Me, Myself & Happiness

Posted on November 17, 2021 by Lucia Furtado, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Everyone is looking for happiness, but it seems most people think that happiness occurs by chance like a lottery draw, based on luck and good fortune. They ignore at times the possible notion that in fact, happiness is a choice and a huge part in achieving happiness depends on self-awareness. When you work on knowing who you are, who you want to become and most importantly, when you are ready and willing to work on what it takes to get there, you automatically become happier. Knowing yourself will also lead you to a much better relationship with YOU and in turn with Others.

“The better you know yourself, the better your relationship with the rest of the world.” Toni Collette

Let me start by saying, this is no easy task. To understand yourself is to know the way your mind works and understand why you behave and react in certain ways. I personally starting working on my own self-awareness in my mid-forties. I just lived by following the rules that were drilled into my head by my cultural norms and values, clueless of my own self as an active participant in my life and not paying much attention to my own thoughts, feelings and why I made the choices I made. My life was as it should be according to what my culture had imposed on me. Life was supposed to be like this and there were no other viable alternatives.

Now I’m not saying all of my life choices were imposed, but I definitely felt the nudges towards a direction on where I should go. Early on I was quite happy with this life and definitely happy still today with some of the paths I choose to follow, but by my mid-forties this unexpected light bulb went on and I became more self-aware of what was going on inside of me and around me. The discovery of this new awareness caused a lot of turbulence in my life and instigated a lot of much needed change.
I learned a lot about myself and worked very hard on making the changes I needed to feel liberated, at peace, and to live a much happier life. I can write volumes on my story and what I have learned on this laborious and yet wonderful journey so far, but for the purpose of this article I will keep it short and sweet.
Here are my tips and the action plan I took and still use today, to pave the way for my improved self-awareness.

Tip # One: Set aside quiet time and use the “wheel of life”
It is very important to understand that you can not control everyone or everything around you. The only thing you can control is your own behavior. Thus, the first step I needed to take was try and understand my thinking and why I behaved the way I did. I was tired of repeating the same mistakes and feeling unhappy about my life situations.
I made the conscious decision to set aside some quiet time in a space where I had peace and quiet and felt calm. This allowed me to truly think without having the outside noise contaminating my thoughts and influencing my choices.
I made the conscious effort to really devote time to work on some of the things that were making me unhappy and I took the time to truly understand what exactly I was unhappy about. I had to be as clear as possible about what made me unhappy and accept that I played a huge part in those unwanted outcomes. I used a powerful tool called “the wheel of life”. This helped me clarify which aspect in my life I was the most unhappy about. I had to accept the truth about how I was responsible for how I was feeling and for the bad choices I was making.
I took a piece of paper and drew a circle and cut up the circle like I would cut up a pie. In each triangle I wrote down all the categories that were important and present in my life at the moment. For example, my career, kids, relationship, friends, health, etc. I rated each section on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the least satisfied and 10 the most satisfied. The section with the lowest score indicated to me which part of my life I needed to focus on first. The important part of this step for me was to figure out where to start and I avoided feeling overwhelmed. This did not mean I ignore my other issues but it gave me a much more manageable place to start.

Tip # Two: Write it down in your journal

The journal was and still is a very important tool on my journey to self-awareness. It may seem like a lot of work at the beginning but the benefit of it truly out weighs the work. Also, it does eventually become part of your routine so it will feel effortless, like brushing your teeth. Use your journal to write all you have discovered from “the wheel of life” exercise and all the thoughts and feelings you have regarding what you have learned about yourself. The more honest you are at this stage, the more valuable your insight will be.

In my journal, I wrote down all my thoughts and plans on how I would go about making all these changes. Clearly things did not go exactly as planned especially early on in the process and I had to keep reminding myself that this does not happen overnight. It was something I would need to practice daily and writing about my experiences and feelings would be a great asset towards becoming more self-aware. Definitely there were times where I would feel that I was choosing my old behavioral patterns even though I was aware that they no longer served you. I had to learn to carve out some time for me out of my day so I can take care of myself and improve my life. In order to inspire me to journal I would go into my quiet space and write. I would ask myself at the end of my day the following questions:
What made me feel good today? Why?
What did not go well today? Why?
How can I improve my day tomorrow?
I had to learn to forgive myself on the days that did not go so well but keep holding on to my new desire to choose to act differently. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a process, I was aware and consciously trying to do better and this was a step in the right direction. So please, if you start to feel defeated, do not give up. Be persistent and with time you will see the benefits of all your efforts.

Tip # Three: Take Action and Change
At this stage you must actually make a conscious effort with choosing to behave differently. If you want different results, you must try different approaches. It’s that simple!
Be aware of the urge to act like you usually do and try to change your attitude. One technique I used that seemed to work was to stay silent when I found myself having the same argument and feeling the same urges to react in my usual way. I worked on not lashing out. I would just stop abruptly and stay silent and I would focus on my breathing. This would disrupt the opportunity for me to react in my usual manner and enable me to reflect upon my decision for change and use a different approach. I gave myself the opportunity to think before I spoke.
At the end of my day, I would journal that experience and review my notes in order to get better insight into my behavior. I started to understand that change must begin with me and I needed to take responsibility for my participation in some of the outcomes in my life. I had to work on changing what I did not like about me in order to steer clear of the consequences that I no longer wanted.

Tip # 4: Understand it is a process and self-assessment must continue
Keep in mind that change occurs as a process, not as a single event and life is about growth and change. Making the conscious choice to change your actions and attitude is definitely a huge step in the right direction towards happiness. Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it. The better you know yourself, the more content and fulfilled you will feel because you will be in control of your life. You get to decide how you want your life to look like because you are fully aware of who you are. Life is definitely about the journey and I will be the first to say that it does take a lot of dedication and effort to recognize where your pain lies. It is also important to work hard at enhancing the journey you are on by making the conscious effort to change what you can and accept what you cannot. The choices we make effect not only what we are experiencing on a daily basis but the attitude we have regarding these experiences and how we choose to act plays an extensive role on how content we feel as a whole. I would like to conclude with Maya Angelou’s inspiring quote: “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” Therefore, the best way to change something you don’t like, or acquire the capability of altering your attitude about something you can’t change, must begin with self-knowledge. You will not only feel happier but you will feel less inner conflict and definitely make better decisions for yourself.

Hope that these tiny suggestions inspire you take the time to discover the essence of your true self and live a much happier life.
Love Lucia