https://youtube/watch?v=lm8S4ExJ8ss Repeat several times daily. 25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself Feeling less than motivated all too often? I do. Well, perhaps not too often. But sometimes I just feel really lazy and unmotivated. Want some practical solutions to that universal motivation-problem? Here are 25 of them. Try a handful. Let me know which ones work well for you. I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two that do just that among these suggestions. 1. Make a deal with yourself. Good for overcoming procrastination and getting things done. You can make the deal small or large. You simple tell yourself something like: When I’m done with this chapter/these reports I can take a walk in the park and enjoy an ice-cream. 2. Act like it. If you don’t feel motivated or enthusiastic then act like it. The strange thing is that within a few minutes you actually start to feel motivated or enthusiastic for real. 3. Ask uplifting questions in the morning. Here’s what you do; every morning ask yourself five empowering three-part questions this way: What am I ______ about in my life right now? What about it makes me _______? How does it make me feel? Put in your own value in the blank space. For instance, a couple of my questions are: What am I happy about in my life right now? What am I excited about in my life right now? It’s important that you really feel how it makes you feel. When I think about the last part about what makes me happy right now I really feel it. These morning questions are great because the way they are set up makes you recognize things you take for granted and then they really get you to feel those positive feelings. 4. Move the goalposts. Set a large and specific goal. This will motivate you much more than small goals. A big goal has a big effect and can create a lot of motivation. 5. Do something small and create a flow. Just clean your desk. Or pay your bills. Or wash the dishes. You just need to get started. When you have finished that small task you’ll feel more alert and ready to go do the next thing. You just to get started to get motivated. So if you really don’t feel like doing anything, start with something small and work your way out up. 6. Do the toughest task first. This will ease a lot of your day-to-day worries and boost your self-confidence for the rest of the day. Read more about doing the hardest task bright and early right here. 7. Start slow. Instead of jumping into something at full speed start slow. When you do that your mind will not visualize the task as something hard that you have to do fast, fast, fast. If your mind sees such things guess what often happens? Yep, you don’t get started. Actually getting started, even if it’s at a slow pace, is a whole lot better than not getting started at all. 8. Compare yourself with yourself. Not with others. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. Most likely quite a bit of people. And a few of them are miles ahead. So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved them. Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on. But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review. 9. Remember your successes. And let them flow through your mind instead of your failures. Write down your successes. Consider using a journal of some kind since it’s easy to forget your successes. 10. Act like your heroes. Read about them, watch them, listen to them. Discover what they did that was special and what made them tick. But remember that they are people just like us. So let them inspire you instead of looking up at them admiringly. 11. Remember to have fun. Or create fun in a task. Then you’ll stay motivated to do and finish it. 12. Get out of your comfort zone. Face your challenges to get a real boost of motivation. If you are holding yourself back have a look at 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear and the methods in this article. They can help you get started and take that first scary step outside your comfort zone. 13. Don’t fear failure. Instead redefine it as feedback and as a natural part of a successful life. As Michael Jordan said: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Also, try to find the valuable lesson(s) in each of your failures. Ask yourself: What can I learn from this? 14. Do some research on what you are about to do. Then your expectations will be more grounded in reality and you can also get good hints on what difficulties that you might run into along the way. Managing your expectations can lower the often almost explosive initial enthusiasm. But it can also lessen the lack of motivation that usually follows when most of that enthusiasm has dissipated. When you know what has happened to others in similar situations – what path they have walked – you can adapt and try their solutions (and personal variations of those) and your own. This makes the worries and challenges easier to handle. Both emotionally – since you know at least some of the things that will happen and that others have lived through it before – and practically. 15. Figure out why you´re doing something. If you don’t know or don’t have good enough reason to do something then it will be hard to get it done. Do things that you have really strong reasons to do. If you want to do something then figure out a good reason to do it. If you can’t find one consider dropping it and doing something that you have a good reason to do instead. 16. Write down your goals and reasons for working towards them. Tape them on your wall, computer or bathroom mirror. Then you’ll be reminded throughout the day and it becomes easier to stay on track and stay focused. 17. Take The Positivity Challenge! Learn to think more positively most of the time. Learn to let to go of negative threads of thought before they have a chance to take hold of you. You might not be able to be positive all the time no matter what happens. But I think most of us can improve on our positive thinking and the results it can lead us to. Perhaps more than you realize right now. 18. Cut down on TV. Do you watch it too much? Watch less of what they are doing in TV-land and do more of what you want to do in life. 19. Break it down. Break down your task or project into small steps. And just start with focusing on that first small step. When you are done move on to the next and just focus on that one. The small successes will keep your motivation up and keeping your focus away from the big picture stops you from becoming overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s amazing how much you can get done if you follow this simple method. 20. Reprogram your information intake. Program out negative and cynical thoughts from the media and society. Reduce your information intake. Then program in positive news and entertainment, more of your own thoughts and useful information such as personal growth tapes and books. Be selective and keep it positive. 21. Make use of your creativity. Take out a piece of paper. Write at the top of the page what area in your life you would like to have more ideas about. Perhaps you want ideas to earn more money or become a healthier person. Then brainstorm until you have written down 20 ideas on that topic. Then try for 10 more. Not all ideas will be good. But some will. And as you make use of your creativity you not only discover useful ideas. You also discover just how creative you can be if you try and how motivating and great that feels. Have a look at 8 Ways to Spark Your Creativity for more ideas on this topic. 22. Find out what makes you happy. Then do that. As much as you want or can. 23. Listen while you’re on the move. Build your own small library of motivational/personal development tapes. Listen to them while you are driving, riding the bus or your bike, while you are out running or walking. Take a peek at my recommended personal development products if you are looking for a good place to start. 