Happiness in Life

"Choosing happiness doesn’t mean you should click your heels together three times while wishing to go to your happy place. The secret to happiness in life design isn’t making the right choice; it’s learning to choose well."

-- Bill Burnett

Choose To Be Thankful

"It’s easy to become distracted by all the burdens, betrayals, successes, and failures from the past we carry with us every day. In time we become worn down, losing perspective and not feeling freedom or joy. But when we choose to be thankful in the midst of our troubles and frustrations, we begin a healing process that helps us live beyond our past."

-- John Paul Carinci

Focus on Making Good Decision

"Focus on making good decisions, not perfect ones. ‘Good enough’ steers you towards real change. Perfectionism causes decision-making paralysis, whereas improving your mood demands that you make decisions and take action."

-- Julie Smith

The Sum of Your Experiences

"The main idea here is that your life is the sum of your experiences. This just means that everything you do in life—all the daily, weekly, monthly, annual, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences you have—adds up to who you are. When you look back on your life, the richness of those experiences will determine your judgment of how full a life you’ve led. So it stands to reason that you should put some serious thought and effort into planning the kinds of experiences that you want for yourself."

-- Bill Perkins

An Integral Part of Learning

"Failure is an integral part of learning. Unfortunately the world today believes that failing is bad and as a result we have, on the whole, become fearful of failure. I’ve spent my life embracing failure, indulging the experience, basking in the frustration and despondence that failure brings."

-- Nicholas Haralambous

Maintain That Winning Attitude

"So, it is important to maintain that winning attitude no matter how rough the road to the goal. It is important to use positive affirmations to remind the mind, to psych up the mind, so no negative impulses will jeopardize or get in the way of that finish line, that award ceremony you will have at the time of your achievement."

-- John Paul Carinci

Become Your Own Life Inventor

"Today, this special day, let us use our imagination. Let us make believe that we are an inventor such as Thomas Edison. And during this experiment let us each do something new, challenging, and almost impossible. Let us become the inventor of our own life. Maybe we can emulate that persevering mindset of the great inventor for an entire week! You will be shocked at how you attack work and life like the inventor you have imagined yourself to be."

-- John Paul Carinci

Dwelling in the Past

"Dwelling in the past isn’t limited to recalling painful, negative experiences or memories. We can also focus on good things, celebrations, past experiences, and achievements, and even though they’re positive, they can still keep us from experiencing the joy and freedom of today."

-- John F. Westfall

Life Design is a Journey

"We know that life gets messy.  For every step forward, it can sometimes seem you are moving two steps back. Mistakes will be made, prototypes thrown away. An important part of the process is letting go—of your first idea and of a good-but-not-great solution. And sometimes amazing designs can emerge from the mess. The Slinky was invented this way. Teflon was created this way. Super Glue. Play-Doh. None of these things would exist if a designer somewhere hadn’t screwed up. When you learn to think like a designer you learn to be aware of the process. Life design is a journey; let go of the end goal and focus on the process and see what happens next."

-- Bill Burnett

Action Is Power

"The more powerful a person is, the more they identify with achieving their goals and the more they persist in the face of resistance. Knowledge is not power, action is power."

-- Chris Lipp