If someone asked you, "What makes you happy?", how would you answer? Would you list money, material things, people, and activities? Do you think that happiness is illusive and happens to you? Are you one who thinks that the future or the past hold the keys to your happiness? Have you been in the presence of people who frequently appear to be happy and satisfied with their lives? Could happiness be genetically influenced?
The authors of It's All in Your Head suggest that we can think our way into happiness. Take their happiness test and reveal your perceptions about how you relate to being happy.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10725111/
The author of Authentic Happiness is concerned that we are creating a future generation of dissatisfied human beings because parents are over-indulging their children.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5909207/site/newsweek
What brings you authentic and sustainable happiness? Practice the behaviors of being satisfied and happy. Listen through the day for the conversations that bring suffering and upset to your world. Can you choose not to participate in those conversations?
Remember, pain is necessary; suffering is optional.

It's that time of year again when people look to the future and imagine what they hope to achieve that would have their lives be more satisfying and successful. Most will think about making resolutions for the new year with resignation and default to listing the same promises from years past.

If we look at the motivation behind past resolutions, we discover the parts of us and our lives that we are less than happy about...parts that remind us of our limitations, failures and comparisons to others. Perhaps, this negative emotional attachment is significant in producing the repetitive incompletions of past years' promises. If we are able to accept ourselves as we are and identify areas we choose to alter with a positive motivational investment, we may alter the end results.

For example, if you promise to lose 25 pounds in the next 6 months, explore how much of that goal is attached to an already present negative assessment about your current body. That negative declaration then accompanies every action and intention around your weight loss plan and will predictably result in a weight gain, plateau, or at best, a temporary loss.

If, however, the motivational declaration is positive, exploring a new evolution of self, there may be a different end result. Declaring a commitment to enjoy expanded health and wellness as the context for your life will demand a shift in attitude, a new relationship with self and others, and will require different choices for activities that support aliveness. New choices may include quality and quantity of food intake and physical activities that enliven your body.

Making goals realistic and attainable can also increase the probability of success. If you cannot even imagine achieving the identified goals, it will be difficult to set up interim steps along the way. When you declare yourself as living in abundance and freedom, you have created a powerful foundation for a qualitative shift in thinking and behaving regardless of your current income, job and spending behaviors. Still it is important to measure increases in financial income and freedom in choosing how you spend money. Living out of resignation, defeat and deprivation will produce a very different outcome.

So write your New Year's resolutions by first stating the context and declaration of motivation that will carry you forward. Then list some of the specific outcomes you are intending as a result of this new context. Always return to the foundational declaration to assess whether it has been actively guiding you. For example, if you see less success in creating expanded income, assess whether you have been living consistently with your declaration about living from an attitude of abundance and freedom. Everything lives as an energetic flow that is moving with grace and ease or is being constricted with conversations that block or interfere with that flow.

When you have identified your declared intentions, make a picture collage that expresses the energy, the motivation, specific results and the essence of this vision for your life. With old magazines, cut out images that represent your visions and goals and paste them on a poster board. Place your vision poster where you will see it every day. Then allow you subconscious mind to engage with the subliminal messages every day.

Here are some examples of declarations that may provide a qualitative shift in motivation and perception.

1. I promise to live with honor and respect for myself and others.
Evaluative measures: decreasing my negative conversations and gossip, frequency that I take a daily walk, and maintaining regular communication with people that are important to me.
Note the increase in social opportunities that are available to you, the changes in your body size and stamina, and increases in networking referrals for you and from you to others.

2. I promise to live with an abundant energy of love and success.
Evaluative measures: decreasing my negative conversations about myself and others, focusing on my gifts and talents, discovering non-financial ways of contributing and gifting, celebrating what I am grateful for daily and acknowledging others for their contributions.
Note the status of your finances, resources that are gifted to you, and ability to sleep at night without stress.

3. I promise to live as though I "am enough" and "have enough".
Evaluative measures: decrease in "not enough" conversations with myself and others, focusing on "what is possible" rather than "not possible", and recognizing my fears and taking actions that move beyond them.
Note increased energy and freedom, achieving goals in different areas of your life, and expanded giving in different areas of your life.

http://pittsburgh.about.com/cs/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm
http://www.washington.edu/newsoom/news/1997archive/12-97archive/k122397.html

Making a list and checking it twice? Make sure that you and your well-being is at the top of the list. Abiding by the many expectations and rituals that surround the holiday activities can drive one to being over-anxious, exhausted, and feeling as though you have not done enough, done it good enough or that you are simply not enough.

These tensions lead to over-doing without knowing when to stop, over-eating as you try to fill the emptiness and grab quick energy, and over-spending on people and gifts that are beyond your means and beyond necessity. Take a look at your lists and ask yourself whether something is authentically important and pleasurable for you or is it a "should" that has been passed on along your life history. Bring forward a conscious adult you to make new choices based on your current life values and means.

Re-evaluate the importance of your patterns and look to alter those that are no longer necessary. Experiment with letting go of and altering some of the rituals just to test their emotional impact. You are always the interpreter of your reality so design the interpretation and reality that best serves you now, in this current life situation and as a conscious adult. If you have not re-assessed your patterns, they most likely are those designed and promised by the child and adolescent you.


