The Journey to Happiness

[polycarp]

The Journey to Happiness by Brian Tracy

From Aristotle in 340 B.C. through to the thinkers, speakers, and writers of today, the key to happiness has hardly changed at all. It is both simple and complex. And it is the same for virtually all men and women, in all countries and situations, and in all walks of life.

The key to happiness is this: Dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do and continuing to do it better and better.

Since you can't be truly happy until you are clear about your inherent possibilities, it's very important that you take some time on a regular basis to analyze yourself and identify your strengths and weaknesses. One of the best ways to do this is to start by asking yourself two powerful questions.

The first question is my favorite: "What one great thing would I dare to dream if I knew I could not fail?"

Imagine that you are absolutely guaranteed of success in the pursuit of a particular goal, big or small, short-term or long-term. Imagine that you had all the money, all the time, all the education, all the contacts, all the resources, and everything else that you could possibly need to achieve any one big goal in life. In other words, imagine that you had no restrictions.

What would your goal in life be?

The second question to ask yourself is this: "How would I spend my life if I learned today that I only had six months to live?" In other words, if you could only do one or two things before your time on earth was over, what would they be? Where would you go? Who would you spend your time with?

These questions help you assess your values. They go right to the very heart of the person you really are ... and of what is really important to you.

Getting these insights into yourself is the first step toward understanding what you should be doing with your life. The next step is to find a career that will make you happy. And this is where identifying your natural talents and abilities comes in.

Dr. Viktor Frankl, who wrote the book "Man's Search for Meaning", suggested that you can do it by dividing the things you could do in life into four categories.

The first category consists of the things that are hard for you to learn and hard for you to do. An example in this category for many people is mathematics. Many of us struggled with math in school, and still struggle with bookkeeping, accounting, financial statements, and tax returns as adults. If you find mathematics hard to learn and hard to do, this is the sort of activity for which you are clearly not suited. No matter how much of it you do or how good you get at it, you will never achieve any lasting satisfaction or happiness from it.

The next category consists of things that are hard for you to learn but easy for you to do. Riding a bicycle and driving a car are hard to learn but easy to do once you've practiced enough. Tying your shoes is another example. These are seldom the sorts of activities that make you feel terrific about yourself when you engage in them. They do not demand your best.

The third category consists of things that are easy for you to learn but hard for you to do. Physical labor falls into this category. Digging a ditch with a shovel or chopping wood with an ax are easy to learn but they are hard to do. And they never get any easier.

The fourth category is the one you're looking for. These are the things that are easy for you to do and easy for you to learn. You seem to have a natural proclivity for them. When you are engaged in these activities, time flies. These are the things that you should be doing with your life. They indicate where your natural talents and abilities lie and what will make you happy. It is engaging in these activities with your whole heart, and committing yourself to becoming better and better at them, that will give you all the joy and satisfaction you could ever want.

Everyone has an area of excellence. Everyone has something that he or she can do in an outstanding fashion. It may take weeks, months, and even years for you to develop yourself in your area of excellence - but you will be strongly attracted to that sort of activity from the beginning. You will enjoy reading about it and talking about it and thinking about it. You will find yourself admiring people who are already outstanding at doing it. You will look longingly at that field and wonder what it would be like to be in it and to be successful at it. And that's how you'll know that you have found your heart's desire.

You were put on this earth with a special purpose, programmed with unique talents and abilities that have not yet been fully tapped and utilized. When you focus all of your energies on unlocking your true potential, you can claim your ultimate birthright: happiness.

And remember ... excellence is not a destination; it's a lifelong journey. It is when you continue to grow, becoming better and better at something that is important to you, that you really feel alive and in touch with your world.