Effective Training and Development

1: Choose: this is number 1 piece of advice.  Choose what you want; don’t let others choose for you

2: Take responsibility for your happiness: happiness isn’t an accident - it’s a choice, and a choice that then requires effort.  If you wait for happiness to come to you, you might have a long wait…

3: Let it go: stop fretting, worrying, grumbling or whingeing about things you have no control over.  Fretting and grumbling not only make you (and others close to you) miserable, but they stop you getting on with things you do have influence and control over

4: Like attracts like: if you want happy and positive people around you, then be positive and happy - it’s the law of attraction.  If you’re miserable and sour, don’t be surprised if you’re surrounded by similar people.  You get back what you give out….

5: Change any miserable and negative influences - and that includes “friends”: you can’t choose your family, or (usually) your work colleagues.  But you can choose your friends.  Why would you call someone who puts you down, sees only the negative in you and life, a friend??!

6: Move in the right direction: ask yourself - “Am I happy?”  If the answer is “no”, then ask what it would take - truly - to make you happy.  Then start to move in that direction….

7: Be a human being, as well as a human doing: too often we focus on what we need to do, rather than who we need to be.  We always talk about ‘be happy’, rather than ‘do happy’.  Happiness is essentially a state of mind

8: Play the percentages: OK, maybe ‘being happy’ is not 100% achievable; anyway, we need some sadness, to later appreciate happiness.  But play the percentages.  Being happy ‘most of the time’ will do for most of us…it’s a better place to be - healthier, warmer, more constructive, and more able…

9: Switch off the judgement button: Let it be.  Not everyone has to like the same as you, feel the same as you.  Value diversity, and you’ll be happier.  And let go of your own (negative) internal drivers…the drive to be perfect, the drive to please, the drive to be strong, etc….often you are your own worst enemy!

10:  Read Andrew Matthew’s book, ‘Being Happy’: Please….you will absolutely not regret it.  It’s the one book above all others I would recommend.