Happiness is a habit, a by-product of right thinking and living. You are receiving this series of blog postings 2 rules at a time. Enjoy your happier life!

3. Have a Life Plan. Create written goals for each of the six major roles of your life: 1) family/personal, 2) career/financial, 3) physical/health, 4) education/mental, 5) social/community, 6) spiritual/creative. Each role should have multiple (overlapping is fine) goals. Have concrete action plans for each set of goals and targets for short-, medium-, and long-term time horizons. Review them regularly. Think about why each goal is important to you, why you want it, how you will feel when it is achieved. If a goal does not arouse a deep, hungry want in you, consider dropping it. It may be someone else’s goal, not yours. It is common to have to try out a few things to discover what is best for you. My first professional job was everything I was seeking but turned out that it was not my path. I rebooted and eventually ended up in a career I love, wiser and the better for the detour.

4. Think Positively, Be Solution Oriented. Train yourself to focus your mind and fill it with useful thoughts that move you forward in life. Stand guard at the door of your mind, do not rent space there to others, do not let others fill your mind with their agendas. Thoughts are the seeds of emotions. Manage your moods or they will manage you.