10 Steps to Happiness and Personal Fulfillment

What makes people happy? Surprisingly, the answers rest in the thoughts we choose to entertain and our self-talk.

Practicing these 10 steps to happiness and personal fulfillment can make a big difference to how you feel at present and in the future.

1. Examine the Programming–We all grow up with messages from our pasts that shape our beliefs about ourselves. Have you examined those messages recently? What are they telling you about yourself?
2. Monitore Your Self-Talk–Keep a notebook handy and write down any thoughts (self-talk) that evoke negative emotions. These include thoughts that make you feel defeated, sad, angry, afraid, unsure, or self-doubting. Once you have identified thinking patterns, it becomes easier to change them.
3. Replace Negative Self-Talk With Empowering Statements–Now take action to change your self-talk. If your self-talk reflects any negativity, get rid of it. How do you do this? Replace self-defeating statements with positive, empowering ones. For example, replace “I can’t do anything right” with “ I may not be able to do all things but I can certainly do some things and do them well.” Replace “I always forget” to “everyone forgets and it’s not a big deal-just what it is to be human.” Changing your thoughts actually alters brain chemistry. Make positive psychology a habit and you’ll find greater happiness.
4. Change Your Thoughts–You cannot have an emotion without a thought preceding it. When you change your thoughts, you change the way you feel, and this radiates out into your life and affects its outcome. It’s a domino effect: thought, emotion, action, outcome. Your thoughts can be a recipe for disaster or a recipe for happiness and personal fulfillment.
5. Become Your Own Best Friend–Treat yourself as you would your best friend. We’ll often comfort a friend while being unnecessarily hard on ourselves. Learn to comfort yourself when needed. Whenever you are stressed or need comfort, think or speak out loud using comforting words: “It’s okay. It’s all right.”.
6. Eliminate “Shoulds”–Eliminate other people’s “shoulds” from your life. Life is too short to put your dreams on the back-burner while attempting to live up to others’ expectations for you. When you become your own best friend, it becomes easier to stand up for what’s important to you. Remember, a life successfully lived is a life that makes you feel fulfilled. True happiness and success are not necessarily measured by material wealth and things.
7. Give Yourself Permission–Give yourself permission to be the person you were born to be-without making apologies. When you truly value yourself, other people’s opinions become less important.
8. Identify Unhealthy Relationships–Do not allow people to minimize your concerns or belittle you. Scrutinize your relationships and identify those that are emotionally unhealthy. Choose friends who support you; limit association with those who drag you down.
9. Self-Validation–Look to yourself as the best source of validation. You do not need others’ praise to know you are worthwhile and a talented human being.
10. Life Plan–Create a life plan that embraces serenity, beauty, spontaneity, and time for fun. Create a pattern of success in your life rather than settling for a pattern of failure.

When you take the reins and change your thinking, you change your outlook and ultimately your circumstances. It’s that simple. This is a sure-fire formula that will set you on the path to finding happiness and personal fulfillment.