Tag Archive for: how to be happy

How to use Lofty Questions to Transform Your Life

Questions are powerful.  When you give your mind a question, it will always try to answer it.  We do this all the time with questions like “why is it always my fault?” or “why do I never have enough money?”.  The problem is that these questions are often negative, so the answers are negative too.  The solution is to use Lofty Questions.

I first came across the concept of lofty questions after watching a Mindvalley seminar featuring Christie Marie Sheldon and Vishen Lakhiani.

In this article, I’ll cover the benefits of Lofty questions, how they work and the 4 keys to creating powerful lofty questions. I’ll then share with you 18 fantastic lofty questions to help you change your life for the better.

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What are Lofty Questions?

Lofty questions are positively phrased questions that encourage helpful answers, insights or solutions. Lofty questions are posed by you and are answered by you.

And an example of a lofty question is, “why am I always happy and positive?”

Your brain loves to answer questions. Give it a good question and you’ll get a wonderful answer. Give your brain a poor question and you’ll get an answer that keeps you stuck.

Benefits of Lofty Questions

Lofty questions encourage your subconscious mind to make a positive identity shift. They help you get out of stuck emotional states and manifest more effectively with the Law of Attraction.

They allow your subconscious mind and the universe to find creative answers to the question posed. They encourage intuition, insight, and a shift in focus. This leads to more positive life experiences.

They help you take action, solve problems and create a higher vibratory frequency. Lofty questions encourage you to discover new and exciting possibilities. They help change your meaning and perspective on certain life situations and replace unhelpful negative questions such as:

  • Why am I always broke?
  • Why am I so unlucky?
  • Why does this always happen to me?
  • Why is life so hard
  • Why do I seem to be unable to live the life of my dreams?

The answers to your lofty questions will give you a roadmap and a way out.  The answers will show, help and guide you towards living the life of your dreams.

How the Subconscious Mind Works

To understand how the subconscious mind works, and why questions are so effective, I encourage you to do this exercise right now.

Imagine a pink elephant in your room. Notice where it is, how big it is, how cute it looks. Is the pink elephant smiling at you?  

Now don’t think about the pink elephant in the room. I really want you to not imagine that pink elephant in your room. Don’t notice how big it is, where it’s located or whether it’s smiling at you.

Could you do that? – It’s pretty tough right?

When I asked you to not think about the pink elephant, your brain had to think about and imagine the pink elephant first.  It has to think about it in order to not think about it.  Or to put it another way, your subconscious mind cannot understand negative words such as “don’t” or “not”.

When you think or say “I’m not anxious”, your subconscious mind has to think, feel and imagine being anxious first. 

What about “I’m not scared”?  Again, your subconscious mind will think about being scared or imagine a scary situation first.  This all happens incredibly fast. In less than 1 second.

This works with positive phrases too.  When you think or say “I am relaxed”, your brain thinks about the word relaxed and the feelings associated with this word.  It may imagine a relaxing situation. 

The same principle applies to any positive statement or affirmation such as “I have courage” or “I am peaceful”

When you feed your mind with positive phrases and positive lofty questions, your subconscious mind will give you empowering answers because that’s what your mind is focussing on. To get this at a deeper level, read my article on why you get what you focus on.

The 4 Keys to Powerful Lofty Questions

I will now cover the 4 keys to creating and using powerful lofty questions.

1. Phrase Question in the Positive

The first key is to phrase the question in the positive. As you now know from the pink elephant example, the subconscious mind cannot deal with a negative question or idea.

So, “Why am I always peaceful and relaxed?”, rather than “Why am I always anxious?”

2. Start with the word “Why?”

Starting with the word “Why” turns your statement or affirmation into a question. This tricks your subconscious mind and reduces cognitive dissonance. This is the internal voice in your head that questions or challenges new positive ideas. 

The affirmation “I am always peaceful and relaxed” may be challenged with an internal voice that says things like “Oh no you’re not” or “you can never be peaceful and relaxed”, or “the last time you were peaceful and relaxed this happened”

Turning it into a question that starts with the word “Why” tricks this internal voice into submission.  It shuts this voice up or reduces its intensity.

3. Include the word “always” or “at all times”

Using the words “always” or “at all times” tells your subconscious mind that you want this consistently and forever more.  It’s something that becomes part of you.  This kicks your Reticular Activating System into action.

This is the part of your brain that notices people, places, and situations that can help you. It identifies opportunities and resources that match the lofty question.

