Life on Track

Gratitude: A Key to Staying on Track

One way of staying on track is to note what has gone well.  Go with the flow and the joy that you experience. That way you will grow from a solid base and attract more. It uplifts you and promotes a sense of good will. It is encouraging both for yourself and others.
 
When you experience challenges, you can choose to appreciate the learning opportunities that come with them, or you can choose to hold yourself back.  When you look at the experience for what it has to teach you, you go with the flow and it becomes a source of  expansion.  It helps you to refine your goals, become more clear, and gain more of what you truly want.  This is the mindset of gratitude.  

When you avoid an uncomfortable or painful situation, you experience yourself as needy and weak. You give the external situation power rather than discovering power within yourself. This prevents you from using your creativity to view the challenge differently. As a consequence, you cheat yourself of the pleasure of being able to overcome it. Gratitude shifts you to the higher vibration of love and appreciation. It restores your sense of personal power.  

Happiness: Character Strengths and Community

While the media often portrays pleasure as a key to happiness, research shows that without

community and a deeper sense of purpose, a focus on pleasure alone may only lead to depression and emptiness. 

 

Much of our deep happiness comes from close supportive relationships, our faith communities, a positive outlook, and flow.  It is in our relationships that we express our higher ideals and intentions.  Without others, would our efforts matter?  We need others in order to grow, share our challenges, set backs and victories.  A key aspect of this happiness is our experience of friendship, family and community.

 

Consider the times of the greatest happiness in your life. What were these experiences?  Did they happen just from having a good meal topped off with a great desert, or did it come from sharing your story at the meal?  Take a moment to reflect,  what strengths did you use in this story?  Were there challenges?  How did you overcome them? There is a deep gratification that comes from using

our strengths in the service of our friends, family and community. Take a moment today to celebrate and share them.   

 

    

Happiness: Discovering Your Strengths

The Authentic Happiness website (www.authentichappiness.org) is a wonderful resource for helping you to discover the activities in your life that give you a deep sense of fulfillment.  On this website are a number of complementary surveys on different aspects of happiness.  The flagship Survey is the Values in Action questionnairre.  It will take about a half hour to complete and is well worth you time because it will list the character strengths you use most frequently.  There are three to five of these strengths.  They are your signature strengths and are unique to you.  At the same time, they reflect six virtues that are common to all cultures and that have withstood the test of time. As you become consciously aware of these strengths you will find yourself deeply engaged in your work while at the same time knowing that your work also celebrates higher ideals of mankind..

If you take the survey, you will find your signature strengths, that is, the three to five strengths that you use most frequently. After you have identified them, you might want to consider how they have shown up in your life.  Frequently, we use our strengths to overcome our challenges.  You also may find that you have used them since childhood, and that some of these strengths also are important in your family of origin.  These are the values that hold families and businesses together.  They help us to unify in times of stress and change so to work together for a higher purpose.  For example, I have strengths of curiosity, teamwork, and perspective.  As a child I frequently organized games for my siblings and neighborhood friends.  Today, I still coordinate, only now for the game of life.  We have family strengths of curiosity and a love of learning. As you become aware of these strengths you will find they become a treasure house for a deep sense of gratification and purpose.