From Blah to Bliss
All we actually want is bliss. All we really need to be doing is finding our bliss so that we can help others to find theirs. That’s it. This is the meaning of life. This is the meaning of career satisfaction and this is the point of measurement of a successful business.
The definition of bliss is ‘Great joy or elation, reach a state of perfect happiness, oblivious of everything else’.
The Dalai Lama agrees. In a Forward to Tara Bennett-Goleman’s book Emotional Alchemy, he states ‘We all desire happiness and don’t want suffering. Because the very purpose of life is to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness’.
FROM BLAH TO BLISS
I work with smart and talented people across all professions. Small business owners to senior leaders in corporates share a common complaint, that there are not enough hours in the day and that they are tired all the time. What this really means is that they spend too much time in blah and not enough time in bliss. Blah means ‘Boring or without meaningful content, dull or unexciting’.
Unless we define our bliss that is, define our Point B and what life looks and feels like in the bliss zone, then we will default to blah. We will drift. We could:
1. Define where we are now, our Point A and define the distance between blah and bliss.
2. Identify the reasons for our drift/our blah (this is REALLY interesting territory).
3. Commit to fight the blah.
4. Get clear on our own unique bliss zone and connect to our bliss in each area of our lives.
5. Create an action plan for more bliss and less blah.
6. Master the art of living blissfully and assist others to live in bliss doing this either through our careers and businesses or through some other vehicle.
STOP READING.
Name your bliss. Describe it. Feel it. Write it out.
MY BLISS
I actively factor immersing myself in nature at least three times a week. I actively factor in attending ballet, contemporary dance recitals and classical music recitals in church halls or arts venues at least once a month. When I have had too much blah and not enough bliss it reflects in how I work with my clients. A perfect example – on Monday I barked at a client because they turned up half an hour early for our meeting, whoa! Time to recalibrate. (Wendy, go find your bliss). Today, instead I worked with a client who has been out of work for 6 months and has been struggling to show his unique gifts to recruiters. Today we nailed it. Through glistening tears, he dug deep and discovered that he has the most amazing talent for hearing glitches in machinery and fixing these recalcitrant machines before it impacts production. ‘Oh, my God, my grandfather was a highly gifted musician and piano tuner, I have inherited his gifts’. Voila, my bliss leads to his bliss!
SHINING EYES
‘For me it’s very simple. It’s not about wealth and fame and power. It’s about how many shining eyes I have around me’. – Benjamin Zander, Conductor Boston Philharmonic, Teacher, Speaker and Author of the Art of Possibility.
Thanks Mr Zander. What a great example of how your bliss leads to our bliss.
LIVING INTENTIONALLY
How did most of us end up here? Living in blah and not bliss? To use the sailing metaphor, it is only ever because we did not set our course and clearly define our Port. We instead drifted or worse still, we stayed anchored. We did not sometimes sail with the wind and at other times against it. Instead we allowed ourselves to be battered about by the waves.
BLISS PLANNING
Ask me about my tools and techniques to get your sails all set for a blissful and prosperous next ten years and beyond: https://www.wgrenfell.com/contact