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.

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.

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.

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.

March 5, 2014 by Sara Weston

Meditation Tip: Don’t judge your meditation

MedGal It’s important to not judge your meditation. The only bad meditation is the one you don’t do! The truth is even when you have meditations that don’t feel as “good” or “powerful” as others, the light is still transforming you. It’s still working, even if it doesn’t feel like a good meditation to you. That being said you need to meditate correctly for it to really work, so please check out the post on meditating correctly, if you need a refresher.

For meditation instruction, download the free eBook on How to Meditate.

February 16, 2014 by Sara Weston

Relationships

Protect your important relationships. Take steps to protect the relationships that are most important to you. When you are in a situation where you can say something that you know will hurt the relationship, you simply don’t. I’m not referring to true issues that need to be discussed, but rather the myriad of petty things we say to friends and loved ones to prove that we’re right, our way is more sensible, we have better taste, etc. These petty comments erode our relationships and aren’t worth it when we really care about the relationship.

Likewise, let relationships go when they are no longer appropriate for you. People change over time and in different ways, so that someone you were great friends with at one point may not be a good fit anymore. There’s so much romanticization around the beauty of lasting friendships that we may feel obligated to spend time with people that we don’t really enjoy anymore. Let them go.

January 24, 2014 by Sara Weston

Small Happiness Tip: Respond to Personal Emails/Texts On Your Own Timetable

2 Messages

Respond to personal emails and texts on your own timetable. Don’t be manipulated into answering someone right away when you’re not in the mood because it’s a social convention. Most of the emails and texts we receive are not critical and responses to them can wait. (I’m not suggesting you ignore critical messages!) Just because it is easy to be connected, doesn’t mean we should be. We all feel more serene and less pulled in multiple directions when we’re not constantly monitoring our phones and email.

How to Be Happy NOW

…even if things aren't going your way

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