By Self-Help Books Author Denise Turney (www.chistell.com)

How would you change your life if you believed that you’re supposed to be enlightened with joy? Would you continue to look outside yourself for direction, turning to other people’s experiences and mounds of information when you wanted to know what to do now and next?

Is Information the Link to Joy

Today information is everywhere, filling our minds with images, sayings, opinions, warnings, advertisements, advice, and teachings. There are messages that espouse the importance of sacrifice, as if to gift the world with meaning you must give something up. Right now, technology via electronics is pushing out information at an alarming rate. It’s hard not to turn to data or other people for guidance, as if that’s where you should go to fully know what you should do to experience joy.

Then, there’s artificial intelligence, a growing form of technology and data that is taking humanity into new territory. It’s definitely not a boring time, but could our main purpose be the oldest aim, perhaps forever unchanged. What if, through the information age and beyond, the main aim is joy?

In other words, what if you’re supposed to be enlightened with joy? After all, throughout time, a myriad of situations, and lifestyles, there are but a few things that have remained unaltered: peace, love, and joy. If joy was, indeed, the aim of your being, how would you allow your physical experiences to unfold?

What Would You Do If Your Goal Was Joy

Would you work where you now work, focusing on projects that you now focus on? And would the physical structure that you call home be as it currently is? If not, where would you work or live and who would occupy your space?

Looking back, if we’re supposed to be enlightened with joy, it could be why I received inner guidance to “not seek after comfort” when I was a kid, about 12-years old. Of course, I’ve spent much of this journey seeking comfort. Fortunately, I’ve been curious enough about life and our Creator to follow higher guidance which, so often, takes one away from comfort.

Think about it. Is it not clear that you could go one way or another, but not two ways at the same time? You can seek comfort or truth. Also, you could seek illusions or truth.

Choosing to be Enlightened with Joy

Choose to be enlightened with joy and you’ll have to break away from worldly traditions. 2 Corinthians 6:17 shares that you’d have to “come out from among them.” (KJV) Furthermore, Romans 12:2 shares, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (NIV)

Admittedly, this is no easy task. At the start, it may feel as if you’re giving up everything that you want, all that you value – happiness itself. As you keep going, changing your mind and choosing anew, you may enter a state of peace and joy that you maintain regardless of outer circumstances.

Imagine experiencing joy, love, and peace regardless of what you hear, see, perceive, or feel? Talk about graduating. It may very well be impossible to experience suffering, anger, jealousy, or hate once you reach that level of enlightenment.

Could it happen quickly, or would it take years, decades? What do you think?

Progressing Toward Joy Enlightenment

Depending on your childhood programming and training, you might have to become intensely curious about life to start to distinguish between profitable and unprofitable childhood and adult lessons. For instance, it might take curiosity, courage, and determination to stop following old, worn life paths: going to school to obtain degrees and certificates as proof that you can complete a task.

Or you might face financial rewards differently, choosing not to allow the opportunity to receive more money to guide your path. Overall, you might have to discontinue the tradition of allowing what your body’s eyes see to guide you, to tell you which way to go.

Talk about breaking away. Traditions that you heard while growing up might follow you for years, shadowing you, even as you commit to following a specific path that shortens your enlightenment with joy. Back and forth, returning to old worldly traditions to break free again, you might go for quite a while.

Yet, if your aim to be enlightened with joy is maintained, progress you shall. But first you must begin. To do that, you may consider following your Higher Self. Those early followings might come through journal writings, recording your dreams, and interpreting those dreams.

Journey Toward Joy

More ways to begin the journey toward enlightenment through joy include:

• Praying to the Creator with the belief that you are always loved
• Watching your thoughts pass as if you are merely watching clouds float by, without getting attached to any of the thoughts
• Investing in a healthy diet, including eating fresh vegetables, fruits, and hydrating your body with lots of fresh water
• Looking for blessings and counting them to become more aware of the countless way that the Creator blesses and loves you
• Gifting yourself and others with acts of kindness

Another way to become enlightened with joy is to live honestly. This doesn’t mean that you become harsh. It means that you don’t lie to yourself. Instead of proclaiming that you are always happy, you accept what you truly feel.

Opening to Honesty to Become Enlightened

You open to the idea that “what you feel” is not what you are, nor is it a judgment on you, freeing yourself to accept what you’re currently experiencing. This gives you the opportunity to work through contradictions, worry, and trauma.

Rather than holding you back, living honestly helps you to “let go” of what’s been holding you hostage to sorrow, regret, and guilt. Throughout the journey of living honestly joy remains the aim.

Keep going. There is so much to explore, learn, celebrate, and love. It may help you to realize that you are not alone. In one way or another, everyone is on a journey. You’ve come this far on your journey. Obviously, you possess the courage to step into the unknown, expecting good outcomes.

Be patient with yourself. Whether you accept it now or not, you do have what it takes to live in joy. Allow yourself to be curious about experiences you have. Love yourself and give yourself room to make mistakes. Expect greater good to enter your sphere. You deserve it. You really do.

By Self Help Books Author Denise Turney (www.chistell.com)

Stop daydreaming if you want to experience real life success. Admittedly, daydreaming feels good which might be why you do it so much. There could also be brain benefits associated with daydreaming. According to studies, including those shared in a Harvard Medical School article, daydreaming may improve brain plasticity. More specifically, “Based on the results of the study, the researchers suspect that these daydreams may be actively involved in brain plasticity.”¹

Can Daydreaming Become Addictive?

