This blog will outline the SINGLE most important change you can make to secure not only your healthy success but also your happiness. It all begins with your headspace and the mantra you keep telling yourself “I’ll be happy. If I ………”
- You’ll be happy WHEN you lose 6lbs, or perhaps
- you feel that you will be happy when you have reached your business dream?
- Or you can finally be happy with the way you look when you can fit into that dress at the back of your cupboard?
I’ll be happy when……is a way of thinking that is broken, it if weren’t broken then everybody who reached a running milestone, a weight loss goal, a promotion at work, a new client would be happy. But you are not. Simply because everytime you reach a goalpost you move the success threshold a little further on and so your happiness gets pushed further away and over your horizon.
Research had proven over and over again that if you are happy your success (whether that is business or personal) will follow
For example:
- Drs who have given a boost of happiness before they see a patient are 3 x more intelligent and creative with their correct diagnosis – smile at your Dr, bring him an apple 😉
- Sales consultants are 56% more times successful when they have seen something on youtube that makes them smile before chatting with a client.
The 5-day bikini diet, the fast transformation 10-day body cleanse all promise big changes to your life and your happiness. And yet neuroscience has proved that it works the other way round The SINGLE ONE thing you can do to be successful is to BE HAPPY!
“Happiness is the precursor to success, not merely the result” The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
Your own happiness and optimism will actually fuel your success because you will feel motivated, take action and that will result in achievement.
Happiness in small boosts
Of course, you can’t be happy ALL the time, but the research is proving that it needs only be something small. For instance, the Drs in the example above were given a lollipop before seeing a client, which improved their diagnostic skills.
Other small boosts can include meditation, something to look forward to, conscious acts of kindness and infusing positivity into your surroundings and of course the old Gorgeous trick – exercise 😉
Little boosts will help your short-term happiness and put this together with your long-term habits and you will dramatically change your outlook on life and your success rates at whatever you choose, remember a smile looks gorgeous on you 🙂
Here are my 4 tips for your long-term happiness & SUCCESS:
- Be Grateful & be happy
- recognise that you are imperfectly imperfect
- Move forward with a positive mindset
- Take small steps that turn into lifelong habits.
1. Be Grateful & be happy
Recognise what you DO have
Gratitude is the biggest resource you can use that will motor your success. Gratitude that you have good health, that you do have the tools and positive mindset around you to move forward with whatever you want.
2. Recognise that you are imperfectly imperfect
Changing the way you think will transform the way you view the world and your happiness in life. Start off by knowing that you are gorgeously imperfect, infact as one writer calls it you are ‘perfectly imperfect’. You are a work in progress and when life throws you a set back like a rude comment from Mrs Miggins and you don’t deal with the situation as you would have liked – so what! Your response may not have been as you would have liked it or ‘should’ have reacted in a kinder good girl manner – it doesn’t matter. You are imperfectly perfect, nobody has the same trigger points as you, nobody knows your personal history and therefore if you REACT to Mrs Miggins in a certain way, that is fine. Accept move on and let Mrs Miggins and your response go.
Move away from having the perfect size 10 figure.
Be Perfectly Imperfect YOU Gorgeous GIRL
Be happy with being imperfect, or another phrase I hear from successful business women is ‘good is good enough‘, your work output doesn’t have to be 100% pristine, your level of experience and time on this planet is enough. What you have to offer is your personal insights which are interesting and valid.
The message is to be happy with who you are right now and from that happy place, you will move forward.
Be happy with your level of work activity, the size of your bum, your reaction to friends, family work colleagues.
You are a work in process and at the moment right now you are exactly where you should be. Let go and be happy.
Be a happy learner, is another phrase I love. Simply put it means be happy to make mistakes, be happy to take a few risks, be happy to put yourself out there and ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’.
Know that you are not perfect is so FREEING, you don’t have to be perfect in your job or role as mum, or your relationship.
Your life will go up and down but being happy that this is normal and that you are imperfect will free you from the mindset that you have to be perfect and achieve everything.
Know that ‘perfect’ thinking is holding you back and keeping you in a state of anxiety.
Anxiety breeds more fear and uncertainty and when you feel fearful you reach out to nurture and love yourself and most of us do that in the form of chocolate.
Today is going to be a great day 🙂 be gorgeous, be happy
Do you see the link, the connection?
When you are happy, you are imperfect, when you are imperfect you are free.
When you are free you don’t mind the mistakes you made in the pub on Friday night or the way you shouted at Johnny. Yes we can all do things differently but you are learning, I am learning we are all learning and when you let go of your imperfection and be happy with who you are RIGHT NOW. You will have peace of mind and you won’t want the chocolate biscuit!
