7 Steps to Finding Peace in Your Life

Do you find yourself consistently miserable and stressed? I used to but now moods are replaced by a strong undercurrent of contentment and joy. Why? Because along the way I have learned some awesome ideas that helped me to discover deep and lasting happiness. Here’s 7 of them…

1. Stop Looking for Happiness
“Happiness is like a butterfly: If you chase it, it flies away, but when you turn your attention to other things, it comes and quietly lands on your shoulder.”

2. Don't think about it, Do it.
Reading theory doesn’t usually actually get anything done. That’s why it’s called theory: it’s the opposite of practical action.
No matter how varied the details of the various meditation gurus and schools out there, they all say two things:
• Meditation offers many benefits, one being a more positive outlook on life
• Reading about it isn’t enough; you must practice it.

3. Learn How to Meditate
It doesn’t matter who you learn through or what style, just give it a go. If you are seeking deep, lasting happiness then it is a major milestone in your journey.
But for goodness sake, if you find yourself with any teacher who tells you that their way is the only way, get out. Chances are they are misguided, delusional or downright manipulative. There is no right way to meditate; all roads lead to Rome.

4. Dwell in the Sorrow
Here’s how it works:
• So you sit up straight and you just concentrate on how bad you feel
• You just let yourself feel it as intensely as possible; dwell on it as much as you can. Feel how crap your situation is, how rotten life is, what an A-hole he or she is. That kind of thing.
• Eventually the feelings will run their course. There’s only so long a person, who is not clinically depressed, can feel this intense level of sorrow before the feelings will start to subside. Why? I don’t know really, I guess you’ve just released all that pent-up energy and felt it all at once rather than bottling it all up and drip-feeding yourself misery.

5. Get a Sense of Perspective
You are very, very insignificant in the big scheme of things. Physically you are tiny. The time you will be alive is a mere blip in the history of the universe, if that. Same goes for all of us.
This need not be depressing, however. In fact I find it empowering.
You can choose to get all pent up about the details of your life or you can choose not to fix as much value on outcomes. You can choose to relax and let go of your attachment to these fixed ideas in your head about you and how your story should pan out.
And if you do you might just realize that you are free.

6. Focus on One Thing at a Time and Stick to it
You must search your heart and discover (or re-discover) what the one thing you want to do with your life is, and then you must stick to that at all costs.
The same applies to the over arching purpose of your life. In the first world, despite pessimistic noises to the opposite, there are so many options available to you now as to what you can do with your life. Opportunities abound - but if you do not choose a single definite major purpose then you will simply bounce from shiny-thing to shiny-thing without ever making any real progress. And this will leave you unfulfilled.

7. Get Your Head Out of the Clouds
Choose a goal that you absolutely must achieve and work your butt off towards attaining this goal and meanwhile completely detach from the result and you will experience the form of deep lasting happiness that is called ‘flow’.
That’s why you must enjoy doing your One Thing along the way. You’ve got to love the work itself, not just pin your hopes for being happy on attaining the result.
The way to do this is by getting your head out of the Future Fantasy. Don’t think “I’ll be happy when …” because you won’t. The only time you have to be happy is NOW and being happy now takes practice and is not determined by external factors alone.

So next time you are working away towards your big goal and you are feeling irritated and are just grunting your way through the work with half your mind on the next pleasure stop (coffee, lunch, the pub, whatever) stop for a minute and just be here now.
Because NOW is all you’ve got - don’t miss it.