Send it Bro Blog

So it’s the beginning of a new year, and if you haven’t taken stock of your current life and still reeling from the festivities of Christmas and New Year, you still have a chance because the Lunar New Year is coming up on February 13th. It is important to re-evaluate yourself as cognitive behaviour therapy will help you understand yourself more. 

This is a great time to project your wishes onto 2010 and ensure it to be a successful one.

Positive psychologist Mona Vale has found a strong correlation between people’s happiness and their sense of meaning in life. Therefore, it makes sense that a happy person has worked on or found their life purpose.  For most of us, this is usually an ongoing project.

If you have no clue as to where to start, the following exercises from may help

Think of times when you were truly happy and satisfied. Recall the place, and what you were doing.  Is there a common thread underlying these circumstances? Have you ever been totally engrossed in what you were doing and lost track of time? What activity was that and what special talent or skill were you using? Get a blank page on your screen or paper and start with My purpose in life is …… write what ever comes in, don’t worry about whether it makes grammatical sense. Keep it flowing and when something comes up that brings tears of joy or great emotion, then you may have hit on a life purpose that has great meaning for you.

Another helpful clue is to focus on your personal growth as this also is correlated with happiness.

List all your past year’s accomplishments. Have a think about how they have helped your personal growth. Try to see an underlying theme in your directions, which seem to give you great satisfaction. Now list those accomplishments that were just drudgery and gave you no satisfaction and merely a sense of completion.

The third area to look at is your special talents or unique strengths.  Studies show a strong correlation between level of happiness and using one’s strengths in daily activities.

What do you do really well?  Recall times of great pride and satisfaction and narrow it down to 4 of your top strengths. What do your friends admire most in you?

By looking at your Life purpose, personal growth and unique strengths you may find greater satisfaction, fulfilment and happiness. If you think there are things you cannot handle on your own, counselling northern beaches is another option you can opt to, and it will help you grow as the person you can be.