After having posted the article, Are You Having Difficulty In Finding Your Elusive Happiness?, I have some great responses coming in.

Once again, thank you for coming to my blog and taking the effort to read my post. I really appreciate it.

Now, even though I have posted several articles on my blog regarding our pursuit for happiness, some people still find it quite hard to believe that their happiness is always within their grasp.

According to the study by Dr Richard Tunney of the University’s School of Psychology, he found out that our happiness does not depends on all those flashy cars, exotic holidays or those sumptuous meals we have.

Instead, the events or activities that made us happy can just be simple stuffs like listening to our favorite CDs, treating ourselves to inexpensive but delicious food or even taking a simple act of having the luxury to take a long bath.

Dr Tunney said

“Modern-day pressures take their toll on everyday happiness. As a result we try to make ourselves feel better and happier through personal rewards and treats. We’ve all heard the saying ‘a little bit of what you fancy does you good’, and treating yourself is the ideal way to keep spirits lifted when you’re down in the dumps.

As lottery jackpot winners are on the whole happier than non-winners” 95 per cent claim they are positive about their life compared to 71 per cent of people in the control group” we researched the treats they rewarded themselves with to see what could influence their mood state.”

Therefore, rather than constantly complaining about our present life conditions, why don’t we start making interesting plans and make our own decision on who and what determines our happiness.

As what my grandmother always said to me, “Money is never everything in the world”. How enlightening!

Now, I am not saying that money is not important. Money IS important! However, there are something else which you can never buy with money alone. True friendships, true love and health are just some examples of things which money can’t buy.

Thus, start formulating your own plans on how you can relief yourself from all those tiresome stress and burden without having to burn a hole through your pockets. Find activities which you enjoy doing and do them well.

The important thing to take note is to focus and concentrate on the activities which you like doing. Stop thinking about work or even worrying about how you can better make use of the time you spend relaxing on other more important things.

Start recognizing that relaxation is also very important to your health, wealth, career and happiness. Without relaxation, you will be just working yourself to death.

In order to live a prosperous life, seeking balance is an important ingredient to it. Too much of something good always becomes a bad thing.

Therefore, unless you start bringing your life back to balance, you will constantly find yourself sabotaging your career and your path to success.

Relaxation not only helps you to bring balance back to your life, but it also slows you down and helps clear the fog in front of you and provide with a clearer path in front of you.

If you are serious about relaxation like all other successful people, you will probably want to spend some time during the weekends and start formulating your plans for relaxation for the coming week.

Your Relaxation Plan

Include in your relaxation your plans important points like:

• What activities are you going to carry out?
• On which days and at what time are you planning to carry out your activities?
• Where is the venue? Does it requires you to do advance booking?
• Who are involved in your plans? Have you contacted them? Are they free?
• Are there any stuffs you need to prepare beforehand?

Committing To Your Plans

After having planned out your relaxation schedule, it is time for your commitment.

No matter how sound or how wonderful your plans are, without real commitment to them, they are just writings on paper. Therefore, commit yourself to making those plans work.

Remember: Plans only work if you work them!

There are a few ways which I personally use to make sure that I am truly committed about my relaxation plans:

• Inform other people about your relaxation plans, telling them when are the times of the week you will be spending doing the things you like and enjoy and won’t want to be disturbed during these periods of the week.
• Involve your loved ones in your relaxation plans. It is like killing two birds with one stone. By including your loved ones in your plan, you are building your relationships with them, fulfilling your relaxation requirement for the week and most importantly, you help your loved ones to break free from all those modern pressure they may be experiencing in life.
• Have a trustworthy friend to help you keep track of your relaxation plans. Have him or her informed you about your plans for the weeks and have them pester you to hit your “relaxation quota” for the week.

The truth is, it is never hard to find time to relax. It all depends on one’s commitment to it. And as what Dr Tunney mentioned

“It appears that spending time relaxing is the secret to a happy life. Cost-free pleasures are the ones that make the difference even when you can afford anything that you want.”

Happy relaxing…