I meet many people who make tons of money. They have enough to do whatever they’d like and almost automatically buy lots of expensive things. But, they’re so busy trying to make more money that they don’t make real time to enjoy what they have as they pursue more. When I was a DoorMat, I was too busy pleasing everyone else to make time to enjoy the things in my life that would have made me happy had I paid attention and made the effort to enjoy them.

Too often in the pursuit of happiness we don’t stop to actually feel happy about what we have.

When I was a DoorMat, I did believe I wanted to be happy. But, I was so busy worrying about how to make others happy that I didn’t notice the good things I did have. I, like many other people, believed that happiness would just come to me one day and when it did I’d become happy. But ti doesn’t work like that! So I never felt happy and didn’t understand why. I’ve met many people who also wait for happiness to come to them.

Happiness doesn’t just erupt into your life one day. It’s built by appreciating and enjoying all the little things in your life that are good.

There’s a misconception about what happiness actually is, especially in people who aren’t happy, like I was. It’s doesn’t just arrive one day in a flourish of bells and whistle. I kept expecting something big to happen. It never did and I continued living in unhappiness. Feeling unhappy made me feel hopeless. Yet I didn’t think to enjoy the good things in my life.

William Feather said, “Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.”

Just because you have things you like, you won’t be happy if you don’t make time to enjoy them. Working very long hours to make lots of money won’t make you happy if you don’t enjoy spending it. Rich people often bring work with them if they take a vacation. People have kids because they want to be parents and then spend most of their time working so they can buy more things instead of making time to enjoy their precious children.

We live in such a stress filled world and even when doing something nice or having time “off”, we’re always “on.” Even in social situations, we mull over work situations or personal problems–negative situations–and give too much attention to electronic communication than to just enjoying life. We let those things overshadow the pleasure we could have by just letting go and allow ourselves to be immersed in what makes us unhappy. As I loved myself more, I began to choose happiness–paying more attention to the good things I had and getting the pleasure I’d ignored before. That strengthened my self-love and allowed me to build a happy life.

Identify what you have that gives you pleasure or things you can go after if you tried that would feel good.

True happiness comes from contentment on the inside. Finding more pleasure in my life and making time to relish what I enjoyed helped me say, “I love me!” The more you stop to enjoy what you already have, the more likely you are to find even more. In my post Law of Attraction in Action: Staying in the Joy, I discuss how the more pleasure you appreciate in your life, the more you attract. Happiness builds from that. Consciously creating more pleasure that you actively enjoy says, “I love me.”

Take the self-love challenge and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways for free at http://howdoiloveme.com. And you can post your loving acts HERE to reinforce your intention to love yourself. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE.

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