Since I have been there and done that, I am well qualified to offer up solutions so I will start with the most basic:

• Get a good nights sleep, take your work breaks, refresh yourself away from your work station for a few minutes every couple of hours, stretch your muscles and limbs regularly throughout the day and generally take care of yourself.
• Start your day off with some good food, eat and drink regularly throughout the day.
• Points one and two will ensure that you have the energy to process your work requirements as quickly as possible; you will not lose time because of a sluggish mind and body.
• Contract with yourself and your boss in necessary, to start and finish on time, cut out the starting early and finishing late.  Be sure to stick to this plan because it is very easy to say – I will just finish this or do that and then I will go.
• Try to bundle up some jobs and do them all at once.  We do that at work but often not at home.  Prepare two meals at one time so that you can have some free time another night.  Things like that.  Think about what else you can do that will free some time.
• Create a short time each day that belongs solely to you to do just as you please and spoil yourself for that time.
• Check the time that you spend on television, social networking sites and so on and see if you can use that time differently and for your own benefit.  You might find quite a bit of time is taken up with those things.
• And have a check up with your doctor.

Of all of those points though, the two that were most successful were taking good care of myself so that I had physical and mental energy and controlling my work hours.  Both required discipline and the forming of good habits but in the end saved my sanity.  So go ahead, see what you can do to claw back some time for yourself and have a great time doing it.  Move on from being exhausted and too busy.

But why would you bother?  Surely it is enough to just cruise along with life, taking it as it comes and if you are unhappy, that is just your fate in life. You may be surprised to know that there are happiness experts who study and teach happiness, sometimes known as positive psychology. These experts hold the view that happiness is a choice; you can choose positive emotions, you can choose to let go of fear, anxiety and sadness and you can choose to pursue happiness.  According to the studies, most people believe that happiness is important and is worth having not just for the individual but for society as a whole.

Happy people earn higher incomes and are more productive, they have longer and more satisfying relationships and more friends, more energy, better health and even longer life. There is evidence that individual happiness is a key factor in organisational performance so any employers reading this might want to explore happiness further.  The best possible news is that you can train your brain for greater happiness.  Read on to find out how.

1.  Create the habit of keeping a daily journal. This might take a while and some discipline and every day that you do it will make it easier to continue.   When you get to 90 days it is very likely that it will have become a habit.  Your daily journal should be primarily about the positive things that occur in your life and that you appreciate about yourself.

2.  Develop gratitude by adding to your daily journal a minimum of three notes about things for which you are grateful that day. Write down the things that people did that you appreciated, anything that made you smile or that you felt thankful for.  Talk to others about what happened and reinforce gratitude in your life.

3.  Use your daily journal to identify the things that you can see are your strengths. You might find that your writings about what you appreciate in yourself show some of your strengths and you can also ask trusted friends and family what they see as your strengths.  Use your strengths to make your life more enjoyable, for example, when you must do something that you do not like, approach it from the angle of your strengths.  Build on your strengths at every opportunity.

4.  Give generously of acts of kindness. Decide every morning how you will give at least five acts of kindness that day and be on the lookout for opportunities.  Doing this just feels so good and other’s are very appreciative.  It is like giving and receiving gifts all day long!

5.  Have fun! I know that sounds a little crazy and looks obvious – happy people have fun right?  You know what though?  Sometimes we just stop being playful and exercising our sense of humor and again, it is just about practice.  So be on the lookout for happy people with whom you can have fun and practice being funny.

6.  Be still with yourself – meditation, yoga and such pursuits calm the mind and give you time to see life from a different perspective. Meditation can also help you to release fear, anxiety and sadness giving you room to allow happiness in.  Meditation, by the way, can be a lot more simple than you may think.  It can be as easy as watching the waves role in and letting all thoughts drift away in the process.

7.  And finally, create yourself some habits like meditation, yoga or exercise. The creation of habits reinforces your belief in yourself to be, do or have anything that you want, including happiness.

So now you have the secret formula to happiness, you know why you would bother and you know that it is possible to be happy even if you are usually unhappy. The choice is yours – reach out and grab hold with both hands or let another day pass.  Have fun with these seven tips and be happy.

What does success mean to you?

1. Bounce back. When things are not going right or you get knocked down, bounce right back again.  Find your resilience factor and make it stronger by bouncing back every time.  Allow only half an hour for feeling bad and then shift those thoughts and get on with it.  Never give up, persevere no matter what.  Some successful people take many years to hit their stride.  Success might be just around the corner for you and if you give up, you will never know what you might have done.
2. Have a sense of humor. Whatever is happening in your life, do everything possible to find the funny side.  Laugh at yourself first and then at everything else.  Keep your funny bone finely tuned; it is a lot more enjoyable to be funny than cross.  Laughter also gets your endorphins (feel good hormones) flowing and opens up the mind for creativity.

3. Commit your self 100% to your dreams and goals, read them and work to achieve them every day. If you want a prize winning garden you work in it every day; if you want your own prize you work towards it every day.  Hold your commitment even though there might be some dream stealers around, hold onto that dream.

4. Start from where you are at and if you do not like what you are doing then learn to love it or find something to do that you do love. Just do not drive everyone else around you crazy with what you do not like.  Love what you do.

5. Look for solutions not problems. When you start with a problem you are starting from the negative; when you start to look for a solution, you immediately come from the positive.  From that place you can look for great ideas.  People around you will love to work with someone who can see possibilities instead of problems.