4. Relaxed Meditative State

Before asking lofty questions, get into a nice, relaxed and meditative state. If you’re new to this, use my rapid relaxation exercise to guide you.  Otherwise, any relaxation or meditation technique that you are familiar with can be used.

18 Powerful Lofty Questions

I will now share 18 great lofty questions with you. I’ve categorized these into a few different areas.

Lofty Questions about You

These lofty questions are about you.

  • Why am I surrounded by joy and happiness at all times?
  • Why am I always able to learn positively from any experience?

The phrase “any experience” includes any difficult or challenging situations that you might be going through right now.

  • Why is my life always so amazing that it exceeds all my expectations?
  • Why am I always the person that amazes the world?

You could make this more specific by changing it to “amazes my partner”, “amazes my boss” or “amazes my clients”.

  • Why do I always use what is happening in my life to become a better person?

What I love about this question is how it helps you identify the positive benefits from negative situations that may have occurred in your life.

  • Why do I always do the right thing for my mind, body, spirit, and relationships?

Lofty Questions about Relationships

Here are 3 lofty questions to help you with relationships.

  • Why am I always surrounded by love and incredible people that I feel a deep bond with?
  • Why am I always surrounded by people that love, support and respect me at all times?

If you’re single:

  • Why am I always so good at attracting the perfect person for me?

Lofty Questions for Money and Abundance

Here are 2 lofty questions for money and abundance.

  • Why do I always have more than enough money to pay my bills, save for the future, and have some leftover for fun activities?

A shorter lofty question could be

  • Why am I always so good at making, keeping and multiplying money?

Lofty Question for Productivity

A great lofty question for productivity is:

  • Why am I always able to do so much during the day?

Lofty Question for Health

Here is a powerful, lofty question for health.

  • Why am I always so good at looking after my health and knowing exactly what my body needs from me?

Lofty Questions for Achieving Goals

Here are 2 lofty questions to help with goal achievement.

  • Why do my goals and dreams always come to me so quickly, easily and effortlessly?
  • Why do I always take effective action to achieve the life of my dreams?

This question can help guide you to live the life of your dreams. It also counteracts the common negative question that is “why can’t I live the life of my dreams?”

Lofty Questions for Guidance

Finally, here are 3 fantastic lofty questions to help you with guidance.

  • Why am I always so brilliant, so clever, and so able to develop creative ideas through my intuition or through something greater than myself?
  • Why does the universe always guide and look after me?
  • Why does the universe always give me more than enough health, vitality, and energy to reach my goals?

To Conclude

These are my 18 powerful lofty questions. Did your emotional state change just by reading these questions? It certainly did for me.

So I encourage you to ask these lofty questions regularly. Use the most relevant to you right now.  Feel free to change them. The best questions are the ones unique to you. Just remember the 4 keys to creating lofty questions. To recap, these are:

  • Keep them positive
  • Start with the word “Why”
  • Include “always” or “at all times”
  • Be in a relaxed, meditative state when you ask these lofty questions

I hope you enjoyed learning about lofty questions. Take the time now to create your own empowering questions. Then use your lofty questions regularly and consistently.  The results will surprise you!

To dive deeper into Lofty Questions and learn directly from Christie Marie Sheldon, I encourage you to check out the two links below.

Heal your Past and Clear Your Blocks Mindvalley Masterclass

Christie’s Lofty Questions video on YouTube

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul

How to be Happy and Content | 10 Happiness Habits

I believe that everything we do, every relationship we make and every goal we set is driven by one ultimate goal – to be happy and content.

What makes you happy? Is it more money? Is it success at work? Or great relationships? Believe it or not, these are just external factors that may give us a temporary high and short-term happiness. However, to be happy and content consistently is a state of mind – it comes down to our thoughts, attitudes, behaviors and lifestyle choices.

Genuine and long-term happiness and contentment come from a deeper and longer-lasting feeling of satisfaction and gratitude towards our lives. This is something that we can all do. In this article, I will share 10 habits to help you become more happy and content.

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1. Develop Close Friendships

Close friendships are great for your mental and physical health. They improve your mood, boost your self-esteem, reduce stress and the chances of getting sick. Spending time with close friends leads to a happier, more fulfilling life, and increases your sense of belonging and purpose.

There was a study that showed that 94% of adolescents saw their friends pretty much every day. The same study also showed that 91% of retired people saw their friends almost every day. Something seems to go wrong in the middle years. Whether it’s because of work, family, or kids, many of us spend very little time with our friends.

Friendships are important in difficult times. When you’re going through a divorce, a job loss, serious illness, or death of a loved one, a great circle of friends can help. Friends make life happier, more fulfilling, colorful, and exciting. I recommend having a weekly friend ritual where you take the time to meet up with a close friend once a week.