24. Think outside your box. Don’t imagine the future from the box of what you have now. Just because your mind is in box of previous experiences doesn’t mean that´s the limits of the world. Your possibilities are much larger. Create the future from the now and from nothing rather than your past to experience bigger changes with fewer limitations than you would if you created it from what you can see from your box. 25. Make each day count. We don’t have all the time in the world. So focus on today and do the things you really want to do. 101 Inspiring Happiness Quotes by Henrik Edberg The written word is truly an amazing thing. With the help of it we can record out innermost thoughts and spread them if we like. With the help of the written word we can look far, far back into time, through the decades, the centuries and, yes, even the millennias. Today I would like to look back into the past and see what the wise people who have walked on this earth can tell us about happiness and how to uncover it. No matter if you live today or lived two thousand years ago. This is 101 of the most inspiring, touching and helpful thoughts from the past on happiness. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Buddha “Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.” Unknown “To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” Albert Camus “If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.’ If you want happiness for a day — go fishing. If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.” Chinese Proverb “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” Ashley Montagu “Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.” Stacey Charter “It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” Dale Carnegie “It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” Lucille Ball “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” Winnie the Pooh “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” Epictetus “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” Frederick Keonig “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” Thich Nhat Hanh “Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” Eskimo Proverb “To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.” Mary Stuart “There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.” Seneca “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” Robert A. Heinlein “Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” Dennis Waitley “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Mahatma Gandhi “The only joy in the world is to begin.” Cesare Pavese “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go” Oscar Wilde “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” Marthe Troly-Curtin “Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon” Winnie the Pooh “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” Herman Cain “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” Confucius “There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” Anthony de Mello “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” Dalai Lama “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Helen Keller “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” Aristotle “It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.” Seneca “The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” Marcel Pagnol “If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.” Joseph Addison “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” George Burns “Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” Franklin D. Roosevelt “The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.” Epictetus “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” L.M. Montgomery “Happiness is acceptance.” Unknown “The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” James M. Barrie “We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one’s own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.” Dalai Lama “Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.” Dr. Robert Anthony “The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.” Aesop “For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.” Seneca “A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” Albert Einstein “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” Bertrand Russell “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross “Happiness is a myth we seek, If manifested surely irks; Like river speeding to the plain, On its arrival slows and murks. For man is happy only in His aspiration to the heights; When he attains his goal, he cools And longs for other distant flights.” Kahlil Gibran “Happiness is a state of activity.” Aristotle “This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” Douglas Adams “Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.” Eleanor Roosevelt “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Confucius “The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.” Arthur Schopenhauer “Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.” Charles Caleb Colton “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius Antoninus “Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.” Friedrich Schiller “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” Winston Churchill “I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” Douglas Adams “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” Andy Rooney “The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” James Oppenheim “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” Benjamin Disraeli “The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” Martha Washington “Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” Albert Schweitzer “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” Heraclitus “Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.” Herman Hesse “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Aesop “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don’t even remember leaving open.” Rose Lane “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” Albert Ellis “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” Groucho Marx “Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.” Unknown “Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Buddha “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” Henry David Thoreau “Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.” Maxim Gorky “A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” Leo Tolstoy “It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.” F. Scott Fitzgerald “If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” Epicurus “Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.” William Feather “Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” John Henry Jowett “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt “And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” Confucius “If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.” Proverb “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller “For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.” Andy Rooney “Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.” Buddha “The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.” Andre Maurois “The grass is always greener where you water it.” Unknown “Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.” Marquis de Condorcet “On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” Eckhart Tolle “The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.” Brian Tracy “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” Leo Buscaglia “A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.” William Arthur Ward “Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” Mary Lou Retton “I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.” Dalai Lama “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” Joseph Campbell “Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” Leo Tolstoy “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln “Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” Unknown “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” Kahlil Gibran “If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” Morris West “Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.” Milton Erickson “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain What is your favorite quote on happiness? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your life in the comments section below. 