Re-evaluation List
(Who is the character in you who is emotionally attached to this activity?)

1. Holiday decorations--tree, the house, outdoor, neighborhood competitions, shopping mall tours, etc.
2. Food rituals--sweets, meals, dishes, dinners vs. visits with people, alcohol or not, etc.
3. Gifts--family, friends, clients, support staff, fellow workers, neighbors, mailperson. (number of gifts, dollar limits, quality of gifts, re-gifting, etc.)
4. Holiday letters and greeting cards--(number, letter and/or card, email letter, formal vs. informal, just sign or write a note, who to send to, etc.)
5. Gatherings--family, friends, neighbors, work, before vs. after the holidays, etc.

Write down as many of the details of your current practices and consciously re-evaluate for pleasure and necessity. Experiment and notice your responses. For example, can you allow yourself to receive a gift without having to give one in return? Have you scheduled "down-times" for yourself and your family?

Keep a written copy of your experiments and your responses. Next year, add to the list of changes and allow yourself to explore even more. What we are able to bring to the level of conscious choice gives us an authenticity of self-expression and loving.

http://ww5.bhg.com/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/lhj/story/data/StressbustersNaturalUP_06162004.xml&ordersrc=goog3health0805
http://www.self-guided.com/newsletter/RT-2004-12-02/htm

Holiday activities are the best times for observing children at their best and worst. The child's awe and simple trust in the big man in red or in seeing colorful lights while imagining reindeer pulling a sleigh through the sky is a beautiful thing to experience.

Demanding greed, resistance to direction, increase in aggressiveness and overeractive wildness are also themes of children's behavior during holiday activities. While a child may behave similarly at other times of the year, the spotlight of intensity seems to be more evident during this season.

There are good reasons for this disruptive behavior. Grownups surround children with expectations about what gifts they might want. They then use the gift-giving hopes to coerce the child into behaving appropriately for weeks before the arrival of the gifts. "He knows if you've been bad or good," for goodness sake.

Kids schedules are disrupted with shopping jaunts, additional babysitters, participation in parties, gift sharing, increased sugar intake, disappointments of unfulfilled expectations. Nothing is more painful than watching a dressed-for-the-cold, exhausted child being pulled along the shopping center highways by a good-intentioned grownup who is fulfilling some inner demand for getting a gift list completed. I wonder what the big person in this scenario would feel and do if they were put in the child's place. So let's put some sanity and stability to the process of surviving the holidays with your children.

Tips and Reminders
1. Evaluate and release the demands you are putting on yourself and, as a result your children, for holiday activities. (Notice who is making that demand on you and decide which activities support you in your current life. Make alterations accordingly.)
2. Design activities that are short-term, fun and without demands for perfection. (Overstimulation is a major issue. As soon as the child is no longer engaging with interest, move on to another activity or rest time.)
3. Keep the child's schedule for eating and sleeping consistent. (Even when there is a babysitter, require consistency as best you can.)
4. Limit sugar and carbonated drink intake. (Keep the diet nutritionally balanced.)
5. Maintain special cuddle, reading, and play times with your child. (It will support you in taking a break from the anxiety-ridden "should list" playing in your head and provide provide the quiet come-down of overstimulation.)
6. Continue these tips and behaviors all year round.

Have a satisfying and gratifying holiday season.
Party brightens kids' holidays
Kids need help with food choices, too

In the midst of the holiday activities are visits with family and friends, food feasts, travel, shopping, gifting and fulfilling pictures of historical expectations. Have you ever wondered why you do what you do at the holidays? Why there is a internal pull for you to behave in repetitive ways? Who is it that is in the driver's seat during your holiday journey?

Is it the child-you that remembers the warm and happy feelings and is determined to replicate those pictures to assure that happiness again? Or did the child feel deprived and yearn for gifts that were never provided and now endeavors to fill those empty places with lots of presents, rituals, and decorations.

Does the adolescent with its rules about what is appropriate and necessary for the holiday get in the control tower for the holiday activities? Do you become a monster of demands and sacred rituals that others are required to participate in with you? Do you live in judgement about others who are not performing consistent with your expectations? What percentage of your acivities live as "should's" rather than as choice?

If the Conscious Adult is available, you may begin to challenge the collection of roles, demands and rituals that have had your attention. Noticing whether what you are doing is satisfying or whether you are feeling balanced rather than driven during the holiday time.

Are you feeling energized and excited or tired and exhausted? Sometimes, just asking the question provides an opening that can light the way to new possibilities.

Challenge yourself this holiday season and ask the questions that dare you to evaluate what works for you rather than what is supposed to happen. Having been a holiday queen with many decorations and rituals of expectations, I surprised myself one season when I acknowledged that I was exhausted. Even though I had plans to travel to family for the Christmas week, it was time to put up the Christmas tree and the extensive additional decorations.

My son was 13 years old when I asked him how he would feel if we did not put up a tree and decorations. He thoughtfully explored his feelings and then asked if we could at least put up some colored lights in the window. "Surely, " I declared.

