They work. Seriously, I’m telling you and I’m not even trying to sell you something.

I’m practicing and using some of the theories and I want to keep practicing and getting better at adapting and staying on the path of happily ever after.

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling it, as happiness can be an elusive thing. It’s here and it’s gone and it’s back again. I was just feeling kinda blah in the moment and wanted to snap out of it, especially since I was giving a presentation on happiness tonight. I looked at my notes with the list of 5 things you can do in 21 days to feel happier, and I did the first thing on the list, which was to write down three things I was grateful for that day, kind of as a test.

As I started to write, I started to smile. I felt joy as I sat for a few focused minutes to think about what made me happy yesterday, and started seeing my joys on my screen. Writing down one thing lead to another and another until I had 8 things in less than 5 minutes. And to think that 5 minutes before that, I was feeling dread, with not even a blog topic in my head. I looked at my list and felt happiness, instantly. A handful of you even took the time to “Like” my post, which made me thankful too. This gratitude practice is a miracle thing that we all can practice. It’s free and doesn’t take much time and puts us on the right path.

Tonight I’m thankful that my Happiness program was well received and I loved the interactive dialogue and sharing and connections that we made. Their big A-HA moment was seeing that no one listed material things on their happiness list. I loved this! We learned that most of us experience happiness through shared experiences with family, friends, and being of service to others which makes sense! The number one predictor of happiness is having good relationships. We talked a lot about being aware of our expectations and how to focus on our gifts instead of the gaps. We talked about adapting and accepting whatever life gives us and redefining ourselves as we go through life. I learned a lot tonight and was thankful to be invited to share the Gift of Happiness.

In closing, I’ll share a quote from Lincoln that was shared by one of the ladies tonight, who always heard this from her smart and positive-living mama as she was growing up: