August 27, 2014 by Sara Weston

Stop Caring What Other People Think of You

MedGalWalking People perceiving you as rich, beautiful, lucky, tough or smart will not make you happy, yet you wouldn’t know this if you observed how much time and energy people spend trying to get other people to think they are those things. If people think you have got it made, it won’t make you happy. Just look at celebrities—many people admire them and think they have it made, but clearly it doesn’t make them happy. In fact, given the number of divorces and trips to rehab, you could posit they are one of the least happy segments of the population. So stop being concerned with what other people think of you, it’s a waste of your energy and keeps you from having a quiet mind.

Tip excerpted from the book How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way, available on Amazon, Amazon UK and Amazon DE. © 2013 – 2014 Sara Weston. A FREE excerpt of the book is available here.

August 10, 2014 by Sara Weston

Be A Beginner

Beginners-Mind2

When you have the state of mind of a beginner, you allow yourself to try new things and are open to new ideas, which is energizing and fun. When you are a beginner, you’re not afraid to try something just because you won’t be good at it or because it’s “not you.” You can have a great time at something and do it without the intent of becoming an expert. Who doesn’t love and admire the eighty-one-year-old woman who is picking up the piano for the first time or the fifty-year-old who is just learning to surf, both of whom are unlikely to become experts in these fields.

When you have the mind state of an expert and are heavy with success, you’re more likely to stay in your comfort zone and limit your experiences to those in which you can excel, and obviously that is not a fun way to live. And even in the fields in which you are truly an expert, it’s always great to not know it all. In being open we create room to learn new things and refine and improve our knowledge and skills.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, life is simply harder when you approach it as a know-it-all. When we think back on times when we “knew it all,” we invariably created more work for ourselves. I recall a time at one of my first jobs, the sous-chef saw me laboriously chopping an onion and said, “Hey, let me show you a great way to quickly dice an onion.” I replied, “I already know how” and summarily cut off the opportunity to learn how to do something in a more efficient way. At some point, I did learn the professional way to dice an onion and was amazed at what an idiot I had been. In “knowing it all,” I looked like an idiot to my coworkers by clinging to an inefficient way, but more importantly, I kept myself from learning a much better way of doing something. I’m grateful I had this experience so I could learn firsthand the beauty of being a beginner!

(Slightly amusing aside: after the book was published with this entry, several people asked me how to cut an onion.)

July 22, 2014 by Sara Weston

Buy the Lottery Ticket

orange candy-pola Do you know the lottery ticket story? I like the version Elizabeth Gilbert tells in Eat, Pray, Love:

“There’s a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, ‘Dear saint—please, please, please…give me the grace to win the lottery.’ This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at a begging man and says in weary disgust, ‘My son—please, please, please…buy a ticket.'”

Point being, ya gotta buy a ticket in order for the universe to help you win the lottery. Meaning you have to create structures that allow the energy of the universe to come through and help you. For instance, if you are looking for a job, you have to work on your resume and make it impeccable, then strategically distribute it and meet with agencies, contacts, etc. You have to lay the ground work which will allow the universe to provide you with the perfect job. No one is going to call you out of the blue and offer you a job if they don’t even know you exist! Similarly, if you are looking for a new place to live, the universe will provide the perfect place for your circumstances, but again you have to do the ground work—you have to look at the ads and go visit places. If you ask, the universe will definitely help you out, but you have to do your part to make it manifest.

Partial excerpt from the book How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way, available on Amazon, Amazon UK and Amazon DE. © 2013 – 2014 Sara Weston. A FREE excerpt of the book is available here.

July 8, 2014 by Sara Weston

Small Happiness Tip: Hassle the Details!

A tremendous amount of energy and trouble is saved when you pay your bills on time, get directions before you leave for a new location, review important documents/ statements in a timely manner, etc. It may not make you enlightened, but it will sure make your day-to-day life easier.

June 30, 2014 by Sara Weston

What You Focus On You Become

Tips-Illus-Movies2 (Fifth entry in an ongoing series in which movies are used to illustrate happiness concepts and tips.)

It is a spiritual principle that what you focus on, you become. The mind is like water and takes on the shape of whatever you put it in. So if you focus strongly on a school or work project, your mind will be filled with that project; if you surf the Internet constantly, you will feel very dull as that is the vibration of the Internet; if you focus on how you were a victim of some injustice, you will be filled with victimhood; if you play a lot of aggressive video games, you will feel really aggressive; if you watch a lot of pornography, you will become obsessed with sex; if you focus on enlightenment, your mind will be filled with light. There’s no judgement here, it’s just literally that what you put into your mind is what you will think about and as a result, who you become.

TOTAL-RECALL-ENDING This principle is illustrated in the movie Total Recall (1990). In the movie, Hauser (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a secret agent who wants to infiltrate the rebel stronghold so he can assassinate their leader, Kuato, and snuff out the rebellion. Since Kuato is deeply psychic and could easily identify an infiltrator who wants to kill him, Hauser orchestrates a very elaborate series of events, including having his memories wiped, so he can infiltrate the rebels with a mind free of his traitorous intent. But what happens is that in his secret identity as Douglas Quaid, he falls in love with one of the rebels and sympathizes with their plight. Immersed in the rebels’ world he becomes one of them. And then when he sees a video of himself saying it was all a setup to kill Kuato and now it’s time to have his Hauser memories restored, he has no desire to go back to being Hauser (despite the big house and Mercedes). By being immersed in the rebel stronghold, he took on their states of mind, their perceptions and didn’t want to go back to his old mind (and didn’t).

