It’s just a decision but a decision with a difference — it’s unshakable!
It’s the kind of decision we would make for our children — calm, sure, solid, good decisions for the best outcome.
And that outcome — the thing we want for our children is not necessarily what they want right now.
So they can kick and scream! Not unlike our own minds when we try to enforce a decision on ourselves!
The big picture
With our children we have unshakable calm resolve. The big picture is crystal clear and of course it’s not us having the tantrum :-) But following through with our own decisions isn’t always so easy…
With the Happy Guide way, you can regain the same control over your decisions for yourself as you would with a child. No matter how much your mind kicks and screams, you remain calm, clear and unshakable. You see the big picture and make the best choice.
A fascinating thing about children and the decisions we make for them is that the clearer, calmer, sweeter and more resolute we are, the faster they stop resisting!
The same is true of your own mind! Worth pondering.
Get to the good stuff
The pact is a crucial key in the Happy Guide system of (almost) painless change. It’s an agreement with yourself to choose long-term happiness over the short-term fix.
It’s an agreement to ride out “whatever” and stay solid… to get to the good stuff.
The reasons we go for a quick fix can be complex. It generally boils down to self-medicating a bad feeling — a never ending downward spiral that keeps us trapped, until one day we can wake up and realize we’re in deep trouble. The whole behavior is powerfully driven by association and habit.
The way through
The way through is to see your finish line and step, step, step… staying strong and clear. Take your first step, make it a pact, an agreement with yourself. See it through with faith, even though you might not get immediate benefit for your effort. Repeat until done.
Sticking to your pact is the most important thing you can do today. Because it’s staying true to your decisions that will soon start to bring the good feelings into your life and move you ever closer to true happiness.
Your pact is a key part of breaking bad habits and creating new ones. But to make sure you’re giving yourself the best chance of success, read and re-read Happy Guide until the whole thing is crystal clear.
The more you read it, the more it will crystalize for you, the more inspired and motivated you’ll be, and the more new ideas about your own life and the next steps will flow.
Free chapter
Michael Kinnaird is the author of Happy Guide, the result of a 20 year exploration into what works for health and happiness.
Read Chapter 1 “The Happiness Secret”
Or get the paperback…
Keep in touch
Get inspiration in your inbox from Happy Guide…
Happy Guide 
Hi Mark,
Stabilize yes. The first step/s are the toughest. Stability is the first aim, to remove at least some of the pressures on your system that are causing the symptoms to show up. After that, it’s easy steps all the way and it just keeps getting better.
One big pitfall is associating the difficulty of change with being healthy. Remember the end-state is health and happiness. When you’re there, the lifestyle is a joy to do. We need to go through a bit of swamp to get to the oasis! :-)
Re your email, it shouldn’t be tooooo hard getting the family on-side. The Happy Guide diet is so “user-friendly” and fits in very easily with normal life.
Also, getting your whole family doing it is the best thing you can do for their health! :-) Especially if this depression is running in your family and does turn out to be caused by “unnatural food” (that’s my guess right now).
And if they are happier too, the whole house will be fun, fun, fun all the way :-)
Good luck Mark, stay strong and get to the good stuff. And good luck making Happy Guide dog-eared :-)
LikeLike
Mike,
Me again. I’m going to give Happy Guide doggy ears. Everything is hard at the moment and I’m on “take one day at a time mode” with this depression but to some extent the fact that Im reading and responding to your blog is as a result of a pact to keep going. I do feel stronger but want to stabilise and get the head doc out my life.
Thats a great analogy, advice to children…
LikeLike