BORN AT DAWN LIFE: HAPPINESS

January 13, 2018

Would you consider yourself happy? Or do you sometimes get a sense of discontent that you can’t quite put your finger on? This week for BORN AT DAWN LIFE, we’re focusing on Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast with Gretchen Rubin - “8 Rules to Happiness”.

Gretchen was stuck one day on a packed NYC bus when she realised the years were slipping by. She asked herself, ‘What do I want from life?’ and the response was ‘To be happy’. Yet she hadn’t considered how she could be happier, what was missing and what she could add. From this epiphany, “The Happiness Project” was born- a bestselling book on how to create a more fulfilled life that blends scientific research with her own learnings.

Devoting a year to the project, she soon realised the biggest obstacle to her own contentment was… HER. So she set out to discover what happiness meant personally to her and came up with recommendations for others including the below: 

• Identify areas in your life that bring you joy and satisfaction and work out which bring about feelings of guilt, anger and boredom and spend your time accordingly. 
• Look at your own nature, values and interests and set your own "personal commandments" to ensure you avoid living your life for others.
• Enjoy the Process- happiness needs to be the journey rather than a destination and the importance of living in the moment is key.
• Act the way you want to feel. We may think that our behaviour is due to our feelings but we can control it and the more we act a certain way, the more our feelings will start to match it. I.e. Forgiving someone or being more generous. 
• Don’t keep scores with people! There should be no calculation- when one loves, one does not calculate.

One of the great things about this book is that you don’t have to drastically change your way of life after reading it- i.e. give up work and go travelling. It’s all about making small, realistic changes to your everyday life which can have extraordinary results.

Did any of you listen to the podcast or read the book? What did you think? We would love to hear your thoughts…

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