25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself Feeling less than motivated all too often? I do. Well, perhaps not too often. But sometimes I just feel really lazy and unmotivated. Want some practical solutions to that universal motivation-problem? Here are 25 of them. Try a handful. Let me know which ones work well for you. I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two that do just that among these suggestions. 1. Make a deal with yourself. Good for overcoming procrastination and getting things done. You can make the deal small or large. You simple tell yourself something like: When I’m done with this chapter/these reports I can take a walk in the park and enjoy an ice-cream. 2. Act like it. If you don’t feel motivated or enthusiastic then act like it. The strange thing is that within a few minutes you actually start to feel motivated or enthusiastic for real. 3. Ask uplifting questions in the morning. Here’s what you do; every morning ask yourself five empowering three-part questions this way: What am I ______ about in my life right now? What about it makes me _______? How does it make me feel? Put in your own value in the blank space. For instance, a couple of my questions are: What am I happy about in my life right now? What am I excited about in my life right now? It’s important that you really feel how it makes you feel. When I think about the last part about what makes me happy right now I really feel it. These morning questions are great because the way they are set up makes you recognize things you take for granted and then they really get you to feel those positive feelings. 4. Move the goalposts. Set a large and specific goal. This will motivate you much more than small goals. A big goal has a big effect and can create a lot of motivation. 5. Do something small and create a flow. Just clean your desk. Or pay your bills. Or wash the dishes. You just need to get started. When you have finished that small task you’ll feel more alert and ready to go do the next thing. You just to get started to get motivated. So if you really don’t feel like doing anything, start with something small and work your way out up. 6. Do the toughest task first. This will ease a lot of your day-to-day worries and boost your self-confidence for the rest of the day. Read more about doing the hardest task bright and early right here. 7. Start slow. Instead of jumping into something at full speed start slow. When you do that your mind will not visualize the task as something hard that you have to do fast, fast, fast. If your mind sees such things guess what often happens? Yep, you don’t get started. Actually getting started, even if it’s at a slow pace, is a whole lot better than not getting started at all. 8. Compare yourself with yourself. Not with others. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. Most likely quite a bit of people. And a few of them are miles ahead. So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved them. Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on. But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review. 9. Remember your successes. And let them flow through your mind instead of your failures. Write down your successes. Consider using a journal of some kind since it’s easy to forget your successes. 10. Act like your heroes. Read about them, watch them, listen to them. Discover what they did that was special and what made them tick. But remember that they are people just like us. So let them inspire you instead of looking up at them admiringly. 11. Remember to have fun. Or create fun in a task. Then you’ll stay motivated to do and finish it. 12. Get out of your comfort zone. Face your challenges to get a real boost of motivation. If you are holding yourself back have a look at 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear and the methods in this article. They can help you get started and take that first scary step outside your comfort zone. 13. Don’t fear failure. Instead redefine it as feedback and as a natural part of a successful life. As Michael Jordan said: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Also, try to find the valuable lesson(s) in each of your failures. Ask yourself: What can I learn from this? 14. Do some research on what you are about to do. Then your expectations will be more grounded in reality and you can also get good hints on what difficulties that you might run into along the way. Managing your expectations can lower the often almost explosive initial enthusiasm. But it can also lessen the lack of motivation that usually follows when most of that enthusiasm has dissipated. When you know what has happened to others in similar situations – what path they have walked – you can adapt and try their solutions (and personal variations of those) and your own. This makes the worries and challenges easier to handle. Both emotionally – since you know at least some of the things that will happen and that others have lived through it before – and practically. 15. Figure out why you´re doing something. If you don’t know or don’t have good enough reason to do something then it will be hard to get it done. Do things that you have really strong reasons to do. If you want to do something then figure out a good reason to do it. If you can’t find one consider dropping it and doing something that you have a good reason to do instead. 16. Write down your goals and reasons for working towards them. Tape them on your wall, computer or bathroom mirror. Then you’ll be reminded throughout the day and it becomes easier to stay on track and stay focused. 17. Take The Positivity Challenge! Learn to think more positively most of the time. Learn to let to go of negative threads of thought before they have a chance to take hold of you. You might not be able to be positive all the time no matter what happens. But I think most of us can improve on our positive thinking and the results it can lead us to. Perhaps more than you realize right now. 18. Cut down on TV. Do you watch it too much? Watch less of what they are doing in TV-land and do more of what you want to do in life. 19. Break it down. Break down your task or project into small steps. And just start with focusing on that first small step. When you are done move on to the next and just focus on that one. The small successes will keep your motivation up and keeping your focus away from the big picture stops you from becoming overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s amazing how much you can get done if you follow this simple method. 20. Reprogram your information intake. Program out negative and cynical thoughts from the media and society. Reduce your information intake. Then program in positive news and entertainment, more of your own thoughts and useful information such as personal growth tapes and books. Be selective and keep it positive. 21. Make use of your creativity. Take out a piece of paper. Write at the top of the page what area in your life you would like to have more ideas about. Perhaps you want ideas to earn more money or become a healthier person. Then brainstorm until you have written down 20 ideas on that topic. Then try for 10 more. Not all ideas will be good. But some will. And as you make use of your creativity you not only discover useful ideas. You also discover just how creative you can be if you try and how motivating and great that feels. Have a look at 8 Ways to Spark Your Creativity for more ideas on this topic. 22. Find out what makes you happy. Then do that. As much as you want or can. 23. Listen while you’re on the move. Build your own small library of motivational/personal development tapes. Listen to them while you are driving, riding the bus or your bike, while you are out running or walking. Take a peek at my recommended personal development products if you are looking for a good place to start. 