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Looking for Happiness – Time to Celebrate?

March 14, 2010 by David

We manage to fill our calenders with numerous opportunities to celebrate. Sometimes to mark personal achievement, milestones such as birthdays, or national festivals. But does celebrating make us happier?

Last month following an unexpected and dramatic win over Scotland, the Welsh rugby team celebrated their victory at their team hotel. Unfortunately for one player, Andy Powell, celebrations went a bit too far. He was arrested driving a golf buggy three miles from the hotel and failed an alcohol breath test. He has since been suspended from the Welsh team…

So how do you celebrate? Do you go out on a bender and end up engaging in dangerous behaviour that ruins your career and makes you the laughing stock of the country?!

Festivals we Celebrate

In We all Need to Celebrate I wrote about some of the different ways we celebrate different national or even international festivals.

Bonfire night, or Guy Fawkes night, celebrates a failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament (our seat of Government) and the King of England in 1605. You could argue that Guy Fawkes, the plot leader, was an early terrorist and wonder at how different life may be today had he succeeded! When I was a child I loved Bonfire Night because we celebrated in our back garden and let off fireworks at will. Today, because of many serious accidents (to children in particular), Bonfire Night is mainly celebrated at organised displays (which I find very boring!)

Other festivals have either quite bizarre roots or involve very bizarre behaviour! Hallowe’en – celebrated in many countries – is perceived as a pagan festival of the dead, although it has its roots in earlier Christian festivals. [Read more…]

Filed Under: happiness Tagged With: andy powell, anti-catholicism in the united kingdom, birthday, bonfire, bonfire night, british culture, celebrating, culture, festival, festivals, guy fawkes, guy fawkes night, happiness, happy birthday, international festival, pagan festival, practical happiness, time, tony robbins, united kingdom

Do clothes make a person?

March 6, 2010 by David

Can you feel good, feel self confident, even if your clothes are rather shabby?  There is the argument that you should be proud of yourself no matter what you are wearing. Clothes should be a nice "finishing touch", but ultimately its the person underneath that either shines with confidence, or shirks in the shadows.

To some extent it does come down to your attitude to what you wear. If you are financially hard up and aware that the clothes you are wearing have seen better days, then you will be self conscious and that awareness will affect you.

An easy "unhelpful thought" to slip into is mind reading. We imagine others are having critical thoughts about us, ripping our clothes to shreds in their minds and ridiculing us for what we look like – even tough we have no idea what other people are thinking.

Alternatively, some people are oblivious to the opinions of others and feel confident whatever they wear.  There are highly successful people don't give a damn about appearance or fashion, feeling good about themselves whatever they are wearing.

The Donkey Jacket that Wasn't

Some people can look shabby in even the most expensive clothes. [Read more…]

Filed Under: appearance, self-confidence Tagged With: clothes, clothing, confidence, donkey, donkey jacket, fashion, finishing touch, human interest, self confident, self conscious, self-confidence, shabby, suit, wear, work-wear

Can Gratitude Make a Difference?

February 24, 2010 by David

The best time to appreciate something is when you suddenly lose it. Having been ill the past week with a flu type virus I’m suddenly aware how much I’ve taken my health for granted. Suddenly being incapacitated and in pain, lacking motivation to do anything much except feel sorry for myself, it hasn’t been a great week!

The question of gratitude has arisen a few times recently. I was reading Debbie Bills’ lovely blog The Happy Maker, where in her recent post she listed 25 things she was grateful for. Not all were what you’d expect:-

I am grateful for my vacuum cleaner.
Have you ever tried to sweep carpet before?  No, I have never had to try that one, but I have had to vacuum on my hands and knees before, because the upright part didn’t work.

What lists by others can do for you, is shake up your own thinking. Recognise that you have so much to appreciate. Particularly when  going through a rough time (like being ill!) you can forget about what you have to be grateful for.

Gratitude Works!

I have just finished reading a tremendous book, 59 Seconds by psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman. He has written several other “popular” psychology books, one of which The Luck Factor I discussed at length last summer. Among other things, [Read more…]

Filed Under: happiness, reviews Tagged With: experiments, gratitude, happiness, research, self-confidence, writing

How to Find Fulfilment

February 12, 2010 by David

One of my favourite posts is  How to Develop Will Power. As I say within it, will power is a somewhat overlooked characteristic within personal development writing. Its something we generally perceive as “difficult” or something we don’t possess.new forest self confidence

We can all conjure up times we’ve  given into temptation (and had that cake) or apathy (didn’t go to the gym) – in other words been weak willed. And its very easy to fall into black and white thinking, mentally beat ourselves up, and use those slip ups as irrefutable evidence that we don’t have will power.

My reasons for bring this up again are twofold.

1) As the earlier post discusses, will power (or mental strength, however you want to re-frame it) is a useful character trait to develop as part of building self confidence.

2) It links in well with a new theme I’ve recently added to this blog – finding fulfilment. And a big part of feeling fulfilled, is getting in the habit of doing – pursuing the occupations that give us satisfaction.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: goal setting, happiness, self-confidence Tagged With: fulfilment, passion, photography, self-confidence, unhelpful thinking, will power

Start Losing Control

February 7, 2010 by David

interview self confidenceControl is an interesting concept that affects our self confidence. If we don’t feel in control of a situation, for whatever reason, it is likely that our anxiety levels will increase.

The lack of control doesn’t have to be real. We can conjure up in our imagination all sorts of scenarios where a future situation may go wrong. If you are due to give a speech you may imagine “drying up”, stumbling over words, people not laughing at your jokes, people being upset at what you have said.

Lack of Control

In my opening post I suggest that we have to accept this lack of control. To build self confidence in an uncertain world, with variables out of our control, its more useful to deal with the anxiety than fight a futile battle to gain control.

Feeling anxious, stressed, and at the mercy of others is bound to affect our confidence in our ability to perform the task required. And confidence is selective – whilst lacking confidence about giving a speech you may be very confident in other areas, such as talking with friends in any small groups or individually.

A top sportsman may be supremely confident when performing in front of thousands in a stadium, but lack confidence when required to talk about the event afterwards. Unfortunately, like anything with anxiety at its core, it can spread if doubts regarding one scenario start creeping into others. [Read more…]

Filed Under: anxiety & fears, self-confidence Tagged With: anxiety, control, interview, self-confidence, uncertainty

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