No matter how many of your goals you have achieved or how fulfilling your life appears to be, in our modern age with its fast moving dog-eat-dog philosophy, negative thinking can really hit hard and affect our happiness. A common affect that can befall the personal development student can be summed-up by the following saying; you can not see the forest for the trees. By striving so hard for your goals and trying to build a better life for you and your loved ones you can sometimes forget the reason why you are pursuing those goals in the first place! The goal becomes the reason itself!

The true reason you have for pursuing your goals and striving to achieve anything in your life can be traced to one reason only ? the desire to be happy. Do you remember why you set your goals in the first place? Why do you want a better life for yourself and your family? Can you recall that feeling of happiness that achieving your goal will bring you?

When we forget the reason behind our efforts we tend to get caught up in the effort itself instead of the rewards we are seeking. Have you fallen into that trap? Have you become frustrated with the course of your life or the state of your interpersonal relationships? If you have comprimised your own happiness and the feeling of being happy is now alien to you then take heart for there is a very simple solution.

Start to redirect your focus back to the things that make you happy. Look for the things in your life that you can be grateful for. Take inventory of your life and list all those things that truly make you happy. This will cause a shift to occur in your thought processes and your energy will change as a result. Allow yourself to fully experience the feelings of gratitude that you have while you perform this exercise.

Within a matter of a few days of practising this you will be in a better mental and emotional state to re-focus on your goals and your problems in life in general.

Revisit your goals and start by remembering why you set them in the first place. Feel the positive emotions that will be generated when you have achieved your aims and stay focused on those feelings. This is happiness. Happiness in itself is not an emotion. It is the emotions behind your desires that create a feeling of happiness. Feeling the positive emotions around having achieved your aims and living your life the way you want to live it is the quickest way to happiness.

Formulate a plan that will guide your life towards the things that you know will make you happy - Those things that will cause you to feel positive emotions. When you are sure of what you want and you have decided on a course of action to take you closer to those things then stay focused on the image of having them. Identify the feeling behind that image. How great does that image make you feel? Make the image real like it was happening now. What are the emotions behind that scene? By constantly thinking of that image you will recall those positive emotions and remain in a state of happiness. You will have the added advantage of drawing opportunities to actually have those things enter your life.

Always remained focused on the emotional rewards that you will experience when you actually have these things enter your life. To build a strong barrier against unhappiness and ensure you feel only emotions that bring you joy you should remain focused on the benifits and emotional rewards you will receive when you achieve your desires and reach your goals.

The key to being happy is your perspective and your focus. So every morning, preferably just after you wake, use the first five minutes to think of things that you really feel grateful for. No matter how small these things may be give thanks for them. Now recall some instances from your past that brought you joy and feel the gratitude you have that you experienced these things. In the beginning you will recall many wonderful times and easily give thanks for them but after some time you will even recall seeming negative events and give thanks for them also. No matter how bad a situation was in the past you learned a lesson from it and it helped to make you the person you are today! Give thanks.

Then take ten minutes and focus on the things you want from life. Visualize your goals and evoke the positive emotions that achieving the goal will bring you. Once you have formulated these positive emotions and are feeling really good squeeze your first finger against your thumb and say "I am happy". You are literally anchoring those positive emotions to the physical act of pressing you finger and thumb together. Do this everyday!

Now after a week you will be able to squeeze your finger and thumb together any time you wish to feel all those great feelings again. So remember stay positive and be happy!