What Makes Me Happy

You are a Badass Deck, by Jen Sincero — It’s time to get mighty clear about what makes you happy and what makes you feel the most alive, and then create it instead of pretending you can’t have it.

The cards in this deck were created from a book You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. The quotes you can use as affirmations, intention-setters, wake-up calls, and reminders of how powerful and lovable you are. The others are exercises and loving kicks in the rear to get/keep you moving in the direction you want to go and to help you push youself out of your comfort zone.

Family and friends contribute to my happiness! I married one of my best friends and that helps. I have best friends who have become sisters over the years. My children are grown and doing well. I have healthy grandchildren. I am retired and living comfortably.

I work part-time and that helps me to know I am living life how I am meant to, and that is important to me. I read and write every day now and love having the time for all that I do. I laugh and cry as often as possible. I consider all of this very important for balance, self-love, and happiness.

When I have dipped into depression, I laugh more. Laughter yoga helps me to come back to normal. Smile-ups and laughter breaths are where I start when I just don't feel like laughing. This makes it so I can be happy most of the time!

Give Your Bad Habits The Heave-Ho - Pay attention to the areas of your life that you're not so thrilled about, figure out which bad habits helped create them and trade those habits in for some good ones. Form the kind of habits that successful people have: good time-management habits, good decision-making habits, good thought habits, good health habits, good relationship habits, good work habits, etc. Think of what behaviors would make the biggest positive changes in your life (maybe even the kinds of changes you can hardly imagine coming true) and set about turning them into habits. Jen Sincero

Jen Sincero identifies the habits of successful people:

1) Good time management -

I can't say I am the best at time management. Yesterday, I did everything except what I planned to get started yesterday. When I did start it was too late to get anything done.

I will improve my time management with less procrastination and by following a schedule and maybe using a checklist.

2) Good decision-making habits -

I was taught early in recovery that it is a good thing to practice making decisions to help with perfectionism. Apparently, I was not making decisions when asked to choose a restaurant due to the possibility that the food or service wouldn't be good, and it would be my fault.

When I was forced to decide each week for several months, I no longer had trouble with decisions and this rippled out to making decisions in general. A great experience in my 20s.

My decision-making habits are good most of the time. No problem.

3) Good thought habits -

When I can stay positive is when I am doing well. It is only when I move into negative thinking that I am vulnerable to misery.

I was taught that our addiction demands we stay negative, so it is important to keep a positive attitude. In this world, it isn't always an easy place to be.

Just the other day, I heard about a drunken fight with two brothers where one died. I right away imagined the parents losing two boys on the same day, one died and one will be spending his time in prison.

It is very easy to get negative under those circumstances. Especially knowing the family and it was my great niece and nephew's father that died.

Prayer helped me to get to the right thinking. How can I help? What can I say? Can I attend the funeral? Will others get sober due to this terrible tragedy?

4) Good health habits - diet, exercise, decrease stress, prayer, meditation/mindfulness

5) Good relationship habits - I stay in touch with family and friends, we get together, we each provide support where I can, and we laugh and cry together. No enabling. My husband and I enjoy each other's company in many ways. We have many things in common that we enjoy doing together.

6) Good work habits - I probably continue to work too much if that includes my time for reading and writing. I do try to take regular breaks; like standing up every half hour to an hour. Just as long as it isn't for a trip to the kitchen for snacks.

It's all make-believe. Or rather, it's all what we make ourselves believe. Jen Sincero

Sometimes I have magical thinking, like the photo above. I don't stay there.

Because I keep my focus on the positive much of the time, I don't believe in the worst all of the time. I live in the present and that isn't how I used to live.

I used to say because this happened in the past, then this is bound to happen in the future. So I would worry about what could happen, making myself believe the worst. I go there with cancer and it takes me a while to get out of that.

Cancer is the best example and the most frequent place that is a sticking point for me. Knowing what it is though, makes it possible to change.