Relationships 

Advertisement

The happiness workshop: week four

continued from page 1
The importance of goals
If you lose your sense of motivation, you'll also lose your essential sense of contentment with life. You need to set yourself goals and stay focused on them. If you want to be happy:

Set goals. Research suggests that having goals in life makes people feel good - so make sure you always have something to aim for. But equally, make sure your aims are positive ones. They need to be clear - you know what you want. They need to be realistic - within your grasp.

Stay motivated. Make sure you reach your goals by identifying what you need to do to achieve them. Then break down the 'to do' list into realistic bite-sized chunks. Reward yourself along the way and if you still lose heart, find support. If you really can't keep going, stop and ask whether what you're aiming for is right for you. If it isn't, then have the courage to admit that fact to yourself and change your goal.

Celebrate your victories. Once you reach a goal, it's tempting to move on immediately to another. But you'll lose all motivation if you don't celebrate your success. Give yourself time to savour your achievement. Crack open a bottle of champagne. Throw a party. Accept and welcome presents. Do these things regularly anyway, even when you haven't an achievement to celebrate, in order to celebrate life!

More resources

Shift Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Mo Shapiro (Sheldon Press)

Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser (Simon & Schuster)

How to Make Your Dreams Come True by Mark Forster (Help Yourself)

Delicious     Digg     reddit     Facebook     StumbleUpon

  Get the latest iVillage news on your desktop    Sign up for more iVillage RSS feeds

© iVillage Limited 2000-2008. All rights reserved. | © iVillage inc. 1995-2008. All rights reserved.
iVillage Ltd is a UK company registered in England & Wales (3837269) at 80-110 New Oxford Street, London WC1 1HB