Secrets to a Happy and Motivated Life

Whether you want to lose weight, end emotional eating, overcome stress, or move beyond sadness and depression, creating any major change in your life can create feelings of discomfort. You are here, and you want to be there. As enticing as the outcome of your goal appears, you cannot instantly jump into a happy, motivation filled life.

Instead, achieving happiness and success means that you have to venture out of your comfort zone into an unknown journey. On your path between here and there, you will most likely face many obstacles, experience setbacks and failures, feel emotions you don't want to feel, and discover you must learn strange new ways of thinking, acting, and behaving if you want to reach your outcome.

One-step at a time you walk across the middle ground between where you were and where you are going. This middle ground tends to feel shaky and unknown. You may stumble along with unsure footing wondering if you will ever feel confident again. One of the secrets of achieving a happy outcome requires acknowledging and understanding that the changes you are asking yourself to make will be uncomfortable. Your success rests on planning ahead to give yourself the tools and support you need to make yourself feel safe even in the midst of change and uncertainty.

The following strategies are designed to help you find that trust and self-assuredness when you are in the midst of creating your happy and motivated life.

Acceptance of Your Journey

Whenever you are feeling uncertain, stop and take a moment to breathe deeply. Take several deep, slow breaths. When you breathe, you allow yourself to come back to center and your inner resourcefulness. From center, you can regain your larger perspective about the importance of the changes you want to make.

You can remind yourself that you are in transition because you made the conscious choice to experience more happiness. You are not a victim of this change, and no one forced you into this decision. Although your journey from here to there may not be an easy journey, remind yourself that the joy and success you want to experience is important to you.

It's Okay to Fall, But Get Back Up Again

When you are walking across the transitional middle ground between where you were and where you want to go, there will be times when you may feel uncertain and doubtful about your ability to have what you want. Perhaps you encounter a roadblock or obstacle, or perhaps the amount of effort you must put forth on a daily basis was more than you bargained for. You will consider quitting. The question becomes, when you want to quit, will you curl up, tell yourself you can't have what you want, or desperately pray that someone comes along to rescue you?

Or are you going to gather up all your courage and find some way to gain motivation move forward once again? It's okay to stumble and fall, we all do it at one time or another. It is even okay to lie in the dirt for a while. What is important is that you remember that you are still on your path, still facing forward, and you can still have what you want. What is the one step you can take right now that will serve to raise your level of motivation higher?

Choose Faith

Have you ever heard the expression, "Feed your faith, not your fears." I love how this phrase can boil down a complicated situation into a very simple choice. Use this phrase to perform a reality check on yourself. When you feel doubt or fear, are your thoughts and actions helping to build your self-confidence that you can have what you want, are they causing you to go further down a dark spiral of negativity and despair? The issue is not whether or not you will experience fear. Fear is a natural by-product of going on your goal journey. The issue is how you will deal with fear when it shows up - will you feed faith or will you feed fear? ( By Annette Colby )