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What and who energizes you?  Excites you?  Makes you feel more alive?  Offers you happiness?  Inspires you? Expands you?

Without apology.  

A great way to run yourself and your business right into the ground involves trying to be all things for all people.  Taking on clients that drain you guarantees business failure.  An excellent way to make your life miserable involves doing things you don’t particularly want to do for people you can’t say “no” to.  

The only variable: how long?  If you have a highly-developed “do whatever it takes, even if I hate it” mentality, you may eek a bit more life from your business or your life than someone who doesn’t.  

Yet, why would you want to?  Life is way too short without happiness and to do anything less than what you are here to do – with joy, energy, enthusiasm and your whole heart.

I generate ridiculous amounts of happiness, and feel so energized when I see a beautiful scene and successfully capture its gorgeous natural composition!

What or who drains you?  Irritates you?  Causes you to feel “less than?”  Generates less happiness?  Confuses you?  Disconnects you?

Still, no apology, no explanation, no judgment.  It is what it is.  

One of my clients, Carl, has a great time with two of his brothers and a difficult time interacting with the third.  One of the two brothers he’s energized by gets along well with all three brothers, yet can barely spend any time with their dad without feeling exhausted and frustrated.

No right or wrong.  No need to analyze or criticize.  A simple awareness of and willingness to act on what is uniquely true for you.

Post your own happiness insights in the comments section.

Excerpted from Ann’s forthcoming book, “Thriving Work,”
Copyright 2011.

Last week we looked at being happy, having happiness now as we also take steps to grow our business, lose weight, begin a new romantic relationship, make more money, improve our health or change whatever we feel would increase our happiness.

So how do we generate happiness now if we have concerns about our business, weight, romantic prospects, bank account or health?

First, become aware that happiness is a choice.  I can choose to be happy right now regardless of any circumstances.

Easier said than done, you say?

I hear you.  

So, onto step two. Create an Instant Happiness list.  Write down as many things as you can think of that almost always move you closer to happy, happiness.

I am so happy to start skiing that I’m waiting at the ropes before they open the lift line – quite a happiness transformation from how I felt getting up in the cold and dark just a couple hours earlier!
(January 22, 2011; Beaver Creek, Colorado, USA.)

Here are a few from my Happiness list to get you started:

• Play with either of my cats, Oblio or Jasmine.
• Get outside.
• Coach a client.
• Grab my camera, get out and take pictures.
• Play music from my Happiness set list.
• Play music from my Sing Along set list and sing along.
• Call my niece, Alisha.
• Go skiing.
• Take a yoga class.

Create your own list.  Post it on the fridge.  Refer to it often.  Use liberally as needed.

Then onto step three.  Stop giving your precious energy and valuable time to thoughts or activities that feel unhappy to you.  Use the unhappiness as your wake-up call.  When you notice you’re feeling unhappy, ask yourself what you can shift.  Now.

How can you shift your thinking to a happier perspective?  How can you be kinder to yourself?  How can you change what you are doing to feel greater happiness?  Or, how can you do all three?

Post your own Instant Happiness list and progress in the comments section.

Any time we’d like to make a change in our lives, we’re hoping that the change will offer us greater happiness.

Consider this for a moment: whether you’d like to grow your business, lose weight, begin a new romantic relationship, make more money or improve your health, don’t you have that desire because you believe that change would offer you grater happiness?

What if you went ahead now with your steps toward that change and also at the same time focused on happines in this moment? 

You can be happy, feel happiness now and grow your business, lose weight, begin a new romantic relationship, make more money or improve your health at the same time!

And how great would that be?!?

Last week, I shared with you my two big commitments for 2011:
– Deepening self-love
– Expanding self-expression

By devoting myself to these two simple, completely do-able ways to be in the world and respond to the world, I have guaranteed an amazing year for myself!

Regardless of what situations I create or find myself in, I will bring self-love and self-expression to the table.  Last night, after being in bed for less than an hour, I woke up with a flaming urinary tract infection.  

In the past, my responses to such discomfort ranged from depression to freaking out to panicking.  

This time, I simply said, how can I take good care of myself until morning when I can call the doctor and get some antibiotics?  Since I will probably be awake most of the night, what would I like to give myself?  Listening to good music?  Reading one of my partially-read books?  Sitting quietly, focusing on my breath?  Sipping a cup of herbal tea?

One of my clients committed to “freedom” for 2011.  Another to “easy.”  A friend is focusing on “deliberate.” How cool is it to look at something as mundane and possibly annoying as extreme, middle-of-the-night discomfort through a lens that gives us a radically different experience than without the lens?!?

Looking through a new lens literally evokes transformation in the moment: what was previously scary or maddening is now an adventure in self-love, freedom, easy, deliberative or whatever lens is most juicy and meaningful for you . . .

Wow, can you imagine how different your whole life will be 365 days from now simply by committing to viewing and living your life through a new lens – something that’s really juicy and important to you?  I can’t wait to spring out of bed to see what the new day holds, even if the new day starts an hour after going to sleep!  Having been addicted to 9 or 10 hours of sleep during the winter months for many years, that’s a miraculous perspective shift for me!

The last few weeks of the year offer us a rich opportunity for contemplation and reflection as well as a fertile time for planting new seeds to grow in the upcoming year.

To offset a bit of my tendency toward impatience, I love to use the time frame of a year – all of the seasons – to notice how I’ve changed and grown.  And then, to set my sights on how I would like to continue to uncover and express more of me in the year to come.

If you’d like to join me, here are some of the things I love to
consider . . .

With little judgment and criticism and lots of curiosity and generosity, what were the highlights of 2010 for you?  What made those events meaningful to you?  In what areas did you grow the most?  Breakthroughs?  Transformation?  What new discoveries did you make about yourself?  How did you express yourself more fully?

As you look forward to 2011, what excites you the most?  As you imagine your conversation with yourself a year from now on December 28, 2011, what thrills you to have brought into reality in your world?  What makes that important to you?

At age 15, I made this plaque for my grandma – apparently already aware of our spiritual growth potential!

What qualities of being would you most like to cultivate in the next year?  Is a theme or a focus calling you?

In Mike Dooley’s new book, “Manifesting Change,” he says it couldn’t be easier.  Get clear on what you desire, move in that direction and let the Universe handle the details.

My two big commitments for 2011:
– Deepening self-love
– Expanding self-expression

I’ll be taking time this week to write down some specifics of what I desire in 2011.

Care to join me?  

Here in the northern hemisphere, the darkest day of the year is amplified this year by the lunar eclipse that begins tonight, Monday, December 20, at 10:27 pm MT.  This is the first solstice lunar eclipse since 1554!  Nature is offering us a rare, powerful opportunity to use her lunar and solar energy to co-create the world we desire.

Take some time tonight and tomorrow on the Winter Solstice for positive prayer, ritual, meditation, reflection and contemplation.

Using the energy of the Solstice Lunar Eclipse and the Winter Solstice to bring greater awareness of peace, love and connection to our actions . . .

Make beauty, make love, make music, make new heart-centered ways of being.  Send blessings to those around you and all around the world.

As we welcome a new season, a new year, a new decade; may we consciously choose new ways of thinking, new ways of being, new ways of acting.  

Choosing:
– Love
– Peace
– Acceptance
– Openness
– Connection
– Joy
– Abundance
– Courage
– Lightness
– Laughter
– Harmony
– Ease

Refraining from:
– Fear
– Conflict
– Judgment
– Close-mindedness
– Separation
– Rejection
– Scarcity
– Safety
– Heaviness
– Seriousness
– Dis-ease
– Struggle

Use this powerful time of transition and change to make positive plans for you and your life and to hold a new vision for the world . . .

This past weekend I attended a workshop in which I gave myself two workshops for the price of one!  The first workshop was the one I signed up for: A two-day course on understanding men that I attended with my sister, Cathy, and niece, Alisha.  The workshop content was life-changing and I loved sharing the experience with Cathy and Alisha.

The second workshop involved my experience of the workshop facilitator.  She seemed like a combo dictator and preschool teacher.  I don’t respond well to either of that combo.  I felt like an angry victim because I was committed to creating a new experience with men from the workshop material and I loved learning with Cathy and Alisha. And, I hated the rigidity and condescending nature of the environment and facilitator.

One of my key growth areas this year involves being a Creator/Owner rather than a victim in every situation.  So, here I had created this incredible second workshop – just for me – to practice my learning. 

That poignant spiritual growth moment in which I actively choose to rise above my inclination to believe I’m a victim and consciously choose to create whatever I desire . . .

After reflection and debriefing with several of my favorite professionals, I realized that as I took myself out of the role of victim with men, I then transferred that role to the workshop leader.

I was fairly shocked (and then relieved) to see how committed I have been to having a villain in my life.  If I hadn’t needed a villain in the workshop room, I’m sure I still would have found the workshop leader’s rules overly rigid and juvenile.  I probably would have been annoyed.

Way beyond annoyed, I instead felt traumatized.  I had a bit of a meltdown Saturday morning and another Sunday afternoon.

