Building New Habits: Laughing and Smiling Your Way to a Wonderful Life

You may ask yourself "What does "Building New Habits" has to do with "Laughing and Smiling"?

Well...you see...

I wasn't always the playful, happy, somewhat silly but very skilled person that I am now...

I used to be afraid...

Really afraid.

All of the time...

I thought I was afraid of doing something. This was before I started building new habits.

I really thought that the act of speaking to a stranger, for example, was what I was scared of.

But then I was a "shy" person or at least that is what everyone said about me..."oh, she's just shy..."

You know...after a while I started to say it too...

That's what building new habits is by the way...otherwise known as "learning" something new...

It had nothing to do with the truth...because sometimes I was very talkative, fun, and friendly...I guess I forgot to be shy...

I didn't notice that building new habits is such a simple matter of forgetting something that wasn't true to begin with...

And then...

I found things that I really really wanted to do.

And I wanted to do them SO MUCH that I was willing to reconsider a different way of thinking about myself.

And since I now knew how building new habits worked in the past, I knew I could change them again...

I did have a choice about it.

I could have made a picture of myself being shy and said "that's who I was"...

AND

Realize that if I forgot to be shy in the past, I can do it now and in the future too...

Because it's just a matter of realizing how you can do it now...

In a different way...

In fact just realizing that it's possible because you've already done it in the past can already begin to change the way you look at yourself now.

Another useful thing to do is...

Noticing what you say to yourself and about yourself, because things like:

• "You IDIOT!"
• "How could you be SO STUPID!?!"
• "You are NEVER going to be able to do this right."
• "What will people think?"
• "This is NEVER going to WORK!

Are going to make you have certain feelings...

And then there are other things you can remember to say that will make you feel VERY different...VERY good...happy even ;)

So what would you love to hear yourself say?

What would you love to hear other people say to you?

Because there's a secret to feeling good and it's "when you say nice, wonderful, good feeling things to yourself, you feel better"...

In fact, the more you say them to yourself, the better you feel...and...

The more often you say them, the more often you feel better...

What You Can Do Now to Start Building New Habits

So you can begin to say wonderful, lovely things to yourself...

And when you forget to and you will occasionally forget how lovely you really are...remember to say "oh silly me" or something like this...

Because you can be a little silly and still be lovely and wonderful...

You probably know some children that are a little silly and have a lot of fun...because they remember to not take their mistakes seriously...

And you are a lot smarter than children so you can remember it too...

Because sometimes we mistake being human with being an idiot...there's a big difference...

Being a human is all about learning and making mistakes and laughing at the silliness of it all...

Because it is VERY funny when you look at it closely...

It's something to keep in mind...

A Few Ideas to Get You Started...

And if you need some help remembering...

Take one of those many little electronic devices that you carry around with you all the time...

And set a little reminder for yourself that beeps to remind you to relax and smile...and remember something that makes you feel good...

It's like setting an appointment to laugh...and smile...and feel wonderful...and you can set lots of them if you want to...

But however you do it...

Sometimes you can do it badly...

Sometimes you can do it well...

You can do it when you are feeling great...

And you can do it when you want to feel better...

And when you have a lot to do...it can help you to get more done in a fun way...I know I always get more done when I feel better...

It can give you more energy when you need some...

The more that you take the time to relax...to smile...to find something that makes you laugh, the easier it will be to do it all the time...

But only if having fun and feeling good is important to you...

It's nice to remember to feel good and it can do a lot more than make you feel better...

And while we're on the subject of Building New Habits...

If you've got a question or something to say about "Building New Habits" or anything else, you can talk about it here...

Or just read what everyone else has said...

Or you can introduce yourself to the Thought Detective community!

And tell us a little bit about you, where you are living, how you got there or anything you'd like to tell us about yourself here...

Looking forward to hearing from you...

Suzanne