2. Take Responsibility

This is the first step towards any improvement in life, and it includes taking responsibility for your emotional state and happiness.

As soon as you blame the economy, someone else, your upbringing, lack of skills or intelligence, you become powerless. You take away your ability to change and you feel like a victim. Feeling like a victim and powerless will make you unhappy.

If you want to be happy and content, take responsibility and change things that make you miserable or sad. Think about your life and ask yourself:

  • Can I take responsibility for this situation?
  • What can I change about this?
  • What can I do to not feel that I’m being a victim?

3. Become a Happiness Detective

If you want to be happy and content, try focusing on the good things in your life – the good things about your health, work, where you live, or your family and friends.

We usually focus on what we don’t want and what we don’t have in our lives. A great way to change this is to practice gratitude. Notice and appreciate what you already have in your life. Appreciate everything that is going well. To learn how to do this more effectively, read my article about gratitude.

Remember that there’s good in almost everything. If you’re often unhappy, it will take time and effort to focus on the good before it becomes a habit. It’s like building a physical muscle. You’re building a mental muscle by focusing on what you already have and appreciate. The more you do it, the more your unconscious mind will pick up on it, and the more it will become a positive habit.

4. Set and Achieve Goals

Happy people set goals. If you look at your main areas of life – your work, relationships, and health – you’ll find that you’re either improving or declining. We rarely stay still in any area of life. To ensure that all areas of your life are improving, it’s good to set goals. Many people don’t set goals because they are afraid of not achieving them. However, it’s far better to set goals and do your best to achieve them. If you miss some of them, use this as a learning opportunity.

There is a virtual cycle that goes on here – you set goals, then create a plan. That increases your self-discipline, and then you achieve the goal. When you achieve it, you feel good about yourself. That increases your self-esteem, self-worth and your happiness. Then you set more goals, and the process continues. We are goal-directed individuals, so setting goals is very important if you want to be happy and content.

5. Realize that Happiness is an Inside Job

Long-term happiness doesn’t come from achieving things in life. Why is that? Because the Law of Familiarity kicks in. Let’s say you get a significant promotion at work or a new job. You enjoy that increased responsibility and recognition. You probably have more money and a better lifestyle. That feels great and makes you happier. But over time it becomes normal and familiar.

Then you may think, “Well, there’s something else I need to do to be happy. I’ll go and live in another part of the world”. That feels very exciting. I did that 10 years ago moving from London to Sydney and it was great for the first few months. But then it became familiar and normal. The Law of Familiarity means that anything new and significant you achieve in life will eventually become familiar and normal.

Also watch out for “I will be happy when…” thinking. For example, when you’re at school and you don’t like discipline, you may think “I’ll be happy when I go to university”. At university you have freedom, but you are broke. So you think, “I will be happy when I get a job and get some money”. Then, you get a nice job and money comes in, but you face other challenges – routine, stress, or pressure from other people. Maybe you think, “When I get married, I’ll be happy and content”. And when it happens, it feels great. But over time, it becomes the new normal.

You can see how easily this can increase to “When I have kids I’ll be happy” and then ultimately “When I retire I’ll be happy”. “I will only be happy when…” is a kind of thinking you need to stop. Happiness is not a deferred payment plan! You can be happy and content in this moment. There’s almost like a limiting belief that I need to do this or have that to be happy. Remember that that’s not true. Happiness is something you create from the inside and you can be happy right now.

It’s often the smallest and most basic things that can make you happy and create memorable moments in your life, such as:

  • Being grateful for what you already have.
  • Smiling and having an uplifting posture.
  • Listening to some great music.
  • Quality time with your partner and close friends.
  • Getting out in nature for a few hours.
  • Having a lot of variety and doing lots of different activities.

6. Release Resentment

When you have resentment or a grudge towards another person, it’s you who feels it, not the other person. That person is probably not even aware that you’re thinking about them or having any of those feelings. A resentment or grudge is something that you hold inside. You are the victim. It’s you that feels violated and it’s you that feel someone else is stopping you or holding you back.

It also means that you are not taking responsibility because you are blaming someone else for your unhappiness and inability to succeed in life. Forgiveness and being able to let go is crucial for your happiness. When you do this, you will feel joy, peace, and calm. You can learn more about ways to release negative emotions in my article about the Sedona Method.

7. Cultivate Faith and Peace of Mind

Unhappy people worry a lot. Happy people have faith that everything will turn out fine. Here are 2 great ways to develop this attitude:

Use positive and soothing self-talk.

