Happiness is Taking The Thirty Day Challenge

Sometimes it’s easy to forget the building blocks of happiness. I had a wake-up call this week as I was reading Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. He talked about complaining.

Ugh. Complaining.

I realized I’d slipped back into some more passive forms of complaining. It’s so busy right now. I have so much on my plate. Can’t seem to fit it all in. I’m tired.

Fill in your own blank.

Talk about taking away the energy of happiness. I love what I do, but when I feel busy, I’m draining that joy away, leeching it with the worry of stress.

And there’s stuff in my personal life too I’ve been assigning a less than beautiful blue ribbon.

So, I decided to stop complaining—really watch how I talked inside my head (super important too) as well as to others. For thirty days.

Happiness is Taking The Thirty Day Challenge.

Why thirty days? Who not sixty? Why not a lifetime? Well, when we’re doing something like this, we need to start small. And thirty days is the time it takes the brain to (re)learn something and set a habit.

Here’s an example. When I had to take the car into the mechanic yesterday unexpectedly, I didn’t complain. I stopped the blah, blah from starting and said instead, How lucky am I to have the most wonderful, honest mechanic who will fix this for me and make things new.

Did I wince a little at the unexpected outlay? Sure. We have to be real, but I didn’t go into the blah, blah. I didn’t let it ruin my day.

I chose to remain happy—no matter what. Am I really going to let my car steal that from me? No.

Are you up to The Thirty Day Challenge? If thirty days seems like too much, start smaller and then extend it. Be patient with yourself like I am when you start the old talk. Just stop. Start over. You can always make a new choice. Then watch how more happiness you have in your daily bank, lightening your mood.

 

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