Six Ways to Boost Your Long-term Prospects for Success and Happiness, Starting Today

Photo credit: Gabriella Fabbri (www.i-pix.it)

The US government is giving away millions of dollars in handouts in an attempt to stimulate economic activity. Fine. We all like to get money from Uncle Sam, but even a handout on this scale cannot provide more than a temporary sense of satisfaction. What each of us needs is to put together our own, long-term stimulus package, made up of actions that will add to our potential for enjoying life far into the future.

Here are six suggestions to include in your personal ’stimulus package’ — six simple ways boost your prospects for career success, enjoyment of life, and personal happiness.

1. Long-term success and satisfaction are nearly always best found in doing work that you love. It’s not always easy to discover what that may be, but it’s well worth the effort to try. Take the time to think about what is most enjoyable in your life; what you look forward to in whatever you do today; and what you maybe day-dream about doing, if only it were possible. Then make a firm effort to find ways to incorporate as many of these sources of enjoyment as possible into your life on a regular basis; some through work, some through things outside of work. If nothing succeeds like success, nothing produces success like loving what you do.
2. Many platitudes have been wasted on looking for greater satisfaction from your life. I suspect the best answer is the simplest: you’ll get most satisfaction from spending your time on things that make you feel good about yourself and what you have produced. Giving the quality of your life a boost will raise your spirits and improve your well-being. And quality of life doesn’t always depend on money. Sometimes the richest people have lives full of wealth, yet seriously deficient in true quality. Real quality of life comes from living according to your deepest values. Do that and you cannot go far wrong.
3. Your mind is a precious asset that needs stimulus to keep it vibrant and alive. If you let it become slack or dull, you cannot hope to be happy and successful. Your personal stimulus package should therefore contain ways to keep your mind alert and your thinking fresh and powerful. Reading is one of the best approaches, along with learning additional skills and adding to your knowledge on any topic that interests you. Don’t just enjoy things passively; get involved, research, explore, become a minor expert. If you find yourself slumped in front of the television, numbing your brain with the mental equivalent of the worst junk food, get off your butt and start giving that mind a work-out. Few things will pay you back more handsomely.
4. In your package, you should also include ways to stimulate your creativity. Ask questions. Try new things. Explore the unknown. Challenge yourself to come up with your own answers, instead of accepting what others tell you, no matter how expert they are or how much authority they are said to have. The truth can stand up to any amount of challenge, while half-truths, myths, and downright deceptions will all crumble sooner or later.
5. Plenty of evidence exists to prove that physical fitness plays a major role in personal well-being. You don’t have to become a fitness fanatic, or spend hours at the gym. Just get sufficient exercise appropriate to your age and circumstances; add enough sleep (many people are chronically sleep-deprived); and don’t make your physical state worse through drink, drugs, or constantly over-eating.
6. Last, but far from least, slow down and make time for the little things of life than can transform any day. Take the time to admire the beauty all around you. Spend quality time with friends and loved ones. Learn to appreciate art, or music, or nature. Make something beautiful. No life can be satisfying if it is lived in such a headlong rush that you are scarcely able to notice what happens between waking up and falling back into bed, exhausted, at the end of the day. Are you in such a hurry to meet death that you cannot spare time while you are alive to enjoy to the full whatever life has to offer you?

There you are. Six simple elements of a stimulus package you can give yourself — a package that will provide a massive, long-term boost to your life, success, and career satisfaction. What better way could there be to beat today’s economic gloom?

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