Furthermore, Smithsonian reports that “psychological research is beginning to reveal that daydreaming is a strong indicator of an active and well-equipped brain.” Smithsonian goes on to share that a “wandering mind correlates with higher degrees of what is referred to as working memory. Cognitive scientists define this type of memory as the brain’s ability to retain and recall information in the face of distractions.”²

Memory and brain plasticity benefits aside, if you daydream to the point that daydreaming becomes addictive, you might be surprised to find yourself stuck in life routines that you hate. It could range from relationships to work to creative pursuits to your inner journey.

Before you know it, you’ve invested 15 years in a job that sucks the happiness out of you. Or you’re going home to a relationship that you haven’t felt good about for a decade. Each time the pain of staying in the situation gets too intense, you start daydreaming, pretending that your life is different.

Stop Daydreaming If You Really Want It

You daydream that you’re in a loving relationship with someone who makes you feel loved and deeply appreciated every single day, even as you roll your eyes each time your “real” lover kisses or touches you. And you daydream for hours at work, pretending that you’re doing entirely different work in an entirely different city with entirely different business partners.

Even if you delve into exploring a new job, relationship, fitness routine, etc., you won’t go as far as you could if most of your efforts are limited to daydreaming. On top of this, if you’re merely daydreaming, do you really want what you say you want?

Do you really want it?

How To Replace Daydreaming With Action

If you do, stop “only” daydreaming. Replace daydreaming with action.

• Create an action plan. For example, if you want to start a business, start building your board of directors. Research licenses and certificates that the business you want to start is required to have. Work with market research organizations to learn about the best places to launch your business. Also, get up to speed on effective marketing and promotion strategies in the industry you want to work in. And set deadlines for when you will complete each action in the plan.
• Learn and learn. Enroll in postsecondary courses that help you stay aware of industry trends and market and product cycles. Stay abreast of technology, marketing pros, and product designers who are shaping the future of your industry.
• Take smart risks. Don’t play it safe. That’s what daydreaming is for. Break old industry habits and patterns. Be the courageous creative who does the thing that hasn’t been done before. Have the courage to stand alone for a while. If what you take a risk on takes off, you can best believe that there will be lots of people who will try to mimic what you just did.
• Keep it new. Continue to develop and create new products and services. This one is important, because if you don’t keep releasing new products and services, your offerings may start to feel stale to consumers.

Daydreaming Habits

Should you have slipped into the habit of daydreaming for hours a day, use a tool (e.g., spreadsheet, daily planner) to track your actions and the return on your efforts. This simple activity can keep you from falling prey to magical thinking.

Even more, it can protect you from lying to yourself. Tracking your actions and return on efforts can prevent you from believing that you’re doing things that you actually aren’t doing. Unfortunately, this is what happened to me when I decided to pursue freelance writing full-time, and not just pursue freelance writing, but pursue freelance writing as the Great Recession was kicking off.

Poor timing, I know. But that wasn’t the bad part. What hurt was daydreaming versus putting more of my plans into action. How I turned it around was to get out a spreadsheet and start recording my actions.

How To Give Yourself a Chance

The payoff was huge. Money that I generated from freelance writing increased significantly. Confidence that I could make it as a writer strengthened. To this day, the single act of tracking my actions and the return on those actions is one of the smartest moves I’ve made.

So, give yourself a good chance to experience real life success. Commit to taking smart actions. Avoid believing that success is rooted in luck. To speed up your success, set aside time each day to use your imagination (a great time for daydreaming) to surface new ideas, innovative ways to grow your business.

Just a few days investing in idea creation could see you come up with more than 100 ways to grow your business. The number of ways you could strengthen your business might even shock you. Give it a try!

Deepen Relationships In Real Life, Not In Dreams

After you stop daydreaming about what you want (in place of taking smart actions), build healthy connections. After all, no one knows everything about anything. Despite how independent you might be, you need other people to support and partner with you to experience long-term success.

To build and deepen these relationships:

• Join industry associations
• Sponsor events that appeal to your target audience
• Attend conferences and cultural festivals that attract business leaders and consumers your products and services aim to improve the lives of

Visualize Your Success

Not only does that strengthen important connections, but it also reinforces your brand. Speaking of strengthening connections and your brand, make keeping what you do in the human consciousness a priority. Ways to do that include:

• Designing a logo with colors and an image that generate positive emotions
• Ensuring that your logo is on all of your products and promo items, also known as “swag”
• Interviewing in media outlets that appeal to your target audience, guiding your responses to your products or services.

During times when you don’t see your efforts paying off as much as you’d like, visualize yourself succeeded – not later – now! See and feel yourself achieving what you want to achieve – not later – now!

Your Success Won’t Be a Daydream

Feel the success. Allow it to become part of your identity while you love yourself as you are. Continue growing by looking at your spreadsheet or daily planners, revisiting your start, noticing how far you have come.

Set new goals. Keep challenging yourself while loving yourself as you are. If you keep taking smart risks, making good connections, deepening relationships, and enriching your brand, and improving the return on your efforts, one day you’ll look back and wonder how you achieved as much as you did. And it won’t be a daydream. It will be real!

Resources:

1. What Happens in the Brain While Daydreaming? | Harvard Medical School
2. The Benefits of Daydreaming | Science| Smithsonian Magazine