December 2019

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Being happy is intentional. It’s something that one must create and maintain. Happy people constantly engage in happiness-boosting habits. One of the main differences between happy people & miserable people is their habits. Today, we’re delving into the habits of happy people, in efforts to consciously construct a more happy, fulfilled life.

Be Grateful

Practicing gratitude daily can boost your mood. Acknowledge one thing you’re grateful for every day. This practice can encourage positive feelings of hope and happiness. Throughout your day, try keeping an eye out for the positive and pleasant things in your life. These don’t have to be huge things. You can find pleasantries in the simplest things that happen throughout your day. This daily practice could make you become more aware of all the positive things around you, resulting in you being more grateful in life and happier.

Keep A Journal

Keeping a journal is a good way to destress, to set & achieve your goals, to organize your thoughts, analyze your feelings, and even to self reflect. You don’t have to be a professional writer to keep a journal. You can simply jot down a few thoughts before you go to bed.

Get Plenty Of Sleep

Poor sleep can affect one’s mood by causing frustration and stress. Adequate sleep is vital to brain function and emotional well-being.

To build a better sleep routine:
-Keep notes of how many hours you sleep each night and how rested you feel.
-Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day(including weekends).
-An hour before bed each night, do something relaxing that wines you down. Let this be your quiet time. It could be taking a warm bath, reading, listening to relaxing music, or even playing a crossword puzzle.

You hold the key to your own happiness. By choosing more happiness boosting habits, you can create a life in which you are genuinely happy.

At CWC Coaching, our team consists of licensed therapists, life coaches, and counselors. We assist clients with self-improvement, career development, negative self-talk, psychological pain, self-sabotaging behavior, past hurts and finding your purpose. If you are ready to increase your self-awareness and happiness, breakthrough limiting behavior and understand your purpose in life, we’d love to help guide you on this journey.

Congratulations!  You’re considering a Resolution for 2020.  We think you can absolutely make your resolutions stick.  In this article, we will explore three enhancements to help you keep your resolutions today, in 2020, and beyond.  For the quickest answer for most of us, skip to the section entitled Do It Yourself?

Make Your Goals SMART.

Here’s how you make your 2020 Resolutions SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Based.  

Specific.  

Develop your plan for achieving your goal by asking lots of questions and refining your goal.  For example, instead of declaring that you’ll finally stop snacking, hone your resolution by asking questions:  what’s your why? how will you stop? who can you count on for support? when are you most likely to want a snack? And, importantly, how will you overcome obstacles? 

    Measurable

It is critical to have a metric to know that you are making progress and that you have achieved your goal.  How do you want to measure your health? – by pounds, a tape measure, body mass index, etc.? There are even ways to measure relationship goals!  So, find a way to quantify your efforts.

    Attainable

    A goal should be achievable/attainable.  Whether your goal is for a financial, career-based, health/well-being or centered around a relationship objective, research the standards and see if it’s doable.   Without this confirmation, your initial goal may be a tall order to achieve, potentially causing disappointment or, ever worse, a waste of energy.

Realistic

Considering other activities in your life, how likely will you be able to fold these new, specific tasks into your life.  What else are you looking to attain in 2020 and how does this goal fit in to your other objectives?

Time-Based

Convert your resolution into monthly and then weekly milestones.  Assign the tasks within your goal to times in your calendar.  

The SMART goals will provide clarity, structure, and the big why to persevere, but we are missing a huge element  – energy.   

Energy Map Your SMART- Goal.

Strategic energy mapping is a term to focus you on the ebbs and flows of your energy on a typical day (Stanford Professors Bill Burnett and Dale Evans).  When do you naturally have your highest energy each day? Can you harness that energy towards your new goal? By looking at the typical week for both the opportunity and the energy for a new habit, you are more likely to keep your resolution.    

Consider which activities improve your energy flow.  What’s your energy re-set: Is it playing a musical instrument, a brisk walk, connecting with a friend, looking at art or wildlife?  Explore and apply. Use an energy re-set to fuel the new habit and build progress and achievement of your resolution.  

