“Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning
if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.”
— Aristotle

Are you one of the millions of hopefuls making a little list right now?  Want to know more about how to get where you want to go?

Some New Year’s resolutions are good intentions, some are pipe dreams, and some are actually achievable goals or real plans for new habits.

Yet almost all of them are sincere (except for those made to placate someone else’s desire for us to change). And almost all of them are forgotten in a few weeks or months.

What are the secrets of making and keeping good plans for new beginnings?

Well, one secret is in the mysteries of Reaching Out.

There are many ways to reach out to a new intention.  Here are some of the most common methods:

• Reaching Out with our minds.
  The beginning of all change starts with an idea.
  Think of what you want and reach out for it with your mind.

Reaching Out with our hearts.
The beginning of motivation is in the heart.
Connect your desire with your ideas, and reach out with your heart.

• Reaching Out with our hands.
  The visible beginning comes from daily action.
  Reach out with your actions and connect motivation with practice.

Reaching out with your heart and mind is powerful, and takes courage.  You risk wanting something without knowing the outcome.  This ‘inner game’ part of reaching out is scary for many people.  If we admit to ourselves how much we want something to change, it brings the tension of unknowing and responsibility.

And if we take no action, that can cause inner conflict and all kinds of negative emotions, like guilt and shame, even feelings of low self-worth and failure.

Enter: Daily Action. (Daily Action wears a Mighty Mouse cape, and is singing, “Here I come to save the day…”).

If you want to keep your resolves, this is the secret within the secret:

Repeat steps one and two, reaching out with mind and heart, again and again, to shore up Daily Action.

This means as you start to practice the new habit, revisit your ideas and motivation daily. Think of more new ideas, about how to keep the motivation high, and about exactly what will help you want to succeed. Then act upon your ideas.  Observe your progress without judging.

That’s it. That is the secret of keeping the new habits long enough to get them established.  Success comes best when reaching out in all three ways:  with ideas, desire, and action.  Follow-through (Daily Action) has a much better chance when our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are on the same page, as they say.

In your head or written, New Year’s resolutions do mean something.  They mean you want something you don’t yet have.  Written ones have a higher success rate.

Recap — Reach out to your goals with your ideas, check to see if you can find some heart-power (motivation) to back up those ideas, and do your Daily Action.

Then when the Daily Action gets a little slippery, reach out for more ideas and find more motivators to help keep you on track.

Recap’s Recap — Repeat the cycle of Reaching Out as many times as you want, or as many times as you breathe, or…

You get the idea, now find your desire and act!

Humor expands our comfort zone and helps
us adapt to change. — Izzy Gesell

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a
kaleidoscope of new possibilities. — Jean Houston

If you jumped to this article straight away, interesting aspects of your psyche can probably be revealed on some personality test.  Well, we’re not doing that here.  It doesn’t matter if you searched methodically or if you turned here on a lark to see what the secret sauce was, the desire to experience wild success is surely a powerful motivator.

Maybe you are in debt (you can insert words like ‘eyeballs’ and ‘over-my-head’ here).  Or maybe your friends are hoping you will get serious about succeeding and move on with that project.  Everyone wants to know what will help us get a grip, pull ahead, beat the beginner odds, find our way, bounce back, be healthy, realize a dream. It is serious.  Times are serious.

And the Secret Sauce of Laughter is serious.  No, really, it’s serious business.  The more bottom-line you are, the more you need to keep reading right now.  The results of knowing this information could affect your bottom line positively — financially, health wise, in your professional and personal relationships, in the effectiveness of your communication, in your powers of persuasion, in your quest for education,  in your ability to clean out that closet,   . . . (list doesn’t end here) . . .

And what if you prefer to think of the Holy Grail of human experience as something other than the bottom line? What if resilience-builders such as motivation, positive outlook, and feeling good are your markers of excellence?  Fabulous.  Hearty laughter makes the brain release endorphins, that natural happy-chemical that is responsible for the “runner’s high.”  In fact, the chemicals released in the central nervous system as a result of laughing help eliminate depression and create a more positive mental state.

