Exploring You
Exploring You – Discover What Makes You Happy
What makes you tick? And what do you need? Knowing this is essential if you’d like to live in harmony with who you are and who you want to be. We as humans are curious creatures. We explore, invent, discover and compose. But when it comes to knowing ourselves, we are often unfortunately lagging. Exploring what makes you happy is the first step to achieving fulfilment.
Deep down inside of us, we are all aware of our light and its hidden glory. But its gleam can be so bright that we are terrified to embrace it. Instead, we prefer to stand in the distance contemplating, procrastinating, making up excuses and taking solace in the fact that our holy grail is inside of us, within reach, yet unreachable.
We are too scared to dive into that deep ocean, too anxious to unravel and unearth its boundless depths. So, we cling to predictability. Certainty and the delusion of control is the only thing that keeps us sane. It is in our very nature to hold on to what is familiar as a way of exercising control over our unpredictable life. By conforming to others, getting a degree you are not passionate about, getting married, sticking to the job whose satisfaction is worth less than the pay landing in our account every month, we end up shielding ourselves from our own magnificence.
It’s not always easy to identify the things that are most important to you, or the things that make you happiest and most fulfilled. However, it’s worth making an effort to do this, so that you can choose a life that will bring you lasting happiness. This will give you a starting point for finding the paths that you could take. Identifying what’s important to you also provides you with something that you can check against, as you choose between your dreams, to ensure they really will bring you the happiness you want in life.
In the following Golden Nuggets, we’ll look at the times when you’ve been happiest, and at the times when you’ve felt proudest of what you’ve achieved. And, finally, we’ll look at your needs, so that you can build the right foundations to achieve your dreams.
Golden Nuggets
1. What makes you happy?
Do you ever come across people who are always upbeat no matter what life throws at them? While people can be genetically disposed toward happiness, it’s more likely that these people have simply discovered more of the things that make them happy in life and they’re utilising them to their advantage.
The good news is that you can increase your own happiness too, once you understand what actually makes you happy.
Top Tip
Think about some situations that made you happy, and why. These situations could be at home, at work, as a child, or as an adult.
They can include big events such as your Uni graduation day or getting the job you really wanted. Or, it could be everyday things, such as a call with your family, or a delicious meal you’ve cooked.
Ask yourself, what made this a happy event? List up to 4 things. Look at what made the event happy, and identify the common factors, or the things that are most important to you.
2. Understanding yourself at your best
What Makes You Proud? Think of situations where you’ve felt particularly proud of something that you’ve done. This may be anything from your past life or career, or something you’ve achieved more recently, during the most challenging times you’ve experienced.
Top Tip
Identify a situation where you’ve felt proud in your life or career. Write down the factors that contributed to this feeling.
Ask yourself, what were the contributing factors? List up to 4 things. Look through the contributing factors that you’ve written down and identify the three that are most important to you.
3. Understanding needs
On many levels, everyone’s basic requirements for a happy and successful life are fairly similar. These are often called “core needs,” and are described in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
This model says that people address their needs in a fixed order. They start with basic physiological needs (food, water, good health), and then move on to security (having a safe home, steady job). Level three is the need for a feeling of belonging (friendship, community). Level two is a need for self-esteem (feeling good about yourself). Finally, level one is the need for “self-actualisation”, which is to be “everything that you can be”.
This concept isn’t perfect. You may have found yourself questioning your needs in detail during 2020! Even so, it’s a useful starting point.
To help you really understand your needs, here is a list of Common Needs, which ones do you identify with?
Accomplishment – Acceptance – Adventure – Authority – Balance – Belonging – Clarity – Competence – Connection – Control – Discipline – Duty – Fairness – Freedom – Friendship – Fun – Honesty – Humour – Influence – Justice – Knowledge – Love – Mastery – Morality – Opportunity – Order – Peace – Participation – Pleasure – Power – Quiet – Recognition – Respect – Responsibility – Safety – Security – Self-esteem – Service – Significance – Spirituality – Trust – Variety
Top Tip
Identify the common needs from the above list that are most important to you, whether or not you’ve already met them (take care not to underestimate the importance of needs that you’ve already fulfilled: you’ll want to make sure that you’re still meeting them in the future!). Then, identify your five most important needs.
So, let’s summarise those Golden Nuggets again:
- What makes you happy?
- Understanding yourself at your best
- Understanding your needs
By now, you’ll know what makes you happy and proud. You’ve also identified your personal needs that you must meet to feel a sense of well-being. This is important, and a good starting point for thinking about your dreams. They will also help you to make choices, and to plan your goals in a way that brings you success, happiness and fulfilment.
Work with a coach
Sometimes we get really stuck on understanding who we are, knowing ourselves and how we can create a life that fulfils us on every level. When this happens, no matter how hard we try on our own, we might never be able to move forward and get to where we want to go in life. In these instances, working with a coach can help you.
A coach will ask the right questions to help you figure out who you are, what’s getting in your way and how to overcome these. They can help you to create a life that you’ve always dreamed of.
Coaching can be helpful whether you have just one issue or several; you may just need a few sessions or on a more regular basis, ongoing basis, depending on your needs. Sometimes asking for help can be the most hopeful and powerful step you can take to live a happier, healthier and fulfilled life.
If you have found this useful, then please share this with anyone you know who would also benefit to help them along their journey in life.
Thank you for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next week for Pura Vida Your Life Happenings for insight, inspiration and more golden nuggets to help you live a happier and fulfilled life.
I invite you to come on a journey of empowerment with me – sign up to Discoveries to start taking steps to improve your life!
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Pura Vida Your Life – it all starts with you 🧡💙💛
Until next time – Pura Vida!