, they do nothing to enhance the spiritual you.

You will find that those who are truly happy in this world are those who have discovered their purpose in life. It is there within us from the very moment that we are conceived and we become a material part of the universe. The universe is a place of plenty. By becoming at one with it we can all take our natural share of its huge potential for plenty.

Wisdom and understanding are the right and left hands of God that have to be found, built, perceived and finally used intelligently in our every-day lives. By wisdom, we mean divine energy and by understanding we mean the structure of knowledge. These two gems from the Natural Order of God must be used daily, for a happy, healthy, sane and prosperous life.

From the moment we open our eyes in the morning, until we close them to sleep at night we are constantly dealing with 2 things: structure and relations. Unconsciousness of the structure of things and forces in the outer world, and our relation with them in the inner can destroy and frustrate all attempts at a good life. The vast majority of people (perhaps well over 95%) are enmeshed and chained by and in the blind urges for experience.

This leads them to a constant and ever growing hunger for sensation, feeling and doing. All unaware of why and what they are doing and its mathematical result in their lives. This is really insanity (unmeasured). In a world built of the Immutable Order of God where day and night follow each other in an inevitable mathematical order, there can be no such thing as “luck”. Bad luck really means bad look. Since attention is life or death, a bad look always means bad ‘luck’.

Ideally, philosophy is never an expression of belief or faith, but rather always a tool to be used as a guide or measurement in life, commonly and everywhere. We define philosophy as the love of wisdom, the need to understand and get an overview of how parts relate to each other and to life in general, and their evaluation.

As you know, healthy weight loss involves more than just cutting calories and exercising more. You want to change your weight, but you also want to create a healthy relationship with your life, food, body, and self. You want a life that is in balance, without constantly be obsessed with calorie counting or worry about good foods versus bad foods. Healthy weight loss means that you have abundant energy to pursue your dreams and vibrant health to enjoy your life. Follow these simple guidelines and learn a few tips on how to make your weight loss journey balanced and healthy.

De-Stress Your Digestion

Is your digestive tract energetically charged with tension and worry? Stress affects all parts of your body and your digestive tract is no exception. If you are obsessed with what you can and cannot eat, worrying about whether your food is fattening, or unable to relieve your stress, you are upsetting the health and effectiveness of your digestive tract. Stress can lead to ulcers, constipation, diarrhea, and poor absorption of nutrients. Help your digestive tract by keeping your thoughts clear and your body at ease while you eat. Enjoy the food you are eating, relax with company of those eating with you, and learn to breathe deeply and fully while you are eating. Practice eating consciously, with joy, and with a clear mind for three days and watch your life health and happiness increase.

Fill Up On Inner Worth

On a deep level, those who use or abuse food have made a decision (perhaps an unconscious decision) that they are not worthy of being themselves. They believe they should not express themselves powerfully, and they should not receive pleasure for themselves. Overeating often stems from basic unmet needs for excitement, play, love and genuine self-expression. Often, people have decided they are “supposed” to give pleasure out to others, by being nice and good, smiling sweetly, not being bold, loud, or assertive. We go along with protocol buying into the idea that uniformity is the key to a happy and rich life. We are supposed to look a certain way, dress in order to please others, or contain our excitement. Yet to conform is to live in a state of rejection. Realize that denial of your individuality and uniqueness leads to feeling disempowered, mutes passions, and prohibits your ability to receive pleasure. Without pleasure and genuine self-supporting self-soothing strategies, we often turn to food to relieve basic emotional states such as stress, anxiety, fear, tiredness, depression, and anger.

Food In Your Pantry

Diets tend to make us uncomfortable around food. We begin to remove all temptations from our homes. No ice cream, no chocolate, no cookies. After awhile – no food in our pantries. This tactic doesn’t really stop us from eating. Instead, it beckons us to venture out to the nearest convenience store or drive through. Once there it is difficult to resist the temptation of the hamburgers, fries, shakes, and cookies which we then devour in the car on the way home. This is the boomerang effect of deprivation. Scarcity makes us anxious while surplus calms us down. Begin to find your own way to allow food back on your shelves in your life.

