How Can I Be Happy?

When a client first comes to me they ask me, “How can I be happy?”

Most of them want to resolve some relationship issue, usually but not always with their partner.

The reason I love working with relationship issues is that I often recognise myself in their unhappiness. That means that whatever they think, feel, say or do I never judge them because, more often than not, I’ve been there.

Here’s An Example

Sheila (not her real name) is 58 years old and has been married 27 years.

Although in the beginning, she was happy, over the years she has become less and less so. She keeps telling me how she feels he doesn’t care about her, never listens, never does what she asks him to do, they never go out or have any fun.

She adds how she does everything around the house and he never helps and is feeling exhausted, taken for granted and resentful.  As for sex – what sex?

She has asked me repeatedly, “How can I be happy?”

We’ve only been working together for 4 weeks so it’s very early days but, despite all my experience (personal and professional) I sometimes feel like blurting out, “So why are you still there!?!” but I bite my tongue.

I remember that I too stayed 37 years.

I remind myself that making changes takes time. But it doesn’t just take time; it also takes commitment to ourselves, knowing we’re worthy of being happy, to access our courage to do what needs to be done, and to step out of our comfort zone even when it feels so risky.

We don’t know what the outcome will be or even the consequences.

But there are other things that stop us from taking that step.

Our mindset, our beliefs about ourselves and the other person, our judgements about them and ourselves, about our (often subconscious) beliefs about what we deserve – or not.

And then there’s the inertia.

We’ve become so used to our unhappiness that we can’t be bothered to take any action that might change things for the better. Or we might have tried but nothing we did made any difference.

How can it be if we don’t know what else to do?

And so we’ve become discouraged and stopped trying. And here we are, still unhappy and wishing for something better.

This is often the frame of mind of someone new who isn’t sure if coaching is for them.

Interestingly, I’ve come across coaches and therapists who can see all the ways other people stop themselves from moving forward but believe that, for them, it may be too late.

This is where hope comes in – the feeling that it IS possible to be happy, to find meaning, to discover a new purpose, to no longer feel alone.

This is where I come in.

I know what’s needed – to overcome the fear, to overcome the self-doubt, to overcome the belief that it will never happen or that we don’t deserve to be happy and loved.

And I know it’s almost impossible to achieve all this on one’s own.

The good news is that, with the right person at your side, happiness is within your reach.

What You Can Do

If you wonder ‘how can I be happy?’ and would like to find out more I suggest you do two things:

Check out Testimonials on my website – www.sueplumtree.com

and contact me for a free 30 minutes exploratory conversation.

You can tell me where you’re now in your life and in your relationships.  You can tell me how you feel about yourself and how you would like to feel instead.  And I will explain to you how, together, you can achieve your dream.  At the end of our conversation, we will both know if we’re right for each other.

Go on, what have you got to lose?