October 21, 2020

The Secret to Happiness Lies in Knowing Oneself.

The secret to happiness lies in knowing oneself. But how can we achieve that? How comes a lot us are unhappier than ever?

If there is one thing I can tell you for sure in regards to your happiness is that you have complete control over it. Full and total control. I know, right?

Well it is this simple. If you have any underlying needs that haven’t been met yet, I mean your deepest personal and emotional needs, you will be unhappy.

 “Success is not the path to happiness.

Happiness is the path to success”

How can you tell there is a problem?  

                                                                                                                                                                                 Incidentally, most of us don’t even know our top 5 personal, and emotional needs. Most of us are also too embarrassed or reluctant to ask for our needs to be met by our spouses, children, or others.

(I love my cuddles, just saying)

The good news is that we can easily identify our needs with modern technology, just take an emotional (or personal) index test and identify your needs, after all it is a lot easier to deal with something you recognise and know of.

Let us put it this way, it is almost impossible to be your best self with unsatisfied needs, hence the importance of identifying them and working on them. For instance, some people love being around family, all the time, and that is what makes them tick, some not quite they do fancy occasional “me-time’.

We all have different needs and that is what makes us special.

Unfortunately for us, unmet needs tend to manifest as frustrations, depression, irritability plus a lot of other unpleasant and unattractive qualities no one likes in us. And honestly, if you still keeping up with the Joneses’ *sigh* then it is one definite indicator that something is quite sadly wrong. It is also a true way to self-destruction.

Just look around you, all your genuinely happy friends have attractive smiles and seem to attract everything and anything they wish for in their lives.

Below are some amazing ideas that could help, even if you are yet to discover your needs. The recommendation is suitable for dealing with both the known and the yet to be uncovered needs:

• Meditate: Discover and try out any form of meditation that works for you, otherwise even just taking 10min a day to quieten your mind works a miracle. Use meditation to control your impulses, reduce anger and enhance self-awareness.
• Be a giver: Give you time, advice, information, and/or lend someone your ear, just give whatever you have. There is always something to offer. When we give it takes the attention off ourselves we then attract even more towards us.
• Be grateful: Have “rituals” that remind you to be grateful throughout the day. Nice tip is having a pebble in your pocket, every time you dig into your pocket and touch it, remember that you are alive and that is enough reason to be grateful.”Thank You”
• Forgive and forget: There is power in letting go of things that could cause you harm more than they would the perpetrator. It lightens the burden and frees the mind.
• Let your hair down: Do the things that remind you how alive you are, watch stuffs that make you laugh, dance to those upbeat tunes…Just live. Have something to look forward to every day. There is no rehearsals in this life, this is it.
• Know When to Say No and When to Say Yes: Anything negative you tolerate in your life drains you, be it your energy, or your finances etc. This is one area we all fail ourselves, big time. We should replace them (the negative) with things that bring us joy. Yes to more cuddles, no to gossips. Yes to adventures, no to idling. Not easy but can be learnt.

This list above is just but a starting point. Feel free to ask for more.

Remember looking after yourself makes you more attractive and authentically happy, you will end up attracting better opportunities with far less effort. People will love being around you.

Ask your friends and family for help whenever possible, allow them to help you meet some of your needs. Do not bury your head in the sand and hope people will just magically know what you want and how you want them. Tell them, be in charge, it feels great too.

Goodluck.

PS: Do let me know how it goes I promise to read all of your comments and reply and if you would like more recommendations feel free to email me.

©NicolleHanselmann.

Photo credit pexels-ketut-subiyanto pexels.com