Having a positive and soothing internal voice means saying things like “You’re doing your best”, “We’ll work it out” and “Everything is okay”.

Welcome and accept all emotions.

Let all emotions flow through you – the good and the bad ones. When you resist emotions, they tend to stay. When you experience them or express them, they move on. Emotions are like clouds in the sky. If you just let them pass, they will move on.

8. Face Your Fears

Facing fears and taking risks is crucial if you want to be happy and content. When you don’t deal with stuff, it festers inside. Taking risks, facing your fears, and overcoming them feels great. That takes you out of your comfort zone and you get the sense of aliveness that comes from achieving something that you thought was hard or even impossible.

I encourage you to do one thing every day that is a bit uncomfortable. You could try a different food at lunchtime, tackle a difficult issue at work that you’ve been putting off, or deal with a difficult person.

Whatever risk you take, make sure it is calculated. Weigh up all the options first. And remember that behind every risk there is a reward – the satisfaction and the feeling of aliveness that comes from tackling challenging and difficult situations.

9. Develop Hope

A lack of hope and a feeling that there is no way out is the main reason people get depressed. Developing hope is key to getting out of any kind of depression. Hope can be built on a conviction that:

  • You will find an answer or a solution to a problem.
  • You are doing the right thing.
  • You are being guided by a higher power that will help you through this.

Your nervous system responds to your perception rather than the circumstances. Hope makes all situations possible and tolerable. Some helpful ways to develop hope include:

  • Working out the steps from where you are now to where you want to be.
  • Looking for role models that have already overcome the adversity or challenge you’re facing.
  • Doing kind things for others – a great way to get out of your head and forget any problems for a while.
  • Practicing mindfulness – letting your mind focus on one thing at a time. When you focus completely on one thing, anxious thoughts will subside. You’ll then feel more present, calm and happy instead.

10. Don’t Compare Yourself to Other People

Comparing yourself with others always leads to unhappiness. It’s a recipe for misery because it gets you focused on what you don’t like about yourself and your life. Here are some tips to help you not compare yourself with others.

Compare yourself with who you want to become.

Ask yourself:

  • What can I improve?
  • How can I become more loving?
  • How can I become more successful?
  • How can I become a nicer person today than I was yesterday?
  • How can I improve in all areas of my life?

Be okay with your past.

You may regret some things that happened in your past. Maybe some events in the past were very difficult for you, or even unfair. That’s okay. Remember that your past has helped you become the person you are today.

Take a break from social media.

Social media highlights all the great things that are happening in other people’s lives. It’s the opposite of the news. The news always tells you what’s going wrong in the world. Social media tells you all the wonderful stuff that’s happening. The reality is somewhere in between.

Take a break from social media if you feel it makes you feel inadequate or lacking something. Remember that when you look at people who seem to have it all, they might not be happy inside. You never know what someone is feeling inside. Although they may seem to have all that success on the outside, it doesn’t mean that they are happy.

So these are my 10 habits that will help you be happy and content. I encourage you to apply these into your life right now.

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul

The 11 Benefits of Gratitude and How to Practice it Daily

There are so many benefits of gratitude.  It’s wonderful for your body, mind, and spirit.  In this article, I’m going to cover the benefits of gratitude in detail.  This will give you the motivation to start becoming more grateful for what is already working in your life.

Practising gratitude is also a wonderful way to improve how you feel instantly.  To feel happier and more fulfilled.  It’s fun to do and I cover 4 very easy and effective ways to incorporate the practice of gratitude into your life.

To make the most of the benefits of gratitude, I recommend that you practice being grateful for a few minutes every day.

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What are the Benefits of Gratitude?

Gratitude makes you feel good and this improves your mental and physical health. Have you noticed that when you achieve or gain something (for example a new car), you feel excited, happy and grateful, but the feeling doesn’t last. It soon becomes a normal experience.

When you focus all your attention on achieving more, this creates a habit or pattern of taking things for granted, because you’re focusing on what you don’t have.

Achieving is a good thing, but you want to do it in a way that makes you feel happy and fulfilled at the same time.  Why do you want to achieve something in the first place? – My guess is that it’s probably to experience some kind of emotion such as happiness, fulfillment or satisfaction.  However, you can have these emotions now without having those things.

I’ve also found that if you focus too much on wanting to achieve something, this gives an energetic message to the universe that says “I want that”.  However, the feeling of wanting is different from having.  Wanting something means that you don’t have it yet and that is a different feeling that the universe picks up on.