24. Think outside your box. Don’t imagine the future from the box of what you have now. Just because your mind is in box of previous experiences doesn’t mean that´s the limits of the world. Your possibilities are much larger. Create the future from the now and from nothing rather than your past to experience bigger changes with fewer limitations than you would if you created it from what you can see from your box. 25. Make each day count. We don’t have all the time in the world. So focus on today and do the things you really want to do. 101 Inspiring Happiness Quotes by Henrik Edberg The written word is truly an amazing thing. With the help of it we can record out innermost thoughts and spread them if we like. With the help of the written word we can look far, far back into time, through the decades, the centuries and, yes, even the millennias. Today I would like to look back into the past and see what the wise people who have walked on this earth can tell us about happiness and how to uncover it. No matter if you live today or lived two thousand years ago. This is 101 of the most inspiring, touching and helpful thoughts from the past on happiness. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Buddha “Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.” Unknown “To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” Albert Camus “If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.’ If you want happiness for a day — go fishing. If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.” Chinese Proverb “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” Ashley Montagu “Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.” Stacey Charter “It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” Dale Carnegie “It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” Lucille Ball “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” Winnie the Pooh “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” Epictetus “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” Frederick Keonig “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” Thich Nhat Hanh “Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” Eskimo Proverb “To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.” Mary Stuart “There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.” Seneca “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” Robert A. Heinlein “Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” Dennis Waitley “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Mahatma Gandhi “The only joy in the world is to begin.” Cesare Pavese “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go” Oscar Wilde “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” Marthe Troly-Curtin “Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon” Winnie the Pooh “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” Herman Cain “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” Confucius “There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” Anthony de Mello “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” Dalai Lama “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Helen Keller “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” Aristotle “It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.” Seneca “The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” Marcel Pagnol “If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.” Joseph Addison “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” George Burns “Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” Franklin D. Roosevelt “The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.” Epictetus “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” L.M. Montgomery “Happiness is acceptance.” Unknown “The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” James M. Barrie “We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one’s own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.” Dalai Lama “Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.” Dr. Robert Anthony “The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.” Aesop “For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.” Seneca “A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” Albert Einstein “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” Bertrand Russell “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross “Happiness is a myth we seek, If manifested surely irks; Like river speeding to the plain, On its arrival slows and murks. For man is happy only in His aspiration to the heights; When he attains his goal, he cools And longs for other distant flights.” Kahlil Gibran “Happiness is a state of activity.” Aristotle “This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” Douglas Adams “Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.” Eleanor Roosevelt “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Confucius “The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.” Arthur Schopenhauer “Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.” Charles Caleb Colton “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius Antoninus “Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.” Friedrich Schiller “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” Winston Churchill “I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” Douglas Adams “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” Andy Rooney “The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” James Oppenheim “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” Benjamin Disraeli “The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” Martha Washington “Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” Albert Schweitzer “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” Heraclitus “Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.” Herman Hesse “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Aesop “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don’t even remember leaving open.” Rose Lane “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” Albert Ellis “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” Groucho Marx “Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.” Unknown “Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Buddha “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” Henry David Thoreau “Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.” Maxim Gorky “A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” Leo Tolstoy “It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.” F. Scott Fitzgerald “If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” Epicurus “Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.” William Feather “Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” John Henry Jowett “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt “And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” Confucius “If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.” Proverb “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller “For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.” Andy Rooney “Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.” Buddha “The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.” Andre Maurois “The grass is always greener where you water it.” Unknown “Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.” Marquis de Condorcet “On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” Eckhart Tolle “The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.” Brian Tracy “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” Leo Buscaglia “A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.” William Arthur Ward “Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” Mary Lou Retton “I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.” Dalai Lama “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” Joseph Campbell “Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” Leo Tolstoy “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln “Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” Unknown “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” Kahlil Gibran “If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” Morris West “Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.” Milton Erickson “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain What is your favorite quote on happiness? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your life in the comments section below.
Posted on: Sun, 04 May 2014 12:29:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015