Do you remember playing Hide and Seek as a child… searching and searching for your friends? For some of us this game, which used to be so much fun, has never truly ended. The game is the same, but instead the area that was confined by a playground fence has been expanded to the entire world. Rather than looking behind trees and in old tractor tires, we now search in things such as love, time, money, marriage, promotions, other people, and the list goes on. The relentless pursuit we once engaged in to find our friends has now become a desire to find happiness. Although the happiness we are looking for appears to be a much better player of Hide and Seek than we are, we can find the happiness we are seeking if we are open to changing how we are playing the game.
The first step we should take is to stop looking for happiness outside of ourselves. Throughout our lives we are inundated with media sources showing us that the best way to be happy is to have a lot of money, a big house, a particular car, and a certain title. Yet, statistics show that people who have those things in their lives are not necessarily happier than those who do not. We also seek out happiness in future events that we set goals to attain. We think that once we obtain a set goal we will finally be happy. The catch is that once we achieve the goal, we find that we are not any happier so we continue to set further happiness goals. An example… getting the promotion we wanted only to realize that we again feel the same frustrated, empty feeling we had at our old job, then setting another goal attempting obtain our happiness in the next promotion. In this example, our job is the outside source in which we are attempting to find our happiness.
Next, we need to begin the process of finding our happiness within us. Happiness is a state of a person’s existence that is completely independent of anything or anyone else. In the book Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasing Fulfillment, by Tal Ben-Shahar, happiness is defined as “The overall experience of pleasure and meaning.” When we experience pleasure and meaning that is completely exclusive to us and independent of needing support from other people and things, THAT is the moment we feel true happiness. Each of us has a very elite combination of features that triggers our happiness. These features include our past experiences, our perceptions, and our core values. These are all different for each one of us causing our preferences for what prompts our happiness to be very unique. When we experience an event in our lives where all of our unique features are stimulated, it creates pleasure and meaning that we feel in the depths of our soul. If we pay careful attention, we will become aware of when this feeling is prominent and what events evoke this feeling.
Finally, we should make sure that we do not allow the perceptions of others and of ourselves cause a “smoke and mirrors” effect on our ability to find true happiness. Many times there are situations where people who are the closest to us will express their perception of how our life should be. This is usually done from a place of love. Since we know that it is out of love, we allow their projections to impact our decisions, which lead us in a different direction that may not be in line with our happiness. In addition, we have our own disappearing act that we inflict on our happiness. This happens when we convince ourselves that following a path that will bring us material success, yet does not speak to our soul is the right thing. When we are seeking happiness from a state that is lead completely by our heart and soul, then we know that finding happiness is not far away.
By changing our approach to how we seek happiness, we move ourselves to a much better vantage point for finding happiness. When we stop searching for happiness in outside sources, we can redirect our focus and energy to looking in the proper place-- which increases our chances of finding it. This new found focus and energy will help to guide us as we quietly observe and uncover clues that will lead to finding the happiness that is waiting to be discovered in the place it always has been… within us.
© Debi Hebel, 2009
www.thehumanfactorccc.com
Debi Hebel is presently the Human Resources Director at an organization in the Detroit, Michigan area and is the owner of The Human Factor Coaching, Consulting, and Counseling. She is a Certified Master Coach, focusing her efforts on helping clients raise their level of life-satisfaction.
Debi has spent 17 years in the Human Resources field with direct responsibility in human relations and coaching. As a coach, she has been able to follow her passion of inspiring people to express their full potential.
In her coaching practice, Debi offers programs that take the most appropriate theories in psychology, leadership, emotional intelligence, and business management and applies them to the client’s core personality. This allows Debi and her clients to focus on uncovering the areas where growth is needed, and ultimately where behaviors and habits need to change to accommodate their new learning.
Debi’s education consists of:
• Bachelors Degree in Psychology
• Masters Degree in Human Resources Management with a concentration in Organizational Behavior and Development
She is certified as a Master Coach by The Behavioral Coaching Institute in Sydney, Australia. Debi is also a Myers Briggs Type Indicator Certified Professional.
She holds professional memberships in The Society for Human Resources Management, The International Association for Psychological Type, The Detroit Chapter of The Association for Psychological Type, and Inforum.
To contact Debi please email her at: debi@thehumanfactorccc.com