Jump in, the water's fine

I consider myself a pretty positive person. And well, when I received a notice in my e-mail about Thiagi giving a webinar on Happiness, I must say I was more than a little intrigued. I mean, I have noticed that the word "Happiness" has been showing up in his monthly newsletters for a while now - and I am curious about that word. Happiness. It has a connotation of rainbows and Ziggy cartoons for me - a very 1970's word. But here it is 2010 and it is showing up in Thiagi's newsletters.

I know, I sound like a skeptic, and honestly I am not. I really love happiness. The real essence of what it is - I am very pro-happiness. But my skepticism comes from the advertising and media's interpretation of happiness. All sugary sweet, and although it tastes good, it isn't really good for you. It is like calling HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) sugar. But I attended this webinar today and donned my scarf of skepticism and waded into the webinar pool.

Now I must also tell you that I love grouchy people. I am not sure where it comes from, but show me a curmudgeon and I am all smiles. And I have met Thiagi, although I am confident he wouldn't remember me, but there was something I really liked about him when I introduced myself. And it became apparent to me when he self proclaimed to be a grouch. Tada! I knew it. And I settled in to listen to what he had to say about happiness. He even said that those of us love to teach the subjects we most need to hear. Ok. Well, he and Tracy started by presenting facts about happy people - how more creative they are, how much better they deal with work/life balance, how much better team members they are, the list goes on. And I promise not to ennumerate the entire webinar because that would be redundant - if you want to listen to it go here(http://www.trainingmagnetwork.com/discussions/show/2095).

But by the end of the hour, I found myself really feeling authentically happy. And realizing that our authentic happiness is dependent on a mix of several factors. 1) 50% of your happiness is based on your genetics - nothing you can do about that - it is just what it is. 2) 10% of your happiness is based on circumstances - not a whole lot you can do there either. But then 3) 40% of your happiness is based on your deliberate choices of activities. Well, that is something we can effect. Pretty cool. And notice - none of the components really have anything to do with other people - of course genetics do - but I mean in the sense of other people making you happy. Aha! We make choices. We reflect on how those choices make us feel. We choose to make choices that help us feel better - leading us to feel more happiness. Simple right?

Well, here's something I challenge you to do... in fact while on the call I challenged my family to this as well - and this was totally an exercise from the webinar - write down 3 things that over the last 24 hours you are grateful for. And for bonus happiness points, try doing it for 30 days. If you write more than 3 great - but at least put down 3. See how you feel. You might even want to write down how you feel before you start the 30 days and then at the end, write down how you feel post 30 days. I mean, it couldn't hurt right? And if you want to do even more, check out this website (https://www.positivityratio.com/survey.php) where you can find out your positivity ratio for today and if you want, track it for 30 days. I started today... and am looking forward to seeing where I am "floating" in 30 days. So I will say it again, jump in, the water's fine.