6. Get out of your rut, try new ideas, have a go at something new and check to see if  you have old, limiting beliefs that are holding you back. When you are trying new things your mind is opening up to possibilities and is moving out of your current way of thinking.  This also allows creativity in and it is a lot of fun.  What if you try running backwards on the beach instead of forward, would you see a different view of the beach and the people on it?

7. Take care of yourself in three ways; your health, your relationships and your work. You need to make sure that each of those are getting equal attention so that you feel balanced and connected to your friends, family and colleagues.  You also must give yourself a healthy dose of inspiration at least once a week.  A lot of attention is paid to physical fitness and little to brain fitness.  So go ahead and give your brain a workout as well as your body.

8. Be kind and generous to others; look for things that you can do for someone else every day. When you are doing this, you are not only building relationships with those people you know, but opening yourself up to new experiences with people who you do not know.  You never know when you will see that person whom you have helped or how a kind action will come back to you.  Always be prepared to give someone else a hand up; there is enough to go around.

9. Find your passion and let it grow. If you lack passion it is hard to hold the commitment and action required to succeed.   Go in search of your passion, try out lots of different things until you find it.  Volunteer your help, try different jobs, mix with a different crowd or go back to your childhood dreams.  There are many ways to find your passion and your life will be richer for having it.

10. Build relationships. We are moving into a time when people are increasingly looking for relationships in everything that they do.  Web 2 is based largely on that premise; customers want to interact and not just buy, people want to keep in touch through various means and not just social networking sites.  So join the crowd and create a network of support and like minded people around you.

Well there you are, 10 of the best tips for happiness and success and a checklist that you can use to get started with your own personal development program. Check in with this list occasionally to see how much progress you are making.  Beg, borrow or exchange some inspirational products like the book “Think and Grow Rich” or the video “Know For Yourself” and find a way to inspire yourself every day.  And finally, try keeping a journal and write about the progress you are making, then go back every now and then and read it.  It is fun to look back and see how much you have changed.

What do you do to inspire yourself?

Laughter makes you feel good, it has a beneficial effect on a variety of diseases such as heart disease and high blood pressure and reduces stress. It is just straight up good for you and that is why a whole industry has been created around it.  No, I am not talking about the comedy arts, I am talking about laughter workshops and so on that help you learn how to laugh!  But you can have your laughter free or at least at a very low cost.

Watch a funny video, read a funny book (free from the library) or play with your kids or dog.  Laughter is guaranteed with a bit of play.  If all of those fail, then lock up your house and just laugh yourself silly until you are laughing at your self.  Doesn’t matter how you get it, a good laugh makes you feel good and when you feel good you are attracting good things into your life.

Yesterday our sun bird pair (we know that they are ours because we are theirs – at least that is how they treat us) fledged the first of their two chicks and today the second. We get a great deal of joy from watching this natural cycle take place in our living room.  You see, we live in Cairns in tropical north Queensland and our pair have nested in the shelter of our veranda building their second nest there.  We live on our veranda for most of the year so we consider that they are in our living room!  We do many things especially for our sun birds, for example we only sweep the veranda, never use the blower while they are there, we give them perfect twine to nest on and ensure that traffic is kept to a minimum in their area.  We also hold the water hose at just the right flow so that they can bathe.  In return they trust us with their presence, show off their babies to us and talk to us on a regular basis.

Every day, we learn something more from our sun bird pair and their families, particularly about trust. They have shown us that even such a tiny bird will trust us if we show that we are trustworthy. How could we possibly ever have thought that trust is about anything else!  They have also shown us that we can have faith in the rhythm of life, to get out of the way and let life get on with it.  Of course they are on purpose – when it is nesting time, they are furiously building, when it is sitting time, mother bird is diligent and when it is growing time they work feverishly to provide for their young.  It is full on action. However they are in flow with the natural rhythm of life and I am grateful to have learned that lesson from them.  The total joy of sun birds.

It would be great to hear your bird stories.

This 10 days in Hawaii has been a gift for me. Another opportunity to extend my personal learning as well as to meet and enjoy another culture.  On the Big Island we had all of the pleasure of our personal development conference and the magic of the presenters and associating with highly successful and positive people.  We also toured the volcanos and looked into the active crater of Kilauea Caldera, walked on Black Sands Beach and marvelled at the huge expanses of old lava.  We luxuriated in all that the Hilton Waikoloa Resort had to offer (got a great massage), made new friends, watched hanu (turtles) frolic in the clear waters and watched amazing sunsets.  All in all a good time was had by both of us.

Now, as we prepare to make the very most of every moment left here in Hawaii, in the contemplative mood of the moment, I have discovered the very sacred meaning of the two most popular words here; Aloha and Mahalo. In general terms Aloha is used as a greeting and Mahalo as a thank you.  However they represent paramount Hawaiian values and should only be used when you a feeling genuine and they are said from that place inside you.  So full of good grace and faith at this very moment, I feel fully qualified to say Aloha and Mahalo to this gorgeous place and to wish those greetings for all of you.

In essence, Shawn helped us to understand the “Up Principles”, with the advice that the more that this is practised, the easier it becomes and the more positive you will be. And why would you bother.  Well there are many reasons including good health but the most exciting for me is that positive people get to use more of their brain.  That is enough for me.  You see more and can be more creative.  When you are in a positive state of mind the perspective broadens and the brain can build new neural pathways.  More thank enough for me.

Here are a few inspirational words that I picked up recently when I bought a note pad.

GATHER WEALTH

Every day love humanity

Every day speak kind and gentle words

Tender music keeps life harmonious

Birdsong in the forest keeps nature wonderful

Patience leads to harmony

Repentance leads to courage

Mountains teach grandeur

Oceans teach infinity.

Enjoy.