Self-Management: Aligning to Your Success in Life and Work

My definition of success is being great at what you do, being accomplished AND being happy. Many times our culture focuses on the first two but not the last one. Happiness is an amorphous, elusive, "soft" term that we don't discuss in business. Yet it is the white elephant in the room. No talk and one day people leave - jobs, careers, relationships. Or maybe you’ve been left – laid off from your job. Either way it sets one in search of a happier state.

The predominant definition of success I see is: earn lots of money and/or accomplish a lot of things. Either way, it is about collecting a quantity of external things.  One can be happy and have lots of things but too often I find people who have lots of things and are not happy.Often the message is “being happy is a self-indulgent activity, a luxury….a nice by-product if you can get it, But the real work is about taking care of business.” Why are practical matters and happiness mutually exclusive? I believe the marriage of these two aspects of ourselves is a necessity in these times and a key to true self-management. We are unhappy because we are meant to do something about it – whether it is to change our inner world – our perspective – or to change something outside of ourselves – like a relationship, job or career.

It IS possible to have both – to BE happy and TO HAVE a rewarding career, primary relationship and/or family. Being happy requires not only doing but BEING. Being happy is a choice, an orientation and a presence of being. ... that then effects and impacts all the other things. How do you “be” today?