By practicing gratitude, you focus on what you already have.  This sends the message of “having” to the universe.

So let’s look at some of the benefits of practicing gratitude.

1. Improves Physical Health

People that practice gratitude daily have fewer aches and pains. They look after themselves better and exercise more often. They have lower blood pressure, live longer and have more energy.

2. Improves Sleep

Practicing gratitude regularly helps you sleep better by sleeping for longer and getting deeper, restorative sleep. When you worry about things before you go to sleep, the level of stress in your body increases and that reduces your sleep quality.

If you practice gratitude instead by focussing on what you already have and what’s going well in your life, then this initiates the relaxation response. Your body can then relax and you’ll sleep much better.

Before you go to sleep tonight, I invite you to do the following:

  • Think about three things that went well today.
  • Think about three things that I’m grateful for.

3. Reduces Stress

As mentioned above, being grateful induces the relaxation response. This then lowers the level of cortisol (the stress hormone) in your body.  Lower levels of cortisol mean you feel more relaxed.

4. Improves your Mental Health

One of the other benefits of gratitude is a lower chance of becoming depressed or developing other mental illnesses.  Think of being grateful as fitness for the mind.

5. Enhanced Self Esteem

Being grateful improves your levels of self esteem. You have less resentment towards other people that appear to be doing better than you.  Instead, you appreciate their accomplishments. You’re less likely to compare yourself with other people and have greater satisfaction in your life as well.

6. More Resilience

Practising gratitude improves your resilience and mental strength. A study measuring post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam War veterans found that people that were more grateful during the war and afterwards generally had fewer symptoms of PTSD. A study undertaken after the 9/11 attacks found that people that were more grateful of what they had before the attacks seemed to deal better in the aftermath of the attacks.

7. Changes Memories

Practising gratitude helps you to change past memories. Your memories are not set in stone. They’re not like files in a computer where the information stored never changes. Memories can and do change over time. You may remember things as better or worse than they really were. The people in that memory may have been kinder or crueller. Gratitude increases the chances of remembering those things in a more positive way. It can also help you gain closure from upsetting memories.

8. Improves your Emotional Wellbeing

Being grateful helps reduce many negative emotions such as frustration, anger, regret, envy, aggression, revenge and resentment. It also helps increase your level of happiness. Practising gratitude makes you feel good, which in itself is a great reason to practise it.

9. Better Relationships and Social Life

One of the other benefits of gratitude is improved relationships and social life.  When you feel grateful, people will like you more, you will come across as more trusting. You will be more social and appreciative. You will have more friends, deeper friendships and a better relationship with your partner as well.

10.  More Career or Business Success

When you feel good about yourself and grateful for what you already have, you will be more productive and make better decisions. You will be more positive, solution focussed and find it easier to get results through other people.

11. Better Manifesting

Practising gratitude helps you to focus on the positive (the things you already have), rather than the negative (what you don’t have). When manifesting, it’s so important to focus on what you do want. A great way to do this is to focus on what you want AND what you already have. This helps you get the feeling of having what you want NOW.

How to practice gratitude on a daily basis

Hopefully, you’re now sold on the benefits of gratitude, so I’ll now cover a few quick ways to do this.

Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is simply writing down the things that you are grateful for. Things you might include could be your body, physical & mental health, family & friends or books & resources that you’ve benefited from. It could also be happy memories from the past or even small things like your heart beating consistently every day, or having running water and electricity.

Gratitude Questions

Ask yourself the following questions

  • What am I grateful for in my life?
  • What am I proud of in my life?
  • What do I love about my life?
  • What made today great?
  • What was good about today?

Notice what comes up when you ask these questions.  Gratitude questions are powerful because it focuses your mind on answering the question and this will lead to more things that you are grateful for.

Gratitude Bucket List

You probably already have a bucket list for holiday destinations, experiences and people you would like to meet. What about having a gratitude bucket list? Think of all those things that you have already achieved, the places you’ve already visited, the people that you’ve already met, Create a gratitude bucket list of all the things you’ve already achieved.

Showing Appreciation to Others

What can you do that will brighten up someone else’s day?  How could you show gratitude or appreciation for something that someone else has done? You can show your gratitude and appreciation face to face, via text message, email or on social media.

As you can see, there are lots of great benefits of gratitude. I hope this convinces you that it’s worth practicing being grateful on a daily basis. Best time is first thing in the morning when you get up and just before going to bed.

However, practicing being grateful throughout the day is great as well. It will make you feel better about yourself and happier too. It will balance your life as you’ll be focusing on things you already have, as well as focusing on the things you want.

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul

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