Healthy Actions For Today

Health and happiness are not that difficult to have in your life. It just takes some attention and some action to insure that you have as much of both as you desire. Read through the following list and decide what actions you could take to increase the quality of your life:

o Notice what is right for you from the inside out

o Eat more vegetables, fruits, whole grains

o Drink lots of water

o Walk outside

o Movements of balance – balance board, exercise balls, yoga, Tai-chi, etc.

o Dance, exercise, play

o Laugh more

o Rest enough – not too much, not too little

o Remember the playful kid inside of you

o Be kind to yourself

o Feel good in everything you do

o Savor every moment

o Be grateful and count your blessings

o Learn to receive

o Recognize what you are receiving

o Pursue your goals

o Play up your strengths

o Find your calling

o Gain trust in yourself

Make Peace with Food

Do you sometimes feel like food is the enemy? Being at war with food and your body can only lead to decreased passion and a low energy life. The mood and attitudes you eat with affect the positive energy flow between food and you. Indeed, creating harmony with food is critical if you wish to live a happier, healthier life. Take a chance, call a truce, and begin to develop a more peaceful relationship with food. When you stop viewing food as the enemy, you regain control of your own life. You can connect with your body and discover you own subtle fullness and satiety cues. You can become involved in determining what, when, and how much your body wants to eat.

What is Creative Visualization?

Creative visualization is your ability to use your imagination to get what you want out of life. Visualization helps you get clearer about intentions and objectives. In other words, you develop detailed pictures of yourself successfully achieving specific future possibilities and outcomes.

For example, suppose you decided to cook dinner tonight, but you had no concept of what you wanted to prepare. Because you lack direction, when you go into the kitchen you don’t know which ingredients to gather or how to combine them. Through trial and many wasted ingredients, you may eventually concoct a good dinner. However, wouldn’t you have an easier time getting dinner ready if you had a clear picture of the outcome? Absolutely! The process would have been more direct if you had been able to picture what you wanted long before you began putting your ingredients into a pan.

Having a clear picture of your outcome provides direction, eases frustration, and increases your chances of success.

The same holds true for your goals, dreams, and aspirations. You reach success when you hold an image in your mind that predicates a successful outcome. Motivational speaker Les Brown advises, “You must see your goals clearly and specifically before you can set out for them. Hold them in your mind until they become second nature.” Visualization is an essential element of achieving success.

Visualization is a secret shared by top athletes, actors, performers, and business leaders. In fact, almost all successful people use some form of visualization. Visualization is mentally picturing an event before it happens and seeing your self successfully accomplishing the event. You picture yourself confident and passionate, being in possession of what you desire. You experience the excitement, satisfaction, and fulfilment of already having what you want.

Visualizing your success is important and can propel you through many difficult times. Here’s a quick primer on how to use creative visualization in a more conscious way to achieve your goals and dreams.

Know What You Want

The first step in creating what you want is to determine exactly what it is you want. Sounds simple, but it is not always so. For a dream to become a goal, clarity and detail are required. It’s not enough just to have a vague idea of what you want. You want to define your dream beyond wanting more energy, better health, or losing weight. Take your concept of what you want, shape it, define it, and picture exactly what success would look like to you.

Visualize Success

Whether your goals are personal or professional, the visualization of having achieved them makes all the difference. Create a vision of who you want to be – and live in that picture as if it were already true. Allow the pictures of your life to be vibrant, rich in detail, exciting, and full of hope. Use your five senses to bring life and excitement to your imagination. Go through all your senses and notice what you imagine seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, even smelling, in your vision. Breathe deeply and easily as you do this, breathing life into your vision.

Rehearse Your Success

Visualization is an active, ongoing process. It is not something you do once and then forget about. Rehearse your desired outcome many times in your mind before it actually happens. By taking the time to visualize your dreams, you bring them into your body, and you invite them into your life. Get into the habit of holding your image of success in your mind day-by-day, moment-by-moment.

Move Beyond Obstacles

Visualization melts away the mental roadblocks holding you back from living the life of your dreams. Sometimes, when you are deep into a problem, you may think you are stuck with no way out. Visualization is a creative tool in which you see yourself moving past your block, receiving what you need, and being supported in your efforts. Visualization allows your creativity to generate new ideas to overcome obstacles. Visualizing will help you find a way to win even under the most difficult circumstances.

More Than Wishful Thinking

While creative visualization is thinking positively, it is much more than wishful thinking. It is a mental process establishing a goal and then imagining the process of attaining that goal. Vision is not magic, it requires perseverance and patience, but it works. Stick with it and creative visualization can be a useful tool to manifest your dreams.

Strange? Sure. But it works. Achieving success requires that you prepare yourself for success, and visualizing helps you do that. Begin right now and imagine yourself living your ideal life and feeling really great living that life. This type of visualization isn’t something that happens on its own. Plan ahead, and decide to spend time each day imagining your ideal life. As you think, so you become!!