Make time for happiness

A good portion of women are too busy making themselves busy so they don’t have a minute to look at the true picture of their life.  They are too busy to call a friend or too busy to return a call.  They are too busy to be the yes that they said they’d be.  What is all this busy-ness?  We have a ton of technology available to us at the drop of a dime.  Literally a drop of a dime and yet we are way too busy.  Now the with cellphones less than half a yard away from your elbow inside your bag or pocket it remains impossible to return a simple call, to a client, a potential suitor, a doctor anybody.

Two happy girls

Well, you don’t understand, I am really busy.  How busy can you be?  Are you running a small country?  What is it that you are doing in your life that has you so busy that nothing has changed in the last 3 years? I have a running conversation with clients that say to me that they are too busy to do something that they say is important to them.  Important things like their friends, their health and wellbeing.  They want to date, fix their finances or change something in their life.  Well, what I say is you are not running a city or a small country.  For instance look at Rudy Guilliani, the mayor of New York City 1994-2001. Here was a man that was busy, running NYC, visiting other states and countries and still he still found time to have a wife and then cheat on her.  Now that’s busy.  If you not running a small city, visiting other countries having a marriage and an extra marital affair, you’re not that busy. Come on!

What’s really going on is that you do not have a system to manage yourself, and you do not have a relationship with your word.  How do I know this?  Well, I know this because when the conversation comes up about you being unavailable, not following up on your promises, and not being your word, then you get triggered.  You shut down become resigned.  Some of you might even become angry.  This is not a judgment; it is something that I have experienced.

If all the things that you say you would love to have or experience are really that important to you, then it is important that you carve out time for yourself.  There is more than enough time in the day to handle what it is that you say that you desire.  The first question to ask yourself is: Am I happy?  What’s happiness got to do with time? What has happiness go to do with anything?  Well, I have come to understand that people that are happy with themselves desire to remain happy.  They share.  They are often times enjoying the work that they have chosen for themselves.  They are busy, but they are organized.  It is this kind of happiness that is important to them.  They do not want anything to interfere with their happiness.  So they make the time to do the things that is important to them and schedule time to handle all the other things.  They are happy and they want to share it with friends so they create time to talk with friends.  They are not interested in getting sick so they will create time to go to the doctor and keep a handle on their wellbeing.  They have created structure to keep on doing the thing that they enjoy doing.

 

 

 

Happiness is something that one can do for oneself. However, it is something that is better shared with another.  When you are happy in your life you become aware of whom you are.  So if you desire a deep relationship with another person, it’s important that you become aware of yourself.

The comments above are not here to make you feel wrong or written as a judgment.  I have written them as a way to have you look inside and understand that sometimes you are not aware of what you’re doing or how it impacts your life and the lives of the people you say are important to you.  It is important to see them so that you can realize how important it is to learn to concentrate and focus your mind where you choose.  You can elevate your thinking and your choices to a higher ideal rather than just merely having a view or no view at all and remain stuck thinking that your business is real and you have no time.   Then when people say that you are not managing your time or you wasted their time being busy, you don’t find yourself feeling attacked or defending yourself.

It is as though you are too afraid to take a minute to just sit down and smell the roses.  Many  women have discovered the age old art of making themselves wrong so they have something to distract them from just taking a minute to sit down and reflect.  Happiness appears as this elusive thing they are searching for.  Some are looking for it in the arms of the next lover before completing with the last one.  Some are looking for it at the end of the credit card in the next pair of designer shoes.  This is not a judgment.

What I do know is that a lot of woman are really craving, desiring and would like to have the kind of happiness that just makes you heart sing.  The kind of happiness that you feel when you are taking time out to do something that you really enjoy doing, that ignites your passion and get your juices flowing.  No ladies, not that kind.  At least not at this moment;  I mean the kind of passion that I experience when I am riding my bike and the wind is whipping around my helmet and I see life’s pleasures like a flower that had just broken through the earth.

 

 

Making Time For Friends

Friends are people you connect with.  They are people who make you feel comfortable enough to  fully share your self.  You become involved with these friends because you’re attracted to their characteristics, energy and personality.  You choose to remain friends with them because you enjoy their company and have a mutually honest and respectful relationship. You trust your friend with your secrets, ideas, thoughts and feelings.  You feel secure with these people you call friends.

Friends together
Powerful friendships allow you to give and receive.  They allow you a place to express and share your common interests and find new ones together.  Good friendships allow you to develop your self, obtain new skills and learn to relate.  The power from these kinds of friendships is that they help to meet your needs for acceptance and let you know you belong.

The company of good friends is a beautiful thing.  However, it can be for some people very difficult to cultivate and maintain.  If you remember back when you were young, making friends was easy.  You were exposed to people your own age who had similar interests and life circumstances – who were available to form friendships and whose only responsibilities were generally homework, hobbies and a few chores.  The supply of friendship and time were abundant and not much mattered.  You had plenty of time to have your friendships develop and blossom naturally.

As we grew and left school, adulthood arrived with its many responsibilities of paying bills, developing careers and looking for mating prospects. Friends started to go in various directions.  Creating and developing new friendships does not appear as abundant as they once were.  When you meet new people you’re compatible with, you have to schedule time to develop the relationship.  However, the general truth according to what people say is that they just do not have enough time.  People are constantly complaining about not having enough time.  However, we are are all apportioned the same amount of time-  24 hours per day.  It all depends on what you do with it.  Do you use it or do you waste and lose it?  Are you so booked and scheduled that you can’t muster the energy to make an invitation for lunch?  Are your lunch breaks usually booked?  Do you barely have time to take lunch cause you’re running errands or working at your desk through lunch?

friends arm in arm

Like anything you have to commit.  I have clients who are constantly telling me that they don’t have any friends and they have a hard time making new friends. However, after working with me, you discover that as you begin to align time with your priorities, your opportunities for friendship increase.  You will discover that you are the one who has to decide who you’re going to be friends with.

Trust is one of the issues that people who do not have friends are always concerned about.  However the lack of trust, I have discovered, is internal.  When self trust is developed, you start to give trust differently.  If it is friends and relationship that you want to develop, then you have to start taking risks and being approachable.

Here are some questions that I ask my clients:

What do you want in a friendship?  On a scale of one to ten, how satisfied are you without friendships?
What do you believe that having friends would add to your life?
What actions do you take that allow you to meet and make new friends?
What do you do that keep friends away?
What do you do that pollutes your friendship?
If you were to transform and deepen your friendships what would that be like?