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Practicing Happiness:
Developing the skills to have a happier life.
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We are all endowed with gifts in life. Your gifts may be similar to those of your
children or siblings, or they might be different. Each of us has a variety of gifts.
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Our gifts, the things that we excel at, can be
more commonly referred to as our skills.
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The word “skill” by definition refers to the cultivated ability to do something well through practice.
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Whether we are conscious of it or not, our skills develop as results of what
we have chosen to be good at.
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We might consider first, what motivates us. What inspires us in such a way that we are impelled to practice it again and again until we’ve achieved
a level of mastery. This is how we develop our skills.
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We can guide our children to tune into what inspires them as well. This will be our first conscious
step on guiding them toward the development of their own personal
skills.
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It can be helpful to reflect on why you want to develop certain skills for
yourself.
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One of the greatest common reasons to
develop a skill is because it gives you joy. There is great
gratification in practicing a skill that
simply makes you happy.
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Happiness is a mental state and as such, it is actually one of the few things in the world that
we can possibly be in control of. Being happy is, in all
actuality a skill unto itself that we can develop, cultivate, and
master.
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Not only can we develop and potentially master the skill of happiness, but we
can also teach our children to do so as well.
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What happens to us in the world will often dictate what emotions we feel. The reality is, although we can not control all the things that happen to us in the world, we can control how we receive and react
to those things.
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Happiness is expansive. It opens up the door to possibility in our life. Happiness is empowering and life affirming and it is always an option that we should choose
to move toward.
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Unhappiness on the contrary, is a contractive force. It is a feeling of loss and lacking. We can never
create our best possible lives from a place of unhappiness.
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Practicing the skill of happiness requires us first to recognize that happiness is a
choice.
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When you are unable to look around and see evidence of things in your life that are contributing to your happiness, you need to make new choices. Practice choosing to feel better about where you are and
find gratitude in what you have.
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Choose to be happy. Go toward happiness in your life. This simple
re-direct is the first step in developing your happiness skills.
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The way anyone gets better at anything is through practice,
over time. By practicing being happy you will naturally develop that skill, too.
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Observe your mind, and when you notice thoughts arising that are
threatening to hijack your sense of well-being, deliberately choose
another train of thought. You can model this for your children, too,
and they will learn to develop their happiness skills.
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If your life circumstances are threatening your state of happiness,
change them or remove yourself from them. If you can’t remove yourself from your circumstances, you can practice removing judgment from
them.
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By clarifying the things in your life that bring you happiness and guiding
yourself mentally and physically toward them, you will find over time that you are residing in deeper and more extended states of happiness.
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Our happiness levels determine the quality of what we live. If you make happiness a priority and teach your children how to prioritize happiness
as well, you will add value to your life and everyone's life around you.
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