In this brief video, Robert Holden, walks you thru an exercises of asking three questions that you can ask yourself each day so that you live in your joy and choose to be happy.
The One Thing Every Happy Person Knows and Practices – Transcript
Hi my name is Robert Holding. Thank you so much for joining me for my first three videos on the purpose of happiness, the blocks to happiness and also the myths of happiness.
In this video, I want to share with you three major fears of happiness that holds so many of its back. I’m also going to share with you one big key to happiness that all happy people know and practice. And I also have some news for you about my new eight-week online happiness program which is coming soon.
Over the last 20 years I’ve run an eight-week happiness program scientifically proven by independent scientists who describe the program as a genuine fast-track the happiest, that not only changes the way you feel but actually changes the way your brain function.
Now on that program, we look at all of the ways that we stop ourselves from following our joy and living a life that we truly love. In particular we look at the fears of happiness.
I’d like to share with you now three major fears of happiness:
Fear number one: The fear but happiness with someone else.
This is the fear that causes us to search for happiness, the more identified we are with the search for happiness the more we live in the not now. And also the more we experience the fear that sometimes referred to as FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out.
You know, the more we search for happiness the more we become convinced that the grass is greener somewhere else. But the whole point about the green grass theory is that the grass is greenest wherever you water it the most.
Get it!
Fear number two: Happiness in selfish.
Growing up, were you have a cautioned about being too happy and that maybe your happiness was somehow selfish.
For some of us we carry this fear that happiness is selfish and yet I’d have to say for me this fear is a theoretical fear. In other words it is not really true.
I have done a lot of research about this fear. I have asked hundreds of people over the years to really examine this fear in detail.
This is how I do it. I asked people to name three mostly happy people in the life and also three mostly unhappy people in your life. I then ask them to judge which of these people are mostly selfish which means that they’re not really interested in anybody else’s happiness they’re only concerned with their own. And also which of these people are unselfish, in other words they really are interested and concerned about everybody else is happening.
And the research shows me that eighty-five percent of the people who are judge mostly happy demonstrate a natural loving consistent interest in everybody else’s happiness. And I honestly believe that just makes sense, doesn’t it? Because I think happiness is fundamentally love based.
Indeed there’s a lot of research that shows that happiness and altruism really do go hand in hand. The happier you are the more you want to share it. For this reason I only honestly believe that happiness is not selfish, on the contrary I think happiness helps you to be a more selfless, a more generous and more loving person along the way.
Happiness and love they’re like twins they work off each other, they are essentially the same thing.
Fear number three: The fear of too much happiness.
Most people have enough limits around how much happiness is okay and how much happiness is too good to be true.
One of my favorite workshops that I run from time to time it’s called how to be so happy you almost feel guilty but not quite. And in this workshop we look at the underlying fear here which is the fear that you have to deserve happiness.
If you believe you have to deserve happiness then you will tell yourself somehow that you have to earn it, work for it, struggle for it, sacrifice for it, suffer for it in some way and this causes us to unconsciously limit our happiness and even sabotage our happiness.
Essentially we’re afraid that if we’re too happy we will get a visit from the karma police who is going to tell us that it’s time to pay for our happiness.
The truth is however that happiness is a thoroughly non deserving issue.
Happiness isn’t something you deserve, happiness is something you accept, happiness is a quality of your true nature and for that reason it’s something that you tap into.
You don’t pay for it, you choose.
So now let’s talk about the one big key to happiness, that all happy people know and practice.
There have been years and years of research on what is it that makes people happy, what is that magic ingredient? Is it the job, is it the circumstances of their life, is it the house, is it the relationship, is it the money?
Well here’s what I have learned, here’s what I’ve seen: the happiest people on the planet are not the people who have the most, they’re the people who have learned to enjoy their life the most.
You see they’re not waiting to be happy, they’re not waiting for life to get better, and they’re not searching for happiness. They’re enjoying this moment. Enjoyment is a quality you bring to the circumstances of your life.
