“Right now, in this moment, in this vessel, in this body, in what you’re doing, this is the time.
Now is the most powerful moment.”
– Steve Napolitan
Welcome to the Steve Show. Today, we’re going to talk about following your joy. How do you have more joy and happiness in your life?
So how do we have more joy and happiness in our life? I want to talk about how to make joy and happiness more consistent in your life—have more of what we want. First, you use your emotions as an indicator. I’m not the first one to talk about this by far. But what I want to share is my experience with it.
If something upsets me, or it doesn’t feel good, I use that as an indicator that I’m going the wrong way. It redirects me now. There are people out there that talk about no pain, no gain, right? You’re going to go through pain to then have what you want, and that can be true. You can break through something and then be on the other side and have that success. However, you can also go around it and have success and it’s so much easier and there’s so much less pain.
When I feel pain, I know that there’s a better way. Let’s say that there’s a better way or an easier way, and just to put it into a metaphor, think about when we have our neurology in our body, the neurons fire off when we hurt ourselves, right? Pain comes as an indicator, it’s something telling our brain, “Hey don’t do that!”
If I put my hand on a grill, or on a burner and it’s burning my hand, my reaction immediately is going to be to pull away, right? Those pain receptors respond to have us pull back, so we don’t permanently damage ourselves. When something doesn’t feel good or doesn’t feel right, then we should consider those actions, and then re-assess and look for that.
The more that I follow my joy and do whatever makes me happy, the more I want to do more of that. It’s quite simple, isn’t it? If it doesn’t feel good don’t do it. If it feels good, do it, and do it more, and then life starts to unfold in a more joyous way.
What I more want you to focus on right now is how you do things routinely. If you’re going to your job, and it’s always uncomfortable, or you’re always upset in whatever you’re doing, even if it is something like the horrible commute to work, maybe it’s time for a change. For example, living closer to your job so you don’t have to commute so much. Even if it costs you more money to live closer to your job, but now you can get there with happiness.
Bruce Lee always said, “Be like water.” Because water just moves around, it doesn’t sit at the rock and get pissed off, and be angry, and have all these things happen. It goes around the rock, it goes under, it goes over it, and you can do that too. So, when it doesn’t feel right choose a different path, re-assess, look at what’s going on, and follow your joy. If you look at your calendar, schedule more of what you like to do, and schedule less of what you don’t like to do, and it’s a basic principle.
Start with the small things, things that you can change right now. We don’t walk through life and then suddenly get to rewind and start over. Not in this lifetime, not in this body. Right now, in this moment, in this vessel, in this body, in what you’re doing, this is the time. Now is the powerful moment.
If you worry, if your regret the past, and you’re looking at that, you’re sitting yourself in the past. The most powerful place, and the most important place to be present to is the present.
Why do we call it a present when someone gives a gift? Maybe the present time is that moment that we should cherish as if it’s a gift, because it is.
I hope this has been helpful just to think about these things today, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Where are you following your joy, and where are you not? What’s stopping you from following your joy?
Until next time….
Choose Gratitude Create Freedom
Steve Napolitan
