Matthew Kelly's Goals for Happiness

Matthew Kelly's Goals for Happiness

I recently listened to a Matthew Kelly CD entitled "Becoming the Best Version of Yourself".  I am now a Matthew Kelly fan.  Aside from that great Australian accent, which I love, the message was excellent and his humor a welcome addition.  The main message that I took away from the talk was this: Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, He has given us the tools to be happy, we know what these tools are and yet most of us don't use them to become happy.  (Ironic, isn't it?)

Matthew speaks of four fundamental pieces of our human lives where we can improve to lead us to happiness.   He lists these as physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual.  Below are my goals to improve my life in these four areas.  I began working on these goals on November 11th and hopefully I will report back after a while to see how I have been doing.  Your goals, should you choose to make some, may be different than mine but that is okay.

Physical - I vowed to take a break from fast food, pop (soda) and energy drinks.  These are strong addictions for me and since I drive for my job it is easy to run through the drive-thru for lunch but so far I have held firm on all of these goals.  I have had to offset the caffeine withdrawal headaches with excedrin daily.

Emotional - I have decided, most importantly, to spend more quality time playing with my 2 year old daughter.  I am also going to try to have a 10 minute conversation with my husband daily.  My secondary goal is to strengthen my visiting teaching and other Church relationships so that I can build a strong network of wonderful women.

Intellectual - For this one I vowed to play fewer games on my phone and computer and read and write more instead.  I am going to read at least 10 minutes a day from a book that I enjoy and that inspires me.  I am also going to try to blog, write in journals and/or work on my novel for 10 minutes a day.

Spiritual - These goals are actually the most important.  Without the spiritual, nothing else matters.  We can never be truly happy unless we have a close relationship with our Heavenly Father.  My spiritual goals are to pray and read Scripture or other Church literature daily.  Secondary to these most important goals I am going to work on family history or indexing weekly and faithfully complete my visiting teaching and attend the Temple monthly.