Happiness isn’t in the circumstances because technically nothing really makes you happy.
Everything can encourage you to be happy but it can’t make you happy, you have to do something to.
If you’re going to live a life you love and follow your joy, then you have to enjoy the life you’re living now.
Now on that note let’s do an inquiry. This is an inquiry based on a sentence completion exercise. You’re going to need a pen and paper, we’re going to do it in real time.
So he it goes, I’d like you to complete this sentence three times:
Number 1: One way I could make today even more enjoyable is ________________________. Fill in the blank take a nice deep breath….
Are you ready…
Number 2: Another way that I can make this normal day even more enjoyed Than I thought it was going to be is _______________________________.
And number 3: Another way that I could make today even more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be is _______________________________.
And now you’re beginning to create a list, now you’re on your way, now you can make the day enjoyable. Because you’re showing up your in your day, you’re bringing your imagination, your creativity, your love to the day and that’s what makes our life enjoyable.
So I hope you enjoy the exercise it’s one of my favorites and come back to this one over and over again when I want to reset myself and remember that happiness isn’t a search, it’s a way of traveling.
Ok I had some really good news you. I’m super excited about this. Together with Hay House we are publishing the eight-week Happiness Program online.
This really is a program that has been 20 years in the making. This program will help you to release the power of happiness in you. It will help you to tap into that real happiness that stopped searching for happiness but actually helps you to follow your joy and live a life you love.
This program is for you, it’s designed to help you to bloom, to step into your life more fully and be the person that you’re truly come here to be.
Over the eight weeks you will receive 40 coaching videos, one a day five days a week with weekends off. Each video is 10 minutes long, approximately, and it features a lesson with meditation exercises and affirmations on happiness.
32 of the coaching videos are presented by me and some of the subjects that will cover are:
- Letting go of the struggle
- Goodbye to guilt
- More fun per day
- The receiving meditation (one of a my favorites)
- Milking the sacred Now
- Choosing Happiness
- Finding the presence
- and the gift of Happiness
Now the other eight coaching videos feature interviews with some wonderful, wonderful guest and the guests are:
- Louise Hay
- Cheryl Richardson
- Marianne Williamson
- Tom Carpenter
- Kyle Gray
- Ahlea Khadro
- and Dr. David Hamilton
And after that there are bonuses and one of the bonuses includes a feature-length interview with Tom Carpenter on the relationship between happiness and forgiveness.
I’m so excited to be able to present this program to you now. You know after 20 years of working in this field, on really meditating on true happiness I feel I have something for you that offers great depth and great value.
I’m super excited to be working with Hay House because I know that Hay House has the technology, the experience and the service to be able to offer you something that is truly life-changing.
You know I feel that more than ever before that the human race needs to learn a psychology of happiness. As a human race we have learned so much but really we haven’t learned how to be happy and in particular how to be happy together.
I believe that your happiness serve humanity. That your happiness ultimately help the world to be a happier place. It starts with you!
I also believe that people who learn to follow their joy and to live a life of purpose really are the renaissance workers on this planet.
Your healing and your happiness are a gift to the world. They are a gift to your family, to your children, to your partner, to your friends, to your colleagues and everyone.
A happier world start with you.
I honestly believe we’re all here not to search for happiness but to follow our joy and in following our joy our life becomes a gift to everybody that we encounter and for the whole wide world
Now is the time for you to live the life you love.
Now is the time for all of us to help this world evolved in the direction of love, and we do that by following our joy and by choosing happiness.
About the Author
Robert Holden
Robert Holden, Ph.D., is the Director of The Happiness Project and Success Intelligence. His innovative work has been featured on Oprah, Good Morning America, and media worldwide. Robert coaches leaders in business, education, politics and healthcare. Robert is a student of A Course in Miracles. He is author of the best selling books: Happiness NOW!, Shift Happens!, Authentic Success (formerly titled Success Intelligence) and Be Happy. Robert also hosts a weekly show on Hay House Radio called Shift Happens!