The effects of a positive mental state are huge.

. . . (make another list for yourself here) . . .

The experience of humor is universal.  Yet try convincing that to someone who is out of practice.  If it’s been too long since laughter has been a common part of your mornings, noons, and nights, consider some of the impressive beneficial changes it produces.  In addition to the effects on our mind and spirits, it helps us physically.  Scientific studies have shown that hearty laughter:

1. produces a general sense of well-being (triggers endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers)
2. powerfully and immediately strengthens our immune system (boosts levels of infection-fighting T-cells, Gamma-interferon, Natural Killer Cells (NK cells), and B-cells which produce disease destroying antibodies)
3. naturally relieves stress (reduces release of stress hormones)
4. is good for your heart
5. increases circulation and improves delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues throughout the entire body
6. has been found to lower blood pressure
7. increases muscle flexing
8. massages the lymph system
9. aids breathing by disrupting normal respiration patterns and increasing respiration rate
10. has no known side reactions (as do mood drugs)
11. can be done as a physical exercise
12. . . . (once again, list doesn’t end here) . . .

Let’s catch that item about laughter as a physical exercise. This might be especially encouraging for those who don’t feel like laughing.  To be able to get the strengthening effects of laughter without involving our minds, to get the biochemical and physiological changes and benefits which laughter brings, without focusing on anything humorous — well, is that possible?

Evidently, it is.  There are both scientific studies and reported stories of many people doing just that.  Some call it laugh therapy, or laughter therapy, and some have combined laughter with yoga and claim a special niche, practiced in many places around the globe for over a decade.  Laughter Yoga developer, Dr. Kataria, teaches students to train their diaphragm and abdominal muscles to breathe deeply by combining laugh exercises and yoga breathing techniques.  There go those increased levels of oxygen again!

Participants have reported that laughter yoga helped them counter or eliminate depression, create a more positive outlook, and improve overall quality of life, partly because of the laughter exercises, and partly due to the strength of their emotional responses when working within a group of peers.  The power of practicing with a group of cohorts appears to heighten the positive effects.

Those group dynamics must work in all kinds of settings, not just in Laughter Yoga groups, because Laughter Clubs have started popping up in many cities and towns.  One website reported that in India and other countries, laughing clubs are as popular as Rotary Clubs are in the U.S.  There, as well as in the United States, people gather (often in early morning) for the sole purpose of laughing.  One Midwestern U.S. community has a Laughing Class every Friday at 6:00 P.M.  What a great alternative to the many less healthy ways of kicking the work week into the past.  And it’s free.

When difficult circumstances or depression make it hard to respond to things that are intended to be humorous, laugh yoga or a laugh club may be a natural way to build resilience. Laughing is contagious.  Group practice has the potential of breaking down the barriers of resistance and fostering a sense of shared purpose:  to experience benefits and improvements.

Maybe Norman Cousins‘ famous quote belongs here.  He described the wild beneficial effects of hearty laughter on our bodies by saying, “Laughter is inner jogging.” Of course.  And if you have ever seen the energy of small children running around until the adults are exhausted, you have probably also noticed many, many laughs, giggles, and joyful snorts.  Children laugh an average of about 400 times a day. Seems unbelievable.  Yet even more unbelievable is the fact that the average number of laughs per day observed in adults is only 15.  Surely we can get that number a little higher.

Whether you find a group willing to practice “inner jogging” with you, or whether you practice laughing by yourself, or with your pets, find out for yourself what it feels like to let the exercise bring you into new states of confidence and well being.  Experience the big reduction in stress which occurs after only ten minutes of laughing.  Like the other resilience-building skills, it takes a decision to begin, and practice to develop the new habit. Go for it! The Secret Sauce for Wild Success is waiting for your immediate consumption.  Enjoy to taste.

Watch a 5-min Video on Laughter Yoga (Discovery Channel):

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Thanks for stopping by –

Enjoy the Educanopy Edge!