Back to being a Creator/Owner rather than a victim.  I signed up for the workshop to learn new ways to create empowering and fulfilling relationships with men.  Apparently my second agenda involved becoming viscerally aware that I no longer need a villain – man or woman – as a main character in the story of my one precious life here now!

I continue to ask myself:
– What do I choose to create?
– How can I do that – even here?
– What is going on that feels like victim to me?
– How can I transform that now?

As I start to look “over there”
to find my happiness,
I take a deep breath and pause.

I open my eyes more fully
as I begin to breathe more slowly.
And I see.
I feel.
I know.
From deep within.
Ecstatic Union.

Ecstatic Union with my breath.
Ecstatic Union with myself.
Ecstatic Union with the Divine.
Ecstatic Union with All That Is.

Ecstatic Union with what is right in front of me.
Ecstatic Union with whomever is right in front of me.

Ecstatic Union: Present in this precious moment to all that is . . .

Ecstatic Union with the silence.
Ecstatic Union with every noise.

Ecstatic Union with the darkness.
Ecstatic Union with the radiant Light.

Ecstatic Union with what I would love to run from.
Ecstatic Union with what I’d love to hold onto forever.

Ecstatic Union.
I need not look “over there.”
I am.
Ecstatic Union.

– Ann Strong

I watched the movie, “Titanic” for the second time over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  One of my favorite things about watching a movie more than once involves getting to pay attention to different things because I already know the outcome.

What mesmerized me this time: how differently people reacted as they came to understand the certainty that many of them would die.

In the spring of 2001, my dad was in hospice.  At that time, someone told me that we each die as we lived.  Not much of a surprise when I thought about it.  And, I do remember that I was expecting, perhaps hoping, for something different from my dad in death than I received from him in life.  I took that opportunity to reflect on how I wanted to live so that when my time comes, I will be dying in a way that feels true to me, my life, my legacy.

As the Titanic was sinking, many people were panicking and all of their actions were completely focused on doing whatever they could to survive, at the cost of whomever was in the way.  Others were trying to save themselves and did try to help another – if it wasn’t too inconvenient.  Still others went to great lengths to save another, maybe even at the risk of their own peril.  One of the main characters tried to buy his safety with a pocketful of cash.

Even as our ship is sinking, we have the opportunity to make a conscious choice about who we are and how we behave . . .

The people who most intrigued me consciously chose to accept their fate and gracefully go down with the ship.  The captain who took the wheel until the water rushed in and swept him and the wheel away.  The builder of the ship who took his last drink by the fire.  The mother of two children who quietly sang to them, after she tucked them into bed – for the last time. 

The most amazing to me: the musicians, a string quartet, who calmly played cheerful music amidst chaos and bedlam on the first-class deck until minutes before the ship went down.  The leader finally said, “Let’s call it a night.  It’s been a pleasure playing with you.”  They disbanded.

Alone, he then picked up his violin and began playing more somber and haunting – appropriate – music.  The other musicians, who had begun walking away, stopped.  They then all turned and came back to joined him in their last few songs of that lifetime.

I want to be those guys in my life and my death!  Offering my gifts to the world, even when it seems the world is in too big a mess to receive my gifts.  Confidently, consciously and courageously being who I am fully, with dignity and devotion, even with my last
breath . . .  

What if, just for today,
I feel grateful for everything in my life?

I’d start with the obvious:
My health, my home, my friends, my family.
My wonderful work, my bills all paid.

I’d move on to everyday joys:
My cat sleeping in my lap,
The crisp, cool autumn air,
This delightful pumpkin latte,
The way the sun streams into my office,
My comfortable chair,
And my fabulous Pandora radio.

One of my biggest reasons for gratitude this year, Jasmine joined our family on Easter this year. Her sheer joy and exuberance makes affirmative prayer spontaneous for me!

I’d contemplate all the gifts I feel honored to offer the world:
My love, my enthusiasm, my centeredness,
My clear thinking and my insightfulness.

I’d revel in the gifts I receive from others today:
Their love, their generosity, their kindness,
Their encouragement and their patience.

I’d thank God for the gift in what I consider “challenges:”
A misunderstanding and disagreement with a friend,
A seemingly missed opportunity,
What looks like self-sabotage,
Yet another headache or heartache.

I’d thank God for showing the face of God
All around me and from within me.

If I thought of anything for which I didn’t know
how to feel thankful, I’d feel gratitude
for the opportunity to see from a bigger perspective.
Until I could.

And then,
I’d feel profound gratitude for this incredible privilege
to be here now, alive on this planet,
contributing what I came here to give.

And then,
I’d do it again tomorrow.

– Ann Strong

What are you grateful for today?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.