How does that sound?
Did I move to fast or did I lose your train of thought with the chocolate biscuit imagery?
Be happy and then you will be successful.
3. Move forward with a positive mindset
Neuroscience is shifting, in the same way, that nutrition world has shifted. And it all plays cunningly into my world understanding. Or maybe I seek out the books and research that appeal to my way of seeing the world (that is cognitive dissonance and is a WHOLE other subject) but let’s just stay with the neuroscience and psychology is shifting to the positive. A wellness week back in 1998 focused on depression or drugs. A wellness weekend now would include meditation, mindfulness, great habits, nutrition
Neuroscience has previously focused on negativity for example in 1998 there were 17 studies on depression and only 1 on happiness. Positivity and wellness is the new YOU
I was shocked when a client told me that she was advised that her issues would cost thousands of pounds and years of counselling before she could move on with her life. The shock of that statement is enough to deter any self-analysis and personal development. If you take that view then why bother trying to move on?
In response…..
yes, it may well take a while to change your mood, but if you decide that are happy with what you have and who you have around you. If you decide that your bum is okay the way it looks and recognises that you are on a journey where life is unfolding. If you understand that happiness starts with you.
Bear in mind that it won’t take 5 days to get bikini fit (unless you are of course 23, gorgeous already and never pushed out a water melon or had abdominal surgery – just saying!)
Believe that you are perfect in your imperfections.
4. Take small steps that turn into lifelong habits.
Shawn Achor talks about going to Harvard and how everyone at Harvard is STRESSED! They have reached the pinnacle in life, reached the best US university and yet the next GOAL is laid right out in front of them and they are suddenly working hard and pushing to reach that next goal. He explains that when these amazing students arrived at Harvard, they have reached their life time ambition, and then the realisation is that they were below average with their class mates.
So rather than feeling grateful for the pinnacle and privilege that they have reached they moved their goals on and made themselves ill in the process.
This insight reminds me of another book this one is by ‘Jack Canfield’ who talks about success in bite-sized chunks. He refers to staying focused, sticking with your daily habits and explains that your continuous habits will lay the foundations for your life.
Habits lay the bedrock with your success.
In a similar vein, Jack’s daughter had reached a prestigious university, let’s say it was Cambridge University, so we have an English representation. Jack’s daughter, Felicity (another of my embellishments) was nervous.
Felicity had achieved her dream and yet she now saw herself at the bottom of the class. She was scared and frustrated “How was she going to compete with the others?”
Jack explained that she just needed to keep up her ‘Slight Edge’. She may well be average or even below average in her class, but keeping up with her habits, by being consistent, by attending every lecture, and showing up would give her a slight edge. Do that little extra at the end of every day, write up your notes. Create that slight edge and at the end of her academic year, not only was she was progressing well but she was the top of her class.
Your aim may not be Harvard or Cambridge but like these examples they may feel out of your reach, or maybe when you do reach the self-sabotage and give up.
Your success comes from your daily habits, so be happy with what you are doing and keep adding your ‘edge’:
- keep up your positive mindset,
- your daily steps,
- your weekly exercise routine,
- your positive nutritional habits,
- then you will reach your transformational goal.
Happiness starts right now and it is the simplest way to change your life and become successful in your health goals. Be happy and grateful for where you are now, recognise that you are imperfect and that is okay, you are a gorgeous work in progress and move forward knowing that with a positive mindset. Make sure that your steps are small and consistent and they will turn into lifelong habits that change your world.
The one small thing you can change today is to be happy
The SINGLE most important change to lose weight and Get Gorgeous by summer is to be happy which will help you to relax, rest and nurture yourself. Be gorgeous, you gorgeous girl
Take your first steps and find the time to put yourself first, have a chat and I can talk through your health blocks, understand what is pulling you away from your health goals. By the end of the call, you’ll know exactly what you need to do get your health goals in place. Once you are clear on that, we can discuss ways that I can help you to get your plan your health strategy in easy steps. We may decide to work together to help you reach your weight loss goals successfully – and if so great – if not then that’s okay too. You’ll still have a clear plan to move your life forward.
Here is a quick video I put together for those who are joining me to chat, it explains exactly what you and I will talk about
I am looking forward to speaking with you.
Get Gorgeous is a journey together – yours and mine.
Find out what other gorgeous girls have to say…
Karen Skidmore Business coach at www.karenskidmore.com 28th October 2017
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