better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

The Joy Of…

7 August 2011

…Small things. I was weeding over the weekend, which is something I rarely do, as I am to gardening what Katie Price is to self-effacing modesty. However, a patch of gravel next to what we laughingly call ‘the lawn’ needed a good tidy up and all the little weeds tugged out. At first I was cursing at the mind numbing repetition and then, to my surprise, I was smiling at the mind numbing repetition.

Each little plant pulled free and parked in the bag was a tiny step towards a tidier garden and I found myself enjoying the absolute simplicity of the task. No tools, no thinking and no skill was required and for a happy couple of hours I sat quietly (on a squashy old rugby ball) and happily weeded away.

It’s tempting to find joy only in the expensive or complicated things in life, such as buying an iPad, dining in a restaurant, or booking a holiday to a tropical island. Whilst these things are undoubtedly nice they are only small fragments of our life and so if we want a rich existence it really pays to find joy in the everyday, the mundane and the stress-free.

What small things can you find joy in this week?

And who wouldn’t swap weeding for a week in Bali?

Ok, don’t answer that, but you get my point. Finding joy in little things lifts our hearts and helps to power us through the busy working week.

And of course, small things all add up!

Tags: happiness

It’s Ok To Be Happy And…

9 May 2011

Hello again and thank you to Crow for standing in for the last two weeks. He’s already grumbling about needing to rest his beak after all that typing, but he loves it really.

It dawned on me over the last fortnight that I’m really happy at the moment, which is rather pleasing. I’ve made some sensible business decisions, have been playing lots with the children and have been enjoying just being in the flow of life.

I’ve recently worked with people who have huge houses, vast salaries and globe-trotting jobs and none of them are happy. They’re all sweating under a self imposed burden that has a high degree of surface validity (it looks good), but which is paper thin. Their reality is that they’re stressed and tense and fighting hard to keep one step ahead of disaster.

Comparing my own life with theirs has really helped me to see that, in contrast, I have a richer life – and that in order to fully enjoy it I need to stop grumbling and just choose to be happy.

So, I’ve started to tell people that I’m happy. This hasn’t changed my bank balance, or the number of customers in my business. It hasn’t got the lawn mowed, or tidied up the house. But…it has meant that I’m celebrating the good stuff and enjoying life as it is. And it’s a great feeling to share your happiness.

I’ll leave you with a question:

If you’re working hard and are not happy, how can you shift your perception so that you’re working hard and are happy?

Remember it’s ok to be happy AND still have concerns and worries…we all have those…happiness doesn’t rest on a foundation of perfection. It rests on an acceptance that we all have riches, we just need to see them.

I would add that the sentiment in the picture is right – the more I help people, the happier I am.

…And a small sherry at 6.00pm helps too!

Tags: happiness