How You Can Choose to Live a Happy Life: Motivation Moment

“You can’t wait until life isn’t difficult anymore before you decide to be happy.” – Nightbirde

What life are you choosing?

It’s okay to be happy even when things aren’t going right.

It’s okay to find joy even through the sadness.

It’s okay to see the light even as the dark tries to crash in around you.

It’s okay.

Now you have to make the choice to do it.

You Can Choose to Live a Happy Life

A good friend built a good life – a family he adored and a business he loved. He built a reputation for getting things done that let him make a good living while giving back to others. 

One day, his rope broke – literally. He fell fifty feet, head first, from the peak where he had been working. He landed between two trusses in the roof, a few inches one way or the other would have killed him.

EMTs that arrived on the scene thought he was dead, but he kept breathing. The doctors said he would be a vegetable, until he started talking. The doctors then told him he would be a quadriplegic, until he started to move his hands and arms. 

Five weeks later, he was back at work. He had to find a new way to get through his day, but he does it with the same joy, some sarcastic humor, and a willingness to reach out and serve others.

The fall broke his neck, although it should have killed him. The fall broke his body, but it did not break his heart. He chose to find his new way to live a happy life. 

There were so many ways he could have focused on the bad things (there still are). Instead, he found ways to choose to be happy. 

It’s not easy, especially when you face something that seems devastating – at least on the surface or by the rules society has dictated. 

It’s not easy, especially when you had a picture of the way things should go and it looks nothing like the happy little Bob Voss clouds you had imagined. 

It’s not easy, especially when you allow the struggles to be the focus. 

There will always be something – something to hold you down, or hold you back, or make you think it’s not worth it. 

What you choose in those challenging times lies completely on you. You can choose hope. You can choose joy. You can choose light.

Or you can choose not to.

What is the best way to find happiness?

You find happiness when you look for it. It seems too simple to be true, but so often, it is. The good things in our lives and for our lives should be simple. We just invest a lot of time and energy making them difficult. 

Simple Steps to Choose to Live a Happy Life

1. You have to wake up each day and choose happiness. Start with something little, a gratitude, or a positive pronouncement. 

Nothing makes your day start off on the wrong foot quite like the electricity going off and resetting your alarm so you don’t wake up on time. That happened the other day, and when I did wake up, I sat up in a panic. 

There was no reason to panic, not really. I give myself plenty of time to get done what needs to be done and then a little extra to be sure. So I forced myself to close my eyes for a few minutes and thought about all the positive things in my life.

Yes, I started a little later than normal, but choosing to start out in the positive made room for my happiness to grow throughout the day.

2. You have to be invested in being happy. Your words and your thoughts will direct your happiness.

I worked for a boss that had us do a group meeting every morning. At the end, we would stand in a circle and chant, “I am happy. I am healthy. I am terrific.” And if that wasn’t dorky enough, the chant was followed by two claps. We repeated this three times EVERY MORNING! But I always walked away from that meeting with a smile or smirk, which made it easier for me to find happiness in the rest of the day.

3. You have to choose to be around others that choose their happiness. Happy people congregate together – sometimes because they are the only ones who can tolerate each other but mostly because happy people make people happy. 

I spent the afternoon with a man who complained about everything – and I literally mean everything. He’d even find a way to complain about the fact he was complaining. It was exhausting and attitude shifting. By the end of the day, I was complaining about his complaining.

I spent an hour with a friend that is happy and joy-filled and always encouraging. One hour with her left me smiling and gave me the fuel to be joy-filled and encouraging as I went on my way.

The people you are around directly affect your focus, your attitude, and your ability to hold on to happiness. Choose to be around the people who choose to be happy.

How Do We Choose to be Happy?

Circumstances will happen. How you choose to act to the circumstances you face makes the difference. You have to choose your happiness – your joy – where you are. You can’t wait until you are where you want to be.

Choose to smile. As simple as it may seem, a smile will change your world.

Choose to listen to something that makes you happy. 

Choose to find other happy people.

Choose to invest in making others happy. When you invest in the happiness of others, then you grow happiness in yourself.

“You can’t wait until life isn’t difficult anymore before you decide to be happy.” – Nightbirde

Read the quote again. It comes from a young lady who is fighting stage four cancer. She’s been told by the doctors that she has a 98% chance of dying from cancer. Instead of being caught up in those statistics, she chooses to make the most of her 2% and live every day in pursuit of her happiness.

You can choose to be happy. What will you do today to choose to live your happy life?

What specific actions will you take to choose to live your happy life?

Challenge: Find one thing to do to live your happy life. Share your experiences with others – and in sharing expand your happy living!

Want to connect with others pursuing their happy lives?

Sign up for the WPprosper webinar today so you’ll be prepared to create the connections that are invested in happy living.

Nathan Ingram teams up with special guest, Michelle Frechette, Director of Customer Success at GiveWP, to share the secrets for being a WP Community SuperHero!

This Wednesday, June 23rd, 1 PM Central