A snow storm blew in and blocked our way for driving to Florida. After three days of ice and storm, it was too late to make the trip. My son and I hung out at home and never let any of our friends know that we were home. The few days without any interruption of phone calls or invitations was a blessing. We played, watched movies, relaxed and napped, read books and realized that we had created a most wonderful vacation. From that day forward, the decorations were not a requirement. We would choose what the form of our celebration would be.

I began to notice how much of my patterns around every holiday were fulfilling some kind of expectation. There were many things that were still fun and special. Removing the "shoulds" lightened the burden and opened the door for creating new activities.

Write out your childhood memories and identify whether they still provide pleasure and meaning. Ask your children to create something that would be a special way for them to express the meaning of the holiday. What on that list could you include to personalize the holiday for each child? Create activities each year that allow you and your children to explore something new. The following is a list of ideas:

1. Making and decorating cookies and cakes.
2. Make a list of people that you and your children will deliver the goodies to.
3. Encourage everyone to make their own greeting cards and gifts.
4. Visit nursing homes or shelters with homemade goodies taking time to visit and share with the people. (Set up the visit with the appropriate administrative staff.)
5. Sing holiday songs.
6. Bring books or short stories to read outloud.
7. Play short and simple games with the residents.
8. Participate in serving community holiday dinners to the homeless.
9. Identify a family that your family will sponsor with gifts and food.
10. Have everyone write a letter, poem, song or draw a picture and send to the elders in the family.
11. Sponsor a pot-luck dinner for the people in your world who do not have a family to spend the holidays with.
12. Organize a neighborhood block party or house-to-house visit with a different meal course in each home.
13. Have the children organize and perform a play or talent show.

Add to your list of possibilities each year and invite others to participate with your family. If you are not having fun, it might be a clue that a change could provide some freedom and creativity for you and your family. The Holiday Grinch can be a thing of the past as you consciously design holidays.

Every contract needs special stipulations for withdrawing from your promise to fulfill some action or result within a particular period of time. Some would be appropriate to every contract and some specific to the situation and/or the client/customer.

1. Note every promise you and the client have listed in your contract and identify the breakdowns that could interfere or negate your ability to produce the results according to the terms of the agreement. Those potential interferences may be important to include as part of your contract.

2. What happens if:
- nature interrupts the action?
- the supplies required for the project are unavailable in a timely manner?
- the client/customer is not keeping agreements?
- you discover that your values significantly conflict with the client/customer's?

3. Identify the financial costs for breaking the agreements.

4. Both you and the client/customer sign and date the agreement initialing any changes within the contract.

5. It is always appropriate to have an attorney review your contract to make sure it covers your work and service. The more money and resources involved in the project, the more important the signed contract that specifies both your role and the client’s.

Many people think that contracts will confuse or frighten potential clients. When the client sees that the contract binds you both with promises and consequences if not fulfilled, they may instead, perceive you as reputable and conscious about your work.

Elements to a successful contract:
A Promise (+) to Act and produce Results (+) within a particular Time (+) Payment terms (+) Reasons for cancellation

1. As the service provider, it is your responsibility to research the normal and usual rates for services that you provide and to include your individual value related to years of experience, educational degrees, certifications, continuing education, and awards. Be sure to include reimbursement fees for the non-face-to-face, “invisible” work that is involved in providing the service and product you are selling, such as materials, continuing education, business overhead, phone calls, on-going project consulting and management of sub-contractors.

2. Be specific about the terms of payment (i.e., full or partial pre-payment, by when full payment is required, charges for changes made to the contract, interest added to bill if not paid on time). Be clear about whether the costs are projected and thus, alterable based on situation or negotiations or whether they are complete, regardless of circumstances

If you are a professional such as an attorney or accountant that charges for every minute that you work on behalf of the client, state the hourly fee and a proposed range of cost for the completed project. Keep accurate records of the exact time that you spend on the client’s project to verify the charges. Remind the client of the time you are spending on the phone, writing letters, etc. to minimize the “surprise element” later about charges.

If you are not an hourly professional, the financial charges may be specifically related to face-to-face time and include the “invisible” time in that charge. You may also choose to give a range of costs for projects that will include normal and usual costs and time based on past performance. In these cases, there will be some times that you will be ahead of the game and sometimes not.

3. If the client has given you a budget limit, hear that and respond respectfully. Do not assume that you can expand the budget once the project has begun. There may be unexpected circumstances that require re-negotiation but that should seldom.

4. What are the consequences if the project is not completed on-time, on-budget? Identify what circumstances will be acceptable or not for re-negotiating the completion time or projected budget. Do remember that if the promise of completion cannot be kept, communicate to the client as soon as re-negotiating is necessary. Communication and re-negotiation is imperative. Making a decision in isolation by either the client or the provider is unacceptable and in poor business practice.

5. Clarify who will pay for what in the project, (i.e., who will provide supplies, special equipment, space for consultation, support services, etc. )

6. Identify the timing of project reports which will include both the status of the project and financial expenditures to date.

7. Gain a reputation for on-time and on-budget project completions and for communicating along the history of the project. Your reputation will precede you and open many doors.

Watch for the next blog on Terms for Contract Cancelation.