Is Happy on Your List for the New Year?

 What’s the First Word of the Year? Yep, the very first sentence we say to each other at the very first moment of a New Year begins with “Happy”. The very first word we shout as the ball drops is “Happy!”

Our very first wish for each other at the beginning of a new year is a wish for happiness. One would think that with all that wishing, we’d be a little happier for it.

Happiness doesn’t come just because we wished for it, it comes because we intend it to.

In a changing, challenging and sometimes downright negative world, we need to put a little effort behind being happy if we want to invite it, feel it and encourage it to grow.

I intend to nurture my own happiness, because for me it’s been hard to come by.

I wasn’t genetically programmed for it.

Happiness ( and more than a dozen other positive emotions) come for me as the end result of focusing my attention on things I can appreciate and love and by minimizing the fears that try to hijack my well being. Some days that’s easy and some days it’s not.

Some days it takes re-framing situations before I can find something in them I can appreciate.

Scientists tell us that about 50% of our “Happiness Setpoint” is genetically determined.

My happiness setpoint was just a notch below “just okay” before I began the active pursuit of happiness and well-being. For close to 9 years I’ve been studying, practicing, teaching and leading workshops that dare people to own their own happiness and create their own best reality.

I learned how to become happier. And I am so grateful for that learning and for all the new opportunities that now come my way because I know how to teach companies to become happier places and people to become happier parents, friends, spouses and coworkers.

I teach people in organizations to take responsibility for creating more positive emotions in a deliberate and sustainable way for themselves and customers.  

So here we are – a New Year – 2014. It’s a significant year.

What will you do to step up to its significance?

What do you intend for your happy new year?

I intend to be more mindful and more present.

I intend to speak from the truth of my heart

I intend to focus on clarity, harmony and integrity

I intend to create more kindness and less criticism.

I intend to speak my truth more clearly and succinctly.

I intend to sit in silence more often.

I intend to look for and find things to appreciate all day long, every day.

I intend to rewire my internal circuitry by creating more positive pathways in my brain and by going to my heart more often to create internal coherence of body-mind-spirit.  (That’s my most powerful and joyful state of being.)

       What do you intend for your happy new year?

I intend to use my imagination more to visualize what I want. (I already created a new vision board and have started lists of new affirmations and declarations to go along with the vision. (Hey, it’s my movie, I’d like to write, produce, direct and star in it.)

I intend to do things that scare me and take me out of my comfort zone and expand into my stretch zone.

I intend to stretch more, dance more and sit less.

I intend to change the lifestyle habits that don’t support my desire for vibrant good health and vitality.

I intend to keep more gratitude lists and do the exercises that are proven to help reduce stress and create positive emotions (not just happiness – there are lots of positive emotions!)

I intend to create more positive emotions and radiate positivity as a result.

I intend to savor the good stuff more.

       What do you intend for your happy new year?

I encourage you to start your list if you haven’t yet. In my workshops I teach that intention is a force as powerful as gravity because it can pull you towards what you want. It enlists the sophisticated circuitry of the human brain and searches the environment for just the thing you were thinking about.

Think about what you want – at work, at home, at school, in relationship, for your body, for your soul, for your good health. Think about it, and write down a list of intentions. The act of doing that will begin to get your brain on your side (despite any genetic tendencies) and working on your own behalf.

         It’s the best time of year to create the habit of happiness.

Leave a comment here and share what you will do to create more happiness, love, contentment, joy, bliss, kindness, curiosity, confidence, playfulness, enthusiasm, amusement, awe and elevation in your life. The likelihood of creating something increases when you share it with supportive people. In fact you are six times more likely to be successful in creating what you want when you “power it up” with a group.

Watch for our upcoming 2014 group sessions on Positivity Practices! Work along with me as I get back to writing my fourth book, “From Positive Thinking to Positive Doing: Positivity Practices that will help you turn Happiness into a Habit.”

It takes a village you know.

Many blessings for 2014. May you realize your heart’s desire.