Your mind, like Hauser’s, will take on the vibration of whatever you put it into, so take care where you put your mind! And always focus on the high and bright.*

*When I say to focus on the high and bright, this is not meant to imply that you should deny your problems or issues. In fact, in order to have a happy mind, you must address your problems and keep your personal, financial and career houses in order precisely so your mind can be free to focus on the high and bright. More on this topic can be found can be found in this post on how to be mindful.

May 30, 2014 by Sara Weston

Don’t waste time waiting for someone to save you.

Pink Flwrs You have probably heard the expression that life is what happens to you while you’re waiting for your ship to come in. If you’re looking for someone to sweep into your life and save you from your unhappiness, you are simply postponing your happiness. No one else can make you happy. Certainly there are people that are fun to be around, and there are people who have money that makes some things in life more comfortable, but expecting another person to be the source of your happiness keeps you from doing the work that will bring energy and happiness into your life right now. You’ll be happier if you quit waiting for that ship to come in and just take control of what you need to do to feel happy. Don’t take a back seat role in your own life!

Excerpted from the book How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way, available on Amazon, Amazon UK and Amazon DE. © 2013 – 2014 Sara Weston. A FREE excerpt of the book is available here.

May 11, 2014 by Sara Weston

Drop the desire/aversion approach to life.

Most people spend an enormous amount of energy trying to attract the things they desire and repel the things they are averse to. The things most people want to attract are relationship, money, success and recognition. The things most people try to keep away are the things they are afraid of or that make them uncomfortable, such as being alone, unloved, in pain, or appearing dumb or unsuccessful. In this desire/aversion approach, the basis of our thoughts and actions revolve around trying to get what we desire and avoid what we are averse to.

The problem with this approach is twofold. First, it’s not a very reliable approach because if your happiness is based on getting what you want and avoiding what you don’t want, you’re bound to be unhappy a lot of the time! We can look at our own lives and the people around us and see that the world just doesn’t go our way a lot of the time. And even when we do get what we want, the happiness that it creates can be very transient. The new car (or house, or job, or boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife) that you wanted may turn out to not be what you expected, or after you have had it for a while it’s not as exciting; you get used to it and it no longer thrills you, or you wreck it and that makes you unhappy. In all these cases, the happiness brought on by these things should absolutely be enjoyed, but they should be recognized as undependable sources of lasting happiness.

Second, this desire/aversion approach to happiness consumes an enormous amount of mental energy. All of the strategizing, scheming and avoiding required to bring what you desire and repel what you don’t, creates a busy mind which blocks you from seeing and feeling your innate light. So paradoxically, all the mental activity devoted to getting what you want so you’ll be happy, actually makes you feel less happy.

Dropping the desire/aversion approach to life doesn’t mean you don’t try to achieve things, it just means you don’t look to those achievements for intrinsic, lasting happiness. They are fun, many times worth doing or having, just don’t expect them to be your ultimate source of happiness. And happily, when you stop clinging so tightly to the things you desire, you actually enjoy them more because you’re not so afraid of losing them.

The alternative to this system is to get your happiness from the light of eternity. When you go into the light you can’t help but get a smile on your face. After meditating you can do the most mundane things and be radiantly happy because you feel that light in your being. From this place, when good things happen to you, you can enjoy them and when bad things happen, your boat won’t be so rocked by the world not going your way. After some years of meditation, your happiness will barely be affected by what’s going on in the world. This might sound so strange as to not even be appealing, but I can tell you it’s the best place to be. You’re not unrealistic about what is going on in the world, nor are you spaced out or ungrounded, you are simply getting your happiness from light instead of from things working out in the world.

April 22, 2014 by Sara Weston

Analyze mistakes to learn how to avoid making them again, and then move on.

Don’t wallow in a mistake you made in the past by feeling bad or guilty. These sentiments won’t help you make changes or improvements and can actually drain or even immobilize you. Instead, analyze the mistake, identify what didn’t work and what you need to do differently going forward, then move on.

April 9, 2014 by Sara Weston

Happiness Tip: Reduce your time on the Internet!

Please, I urge you to fact check this tip for yourself!!! – Sara

The Internet is a tremendous depressant. After spending fifteen or twenty minutes reading the web, you feel less energized, less hopeful and worst of all, less motivated, regardless of the content you’re reading! Fact check this for yourself. When you are feeling good one morning, write down your state of mind and what you feel like doing for the day, then surf the Internet for twenty minutes. Next, look at your state of mind. How do you feel—do you feel differently than you did twenty minutes ago? Most people find that surfing the Internet takes their edge away. The remedy is to be quick and efficient when doing online banking or shopping transactions and to reduce the amount of time spent reading and watching mindless “entertainment.” You can even download information from the Internet and read it offline. I promise you will feel better if you follow this tip!

March 17, 2014 by Sara Weston

Don’t knock others who are successful. The only person you should be competitive with is yourself.

Joshua Tree There is enough success for everyone, so there is no need to knock someone else’s success. You can use other people’s accomplishments to inspire you, but being competitive with others isn’t helpful because it shifts your state of mind to a more primitive one based on fear and territoriality, which isn’t a happy place to live inside your mind. Besides, being competitive with others doesn’t help you win anyway. In fact, you’ll be more “in the zone” and perform better when you just focus on your own work without the distraction of monitoring your competition.