Habits of Happiness Day 1

  • 5 laws of happiness
    • Don’t look for happiness, create it.
    • Happiness is not a goal.
      • Making it the goal will guarantee that you are never happy.
    • My habits create my happiness.
    • Happiness based on happenings is temporary, but happiness built on habits is permanent.
    • Happy habits are as addicting as bad habits, but are much more rewarding!
  • Phillipians is the happiest book in the Bible
    • "joy" and "rejoice" appear 17 times within a very short book
  • How to develop happiness? Happiness starts with our RELATIONSHIPS
    • If your relationships are unhappy, your life will be unhappy.
  • 1) I must be grateful for the people in my life. Philippians 1:1-11
    • HH: Remember the best and forget the rest.
    • Every time to you see someone, remember why you are grateful to them
      • I actually think I've been doing a pretty good job of this recently. I can always do better.
    • Your FIRST thought about them should be gratitude.
      • You need to CHOOSE not to hold onto painful memories.
      • "Don't you remember the one time you husband did whatever."
        • Woman replies, "I distinctly remember forgetting that."
    • The longer you know someone, the more you tend to take them for granted. You tend to remember the faults.
    • Go home and make a list of people in your life and why you are grateful for them.
  • 2) Pray with joy for the people in my life.
    • HH: Quickest way to change a bad relationship to good:
    • Pray they will…
      • Grow in love.
      • Make wise choices.
      • Live with integrity.
      • Become like Jesus.
  • 3) I must expect the best from people in my life.
    • HH: Celebrate how far people have come rather than judging how far they still have to go.
    • Make a habit of believing in people.
      • Give the people in your life confidence. Cheer for them when no one else will.
      • Acceptance always precedes transformation.
        • Don't tell it like it is. Tell it like it could be. That is what promotes change and improvement.
      • Give people vision. Paint a picture of the future.
        • People tend to live up to the expectations of others.
      • Be patient with people's progress.
        • If you expect perfection in people, you are going to be miserable for the rest of your life.
        • If you expect them to be perfect, you will never enjoy them.
        • What is the key to patience?
          • Love.
          • "If people aren't on your heart, they're on your nerves."
        • "You just don't understand." = "You don't feel my pain."
          • You can't logic it out. You need to be able to empathize with their feelings.
  • 4) I must love the people in my life the way Jesus does.

 

  • Discussion (small group)
    • Do not allow external sources to impact what you know is right.
    • We talked about going home and make a list of people in your life and why you are grateful to them. I challenged everyone to also give it a letter to those people about why they are grateful for them and see how their relationship changes. This led me to the Gratitude Project.

 

 

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