Travelling Tips For A Happier Life Journey

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Consider your life journey.

Have you been a happy traveller mostly so far?

Are you on the driver’s seat, in control of where you want to go, with regards to your life?

What road are you travelling on? Are you on the highway to greater fulfilment?

Or…on a stoned path that is going nowhere?

Well, if you go about your days muttering “life sucks”, if you feel that “luck is what counts”, or if you’ve been thinking that it is best to sacrifice your dreams in exchange for a comfortable don’t-rock-the-boat life, then it is obvious that your journey so far has been less than rewarding and exciting. It may also be that instead of being in charge of driving on your own journey, you have just been cruising along. Possibly, a passenger with little control over the steering wheel to your life.

Notice how you talk to yourself while in your car? I’m not referring to your cursing and swearing at the driver in the next car just this morning; but rather the inner thoughts that go on in your head going through life. Here’s what your inner conversations probably sound like, while you are on your life’s journey…

Inner Talk:“No matter which path I take, it’s going to reach a dead end.”
Limiting Belief: “No matter how I do it, I’m never going to reach success”.

Inner Talk: “To reach the destination, stick to the small familiar roads. ”
Limiting Belief: “To reach success, choose the tried and conventional path. You can’t afford to try anything adventurous.”

Inner Talk: “It’s dangerous to go on the highway.”
Limiting Belief: “Don’t go on the fast track because it is dangerous.”

Inner Talk: “I don’t know how to handle this god-damn 4-wheel drive.”
Limiting Belief: “I don’t know how to take charge because the decisions involved are too big.”

Inner Talk: “I’m going to let my boyfriend do the driving because girls are known to be worse drivers.”
Limiting Belief: “I’m not good enough.”

Inner Car Talk: “I’m going to let my daddy do the driving because he has always been the family driver.”
Limiting Belief: “I need my daddy’s approval.”

Look Who’s Driving

The limiting beliefs as described above are probably implanted in your mind since a long time ago when you started off your life journey. While you are already way past the minimum age of getting a driving license, it is possible that you have not been really the one in charge of your own journey.

The drivers are really the unconscious negative thoughts and beliefs who have already hijacked you and over-written every single dream you may have. Every decision that you make from as little as what to wear this morning to major ones like career choices and whether or not to pursue your dreams, is influenced by what has been fed into your mind over and over again, since you were a child.

Negative self-talk lay seiged in your mind, causing you to apply brakes, go in circles, backing into the quick sand, and never allowing you to reach the top of the hill. When you allow yourself to be guided by a complex map of negative self sabotaging thoughts, you are unable to see clearly or to chart a finishing course for yourself. Sadly, you choose to shelf your hopes, bury your desires and suppress your dreams.

Consistent Thoughts: Repetition and Emotion

As you go through life, more than a million things have already been said to you. Most of them probably did not register much.

It is those thoughts that are made repeatedly and with emotion, that create the most impact. You’ve come to believe as truths what you have been told over and over again. A more emotional choice of words also tend to create a deeper imprint in your mind.

If the thoughts reinforce the positive, chances are that you will turn out to be a more positive and joyful person. You go through life, viewing difficulties as challenges or lessons to learn from. You see the stars in the sky rather than the mud on the ground.

However, if you have been indoctrinated with negative and limiting thoughts, it is likely that you will end up more cynical and disappointed about life. In a way, when you are so tuned into negativity, you will also be the lookout for negative events. You encounter them with a resigned attitude, drawing a deep sigh for the upteemth time “….see I told you so….I’ve never got a good thing coming….I don’t deserve the good things in life!”

So Who’s Been Talking And Driving?

The inner voices responsible for the driving have been echoing since you were a child. Who do they belong to?

1. Your Parents and/or Guardians. You base your life scripts on your early messages. Your parents and/or guardians are probably the most influential people in your life. As a child, you accepted what you’ve been told as “truths”.

These messages can be positive, such as notes of encouragement and motivation, or they can be negative, telling you that you are no good or with little talents. As you think about it now, if the messages have been negative, it would seem easy just to blame your parents and declare yourself as a victim for the rest of your life. However, you cannot move towards happiness if you do not start forgiving and healing. You need to break free.

Here’s how. Think about your parents and guardians. You need to understand why they have told you the negative messages. Have they been told these themselves because of their own upbringing or have they formed these beliefs because of the traumas that they went through? How were their childhoods like? Did they also have negative parents?

When you come from understanding of what it has been like for them, you no longer blame them for saying those things to you. These negative thoughts had been their realities too and they probably did not realise how destructive these beliefs can be.

2. Authoritative Figures. These are people that you look up to because they are older than you or who are your role models. One good example of an authoritative figure is your school teacher. And you’ve probably been taught by quite a number of teachers, since a big part of your early years is spent in school. A teacher who constantly berated you for being slow could have caused you to really feel that way about yourself. On the other hand, a teacher who encouraged you even though you have failed in your exams, in your later school years could have inspired you to make a shift into adopting empowering thoughts about yourself.

3. Your Friends. As a young and impressionable kid, it is easy to get affected by what your friends say. Your emotional vulnerability is also heightened if you suffered from a poor self esteem. The roots in your negative self talk may lay in the repeated taunts by a school bully or a slew of unkind remarks by a thoughtless friend.

4. The Media. Who do you think are the biggest perpetrators of building imprints in your mind? The award surely goes to the advertisers. I can think of no better example than the constant barrage of McDonalds ads that I see on the papers and TV.

Here’s a subliminal messaging that has been embedded by McDonalds in a Food Network show…

Now you can understand why it is so difficult to give up eating fast food even though you well know on a conscious level that it is bad for your health.

If you’ve constantly been exposed to beauty ads on looking good to be popular since the age of 3, guess how your self esteem is going to be like if you do not have an external appearance to match? It is no wonder that there can be so many depressed folks out there with problems like eating disorders, obesity and mental issues.

“Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.” — Leo Burnett (Pioneer American advertising Executive, 1891-1971)

Chart Your Own Journey From Now

Consistent thoughts have the power to influence you in your decision making process at various points in life. They become your reality, when you write out your life script according to what they say. The Law of Attraction is really no surprise. What you think and focus on, becomes a fact. If you are guided by negative thoughts, you will undertake actions that reinforce these “truths” about yourself. By virtue of your actions, you are going to achieve less-than-perfect outcomes. And less-than-perfect outcomes are just going to attract more of the similar ones that have already been happening in your life.

On the other hand, if you are guided by positive thoughts, you tend to take on powerful actions that bring about better outcomes. You increase the chances of success when you are forward looking. You also set yourself up in attracting more wonderful opportunities.

Once you discover who you’ve been allowing to take the driver’s seat and why, you are at liberty to take back the control of the steering wheel. You are free to choose the thoughts that will be helpful in creating the life that you want, and ditch the ones that hinder you in your tracks to true happiness. You can choose to be guided by a life compass that points to greater fulfilment. It is very much in your interest to chart your own journey from now.

“Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be…Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.”
— Erich Fromm (German born American social Philosopher and Psychoanalyst, 1900-1980)

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