LIFE IS A BANQUET

---

 2.  BE AWARE. Notice the taste, smell, texture of everything. Is this something you enjoy or not? 

 Get to know yourself. Understand your personality style and get an overview what YOU like. Understand your shortcomings and your strong points.
 

As  you’re experiencing a situation, ask yourself how you feel, what you think. "What am I enjoying about this experience and what am I not enjoying?" Ask yourself: "Am I happy, satisfied, fulfilled  or does my life lack something?" Am I feeling overwhelmed? The objective is to understand so you can duplicate the experience, but refine it so you eliminate or reduce the negative aspects and enhance or enlarge the positive.              
 

3.  WHAT AM I HUNGRY FOR?  Is it meeting any of my needs? What are my needs? Recognize the difference between wants and needs. A need unfilled is a needy person. You are hungry and looking to meet that need usually from someone else. It makes you vulnerable, capable of being victimized. Expecting others to meet a need is setting yourself up for failure and unhappiness.  You may decide to meet your need in a way that is satisfying without it coming from someone else. You might consider  talking to someone who can help you look at your need and suggest  how to get it met in a healthy way.

Generally speaking, your basic needs are water, food, shelter, safety, companionship and the ability to be yourself. Another need, not quite so basic is to express yourself and the ability to grow into the person you were meant to be. It means success in the ability to pursue and use your talents to their fullest. This borders on a want and gives excitement and energy to your life. They are the difference between living a  life of quiet desperation and a happy, fulfilling life. They are filling AND satisfying. 

Your desires, however are goals to strive for and meet that make you happy. They are exclusively yours. It is not necessary to make excuses for them. The banquet table may be full of filling things but do they satisfy you? Broccoli is filling, but I can be full and totally unsatisfied. 

Below is a partial list of wants and desires. Some of them will apply to you. Some will not. This is not complete. You must add your own personal wants to your list.

Your wants  will differ from others, but it may give you a starting point. Add to them.  Your experiences show you areas to fill and ways to fill them. 

4.  LOOK FOR PATTERNS. 

• What information do you enjoy or is boring to you? What people do you like  and don’t like. What do the people you like have in common? What do the people you don’t like have in common? Fill your life with people who add to your life. Understanding who is pushing your buttons gives you insight about your buttons and information about toxic people. These are people you want to eliminate from your life.
   

 "The  secret to success does not lie in inflating your dreams to grandiose levels, but in choosing your direction wisely, while humbly and faithfully taking one step at a time." -- Author Unknown

5.  CREATE GOALS. Your plate is full. How can you add more? Your banquet table is filled with a lot of time consuming things. Once you’ve tasted them and decide whether you like them or not, you create a goal to get more of what you like and less of what you don’t like.

Some people  plan goals naturally, others don’t. Without a specific plan to reach your goals, life becomes easy and comfortable, but you look back and realize the things you spent time on really didn’t make you happy. Time goes by very quickly no matter how you spend it. Life just happens. If you don't  intentionally plan your life, you won't reach your goals. It doesn't happen automatically. In a sense you'll have wasted a part of your life. 

There are TWO  QUESTIONS you must ask yourself when planning a goal. 

1. WHAT AM I WILLING TO DO TO GET IT?
    
2. WHAT  AM I WILLING TO GIVE UP TO GET IT?
    

  "Discipline is remembering what you want."  -- Mark Twain 

What are your strengths? Happy people are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They are also aware of who they are and have an accurate view of themselves.  Having a clear, positive impression of who you are is essential to successfully reaching your goals. 

• You develop strategies for achieving the goals, A plan of action.
   
• You apply these strategies continually until you reach your goals.
   
• You create habits from the strategies that lead you toward success of the goals.
   
• Being busy doesn’t mean accomplishing your goal. You must be busy about the things that lead to that goal.
   

6.  NOW YOU HAVE A FULL PLATE. How will you manage everything? Take little bites at a time. Plan, Plan, Plan. Don’t try to do everything. Maybe have one goal and when that’s accomplished, go to the next goal. It’s best to try to do something every day toward  your goals no matter how small a task.

7.  DON’T  GET OVERWHELMED Your plate is full. Use your time wisely. Add or change a little at a time, but keep refining your life to be the most satisfying it can be.
 

  "If  you really want to be happy, nobody can stop you."  -- Sister Mary Tricky