Predicting happiness is about building your life based on what you know makes you happy- whether it is home and family to your work and career.  The better you are at knowing what sustains you, making you truly happy and balanced, the better you will be at predicting a happy life for yourself. Happiness isn’t all about the materialistic things in life, it also has to do with whatever is going on in our minds and hearts when we are facing both the positive and negative things in life.Can the achievement of happiness be predicted in any meaningful sense? Simply put, yes it can. If you have close (safe, nurturing, comforting) personal relationships and fulfilling work to do, and you know yourself and what you are about, you can predict that you will have enough good things in your life to bring you lasting happiness. No life is without conflict, pain or even moments of fear, but overall happiness counter-balances all the trials and challenges life hands you. If you have those things working in your life that generate a bone-deep level of happiness you have an automatic cushion against getting bounced on your ear by the unexpected.

Predicting happiness is about building a life for yourself around what feeds the person you are, from your home and family to your work or career to those qualities that define the essence of your humanity. The better you are at knowing yourself, understanding what positively motivates and inspires you, and creating a balance for yourself between your career/work life and family/home life, the easier it will be for you to predict that you will live a happy life.

Happiness doesn’t just hang out there in the ether, waiting to be picked up like an email. Happiness is part of the fabric of our lives. It radiates from those aspects of our lives that nurture our needs and desires. Of course, this isn’t so much about the material needs and desires, though they have a lot of motivational impact on each of us. It’s more about what goes on inside our minds and hearts when we face both the good and bad events that challenge our lives.

Read the rest at Life Coaches Blog.

Thanks to pinkblocks for including this post in the Blog Carnival on Personal Power, and to Million Dollar Blog for including this post in the Carnival of Self Help and Inspiration.