“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.” – Michael Jackson, “Man in the Mirror”
At some point in my journey, it dawned on me that although I had friends who cared about me, in reality, the only person I could fully count on was myself. After continually being let down by friends and being estranged from my family, I felt quite depressed. I felt that no one really gave a sh*t about me.
My friend Paul pointed out that it wasn’t my friends that were making me unhappy, it was my expectations of them. After a while, I realised that I was responsible for my own Happiness, and I wasn’t responsible for anyone else’s. It was such a relief!
2018 was a tough year for me. I started the year with high hopes of setting up my Happiness Club business and fulfilling my life purpose.
These ambitions were put on hold when I stopped taking my antidepressants and had several relapses of depression. I was also stressed out about money, as my income only covered less than two-thirds of my expenses.
Finance was, and still is, one of my work in progress areas along with fulfilling my life purpose, and the two are inextricably linked. From the moment I started practising Buddhism, I chanted and prayed to change my finances.
In the summer of the same year, during a depression relapse and worrying about my finances, I became even more determined to combat this once and for all.
As I chanted, I took full responsibility for my finances and asked myself, “What is it in me that is causing these financial difficulties?”
I realised I needed to get a part-time job to at least cover the difference between my income and expenditure. As soon as I took responsibility, I felt something shift and within a few days, I was offered a part-time job.
At first, I felt quite despondent about having to take what I considered to be a junior job on minimum wage, and I felt sure I would hate it. I was having a challenging time. I’d been feeling quite low since I’d come off my antidepressants.
My businesses were not going as well as I had hoped. My finances were shocking. I had to take a job in a call centre on minimum wage. I felt like a failure, as though hope had run out, and as if the light at the end of the tunnel had been extinguished. I kept catching myself telling this story to myself and others and to a certain extent, I knew I was wallowing in self-pity.
After one evening where I’d been telling my “woe is me” story to anyone who would listen, I realised that I needed to change my story, or as Abraham Hicks would say, “Get off the subject.”
As a believer in the law of attraction, I knew that what you focus on is what you get, so I needed to remember to focus on what I wanted instead of what I didn’t want. Instead of focusing on the lack, I needed to focus on the positives. I needed to either change the story or focus on a different story.
Gratitude
Be grateful for all the things you do have in your life. I was grateful to have an additional income. My income now exceeded my expenditure, rather than the other way around. I lived in a gorgeous house in the beautiful county of Suffolk, with MSP and my two fur babies.
Surprisingly, I found that I quite enjoyed the new job, and I realised the importance of focusing on the positive aspects of it, especially the fact that working part-time meant I had plenty of time to spend on my other businesses and fulfilling my life purpose.
Also, we had lots of downtime at work, so I could even spend time on those things while I was working. I had felt that my small wage wouldn’t make much of a difference to my life, but it was such a relief not to be worrying about money every month. I found that I was earning more than I anticipated, I received lots of unexpected income, my expenditure decreased, I was able to increase my debt payments and I had enough left over to spend on myself every month. Abundance creates abundance.
Focus on Adding Value
I was inspired by one of my Buddhist friends to really focus on adding value in everything I do. She told me about this quote from The Way of Youth by Daisaku Ikeda, President of the SGI:
“My mentor, Josei Toda, emphasised the importance of first becoming indispensable wherever you are. Instead of moaning that a job falls short of what you’d like to be doing, he said, become a first-class individual at that job. This will open the path leading to your next phase in life, during which you should also continue doing your best. Such continuous efforts are guaranteed to land you a job that you like, that supports your life, and that allows you to contribute to society.”
At that time my friend was working as a cleaner for a local hotel. She made a determination to become the best cleaner in the world and started chanting for that. A few days later she noticed there were lots of people milling around the hotel lobby. She asked her supervisor where all the people had come from? Her supervisor replied that they had heard that the toilets at the Orwell Hotel were the cleanest toilets in Suffolk and they’d come to take a look.
It was even reported on the local radio that the toilets at the Orwell Hotel were the cleanest in Suffolk. I was inspired to make my own determination to really be in service and add value to whatever I was doing.
Take Action
Focus on what you want and take action every day, even if it’s something small. For me, sometimes that action is working on my writing or Happiness Club. Other times, it’s taking care of myself by having some downtime. Every action I take is a step forward, even if it’s just a baby step. I also believe that when we take a baby step, the universe responds by taking a giant step toward us and helping us along the way.
Keep visualising your long-term goals, even if they seem impossible. I know that with my Buddhist practice and other spiritual practices, I can make the impossible possible. I don’t need to know how I will achieve these goals. I just need to keep visualising the outcomes I want, keep taking baby steps, and the universe will take care of the rest. I started to feel better emotionally in autumn 2018, but I didn’t feel ready to start working on my life purpose again. I even started looking for a full-time job as I felt resigned to facing the reality that I would have to do what “normal people” do and get a “proper job.”
In December I started to have the feeling that I should climb back on the life purpose wagon, but I still didn’t feel ready. After reading an energy forecast by intuitive healer Sarah Shepherd, who runs Blissfully Free, I realised that I still needed downtime to rest and regroup.
MSP took me to London for an overnight stay in December 2018. We wanted to watch a show, but as it was a Sunday, our only option was Thriller Live. It wouldn’t usually have been our first choice, but I was blown away.
I had forgotten what great songs Michael Jackson performed. I remembered that I had two of his albums as a teenager. Most of all I was reminded of what an inspiration Michael Jackson was.
As I watched the cast singing and dancing to “Man in the Mirror” I felt something stir inside me and I knew I was ready to “make a change … that’s why I’m starting with me.”
Which brings me back to taking responsibility. We can blame our circumstances, our unhappy childhood, our parents, our employers, or anyone and anything else but if we want to see positive change in our lives, then we must take responsibility.
When we start making changes in our lives and take responsibility it then has a ripple effect on the world around us. We can take responsibility for our own lives and also for the world and planet as a whole. Everything we do can make a difference.
It might seem insignificant but if everyone in the world did one small thing, imagine what could happen.
Taking responsibility is very powerful. When I took responsibility for my finances, I felt something shift immediately and I found a solution very quickly.
My finances continued to improve, and I became debt-free a few years ago. Finances and life purpose are still a work in progress area in my life, but I am taking responsibility; I have already seen improvement in these things, and I’m determined to keep making positive changes.
Do you have a personal problem can you take responsibility for in your life? Is there one small action can you take to help the world / planet? What impact would taking those actions have?
Fed up with feeling fed up? Take action to learn to be Happy and get what you want with the Happiness Club membership programme. Sign up now.
This post was originally written for Happiness-Club.co.uk a few years ago and I have updated it in 2024 – 2025 for the book Happiness Club: Learn to Be Happy and Get What You Want and the Happiness Club membership programme.