Energy mapping your day, week, and month can transform your calendar to what you long to do personally while managing the obligations that keep your life running.  As a result your SMART tasks can find their way into your calendar with a higher likelihood of getting done. And with SMART goals and Energy Mapping you are better equipped to NOT be one of the 80% who find their resolutions slipping by February (US News & World Report, December 5, 2018).  

Do it Yourself?

Some people thrive by working independently, but most achieve their goals more easily and quickly by working with an impartial, experienced coach.  (C. Sime. “How Does Coaching Actually Help Leaders.” Forbes, March 28, 2019). The Forbes article cites a recent study that found individual coaching to be superior in goal attainment as compared to a group training or a control group with no intervention.  

Anecdotally, we’ve seen even our busiest clients stay on track and accomplish their goals because of regular coaching meetings.  For example, one of my clients is a CEO who made time to meet even in her busiest season. She said,“When I hear you re-state some of the ideas, I can decide which ones to eliminate and which ones to pursue.  It frees up my mind to do other things.” The investment of time with her coach generates the clarity to make other decisions and yields better results, sooner.

Clarity.  Balance. Decisiveness.  Happiness. These are some of the many ways our clients describe their lives as a result of working with us.  CWC Coaching and Therapy is client driven, empathetic, and highly attentive. Our full suite of research-based services support clients through life coaching, therapy, and relationships.  

If you’d like to explore how we can support your new year, book your complimentary, private, 20-minute consultation with us today.

BIO:  Genie Sockel is a Life Coach at CWC Coaching and Therapy.  She has a J.D. from Georgetown Law and a B.A. in Psychology from Yale.  Genie enjoys seeing her clients grow and in her personal life she enjoys singing and songwriting and watching their Border Terrier, Seamus, swim at the neighborhood nature preserve.

At CWC Coaching, our team consists of licensed therapists, life coaches, and counselors. We assist clients with self-improvement, career development, negative self-talk, psychological pain, self-sabotaging behavior, past hurts and finding your purpose. If you are ready to increase your self-awareness and happiness, breakthrough limiting behavior and understand your purpose in life, we’d love to help guide you on this journey.

Last week, we began discussing how to deal with stressful family drama during the holidays. This week, we’re delving into more helpful strategies to not just survive this holiday season with family, but actually enjoy your time spent with them.

Find reasons to be grateful

Try shifting your thoughts this season by focusing on what you’re grateful for. Doing so can lift your mood. You can choose to find the positives in anything. Whether it’s gratefulness from being with family that you haven’t seen in a while, a new addition to the family, delicious food and traditions, having a home to live in, or even the beautiful weather. Focusing on the positives of being around your family this season will make the negatives seem less significant, likely resulting in you enjoying yourself more. 

Be at Peace & Accept

The holidays are expected to be a time filled with gratitude and peace in our hearts and minds. Ironically, too often is it filled with pressure, anxiety, and frustration. Pressure, anxiety, and frustration of preparing food, traveling, giving the perfect gift, having your home look perfect, having everyone get along, and just having everything go smoothly. It’s best to accept that not everything will go as planned and to be at peace with it. Accept who your family members really are and accept that you cannot change them. Accept that you can’t control everything they say. Accept that there may be some friction and understand that where there are a group of individuals, there will be differing opinions. With all that could possibly happen, the day can still be beautiful. Accept the spontaneity and the mess. After all, picture-perfect holidays only exist in Christmas movies. 

Shorten your stay

Perhaps you’ve considered this option before, but the feelings of guilt and obligation were too overwhelming. Your decision to spend time with family shouldn’t be led by a sense of obligation or guilt. If being with family for long periods of time is something that you can’t handle, then don’t. Consider shortening your stay. Deciding to shorten your stay doesn’t mean you don’t care about your family, but that you care about your mental well-being. Only you know when you can’t take anymore and only you are obligated to your own happiness. 

  Remember that you can’t control how anyone acts. You can only control your actions. Changing your mindset and properly strategizing is the key to having a happier holiday. 

At CWC Coaching, our team consists of licensed therapists, life coaches, and counselors. We assist clients with self-improvement, career development, negative self-talk, psychological pain, self-sabotaging behavior, past hurts and finding your purpose. If you are ready to increase your self-awareness and happiness, breakthrough limiting behavior and understand your purpose in life, we’d love to help guide you on this journey.