The Art of Creativity

"Conceptualizing your creativity with high levels of transparency is one of the most challenging obstacles as an artist."

- Jalen Tarvin

If I were to say the word 'artist', you would probably think I am referring to a musician, or a painter. What if I told you that you are an artist in every day of your life? God is an artist, hence why some people refer to God as "Our Creator". God crafted the world using a craft that we still are unable to understand which is why we prescribe to different religions and such. As products of God, we are also artist and creators. 

Every day, we possess the ability to create and craft our lives however we want. The same way Kanye West crafted the sonic masterpiece known as "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". The same way Jean Michel-Basquiat crafted the illustrious masterpiece "Irony of Negro Policemen". We too, can create masterpieces.

The most powerful tool we possess is our brain, it controls everything we do. The brain is our pen, our tool of creation. It allows us to dictate our creations in totality. Whatever we think is what will happen. Similarly to the typical artist, we suffer from outside inhibitors marginalizing and deconstructing our means of creation. These inhibitors come in many different forms, such as family, friends, and co-workers. How many times in your life have you been told you cannot do something? 

This is where the marginalizing occurs. External questioning of your creativity often results in internal questioning where you begin to question yourself as a creative. Creative restriction occurs and you reach a slump that can be hard to get out of. Over time, we gather so much information from past experiences that we struggle to decipher what is useful for creation and what must be thrown out and put into the spam folder. This causes an issue of transparency, which becomes one of the biggest obstacles we face as artist and creators.

Knowing when and where to be transparent becomes the focal point of our creations, usually hindering us through the fear of being judged or undervalued. One example of this is being an African American in Corporate America. As a Black person in Corporate America, it is very common to run into the brick wall of fitting in and not acting too Black. This is challenging due to the fact that you sprouted as a creator in an environment that cherished your creativity rooted in Black Culture. 

At this point, the job becomes a power struggle, and your creativity suffers accordingly. This is why many people become unhappy at their jobs, because as born creators we often end up in positions that do not cater to our creative mindset resulting in the stagnation of our creative process and restricting creative transparency.

Finding a solution to this can be quite tough because you have to decide whether to assimilate or leave the situation altogether. The best solution will be what you believe will transcend you as a creator. A technique that I often find useful in my creative process is using those uncomfortable and unhappy situations as platforms for new creations. For example, sitting at a desk for 8 hours might not be ideal for your creative process. A short term solution would be to create small challenges and goals throughout the day to continue feeding your willpower during those 8 hours. 

The long term solution would be to invest in the job you really want by investing in your own business or gaining the necessary experience at your current job to transition to a position that caters more to your creative process. An important concept during this time period is to always conceal your creative intentions to mitigate external inhibitors that will distract you from reaching true self-satisfaction.

Another example where transparency is relevant to creativity is in relationships. The idea of two completely different artist working together to hone a compatible craft becomes a terror for most because it forces the idea of creative compromise and selfless actions for the sake of progression. Other times, the two artist are just incompatible despite being attracted to each other's art. How many times have you been on a date and knew within the first five minutes that the person was not for you? 

It happens more than we want, and as artist we must be accepting of the incompatibility with other artist. We often restrict our transparency as creatives to convince ourselves that we can create the compatibility we want with other artist. However, the result is often unwarranted and leaves us with baggage which we never learn to eliminate from our creative process.

In forming new relationships with other artist, we must take the time to learn their creative process before we impose our own. Learning to compromise your needs will be necessary because every artist is selfish. As creators, we produce a vision before we seek to create it and this translates into our relationships. 

Along with that, we should learn to accept the incompatibility with other artist and find anew. Prior to this, we must be comfortable in our own creative process before we begin to intertwine it with other artist, a timely process but a necessary process to create and develop those artistic relationships.

Managing transparency in regards to your creative process becomes one of the biggest challenges in your life. Over time, you will develop a natural ability to know when to conceal and unleash your creativity. The best way to do this is by examining past relationships with other artist and reflecting on the past creations that succeeded and the creations that failed. At my current job which is in Corporate America, I had to learn (and I am still learning) how to master and match my creative process with those around me. 

This also involves unlearning techniques that were once successful in past creative processes. Similar to technology, we must take old creations and ascend them through innovation. Every day you are given the opportunity to transcend your craft and create new masterpieces. When it is all said and done, what will you create that will be remembered when you are dead and gone from this beautiful canvas called Earth?

Bless up,

- young king

be sure to leave a comment. I would love to hear your perspective.

The Art of Spiritual Success

"Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life." 
- Buddha

I have been spending intensive time meditating on the concept of perfection. I came to the conclusion that I often find myself trying to perfect every area of my life. From meticulous details like making sure my underwear matches my outfit, to the alignment and order of the papers on my work desk. 

I attribute this to my connection with God. Delving even deeper into my conscience, I began to recognize the internal hierarchy of spirit and flesh. Naturally, I think we are perfect at birth, born in the image of God spiritually, but ultimately deterred by the flesh and worldly avenues.

In theory, every creature on earth carries a unique spirit, which is pure at the moment of conception. From the moment you are born, your spirit begins to clash with external spirits, resulting in either diversion or ascension of your spiritual connection with God. 

This starts the circle of life, a pure beginning followed by an engaging journey of reversion to that purity before you die. In the beginning, God created the flesh from dust, when you die your flesh turns back into dust but the spirit lives on forever. I credit this as the parallel of spirit/flesh and life/death.

The juxtaposition of flesh and spirit is signaled within your conscience. Whenever you're doing something wrong your conscience tries to revoke your decision, but for some the flesh becomes so strong that it wins the battle. In the Bible, this test is seen in the story of Adam and Eve where God tests them with the tree of knowledge.

 After being tempted by a serpent, Eve's conscience reminded her that she should not eat of the tree. The Bible described the fruit of the tree as "pleasant to the eyes," illustrating the influence of the flesh. Eve, along with Adam, gave in to the flesh, and ate of the tree, placing flesh over spirit. This is a simple parable that everyone can relate to.

Putting into perspective your success and goals, this concept correlates immensely. The things you want in life are born within your spirit, creating that hunger to reach those aspirations immediately. But frequently, worldly energies born of the flesh will try to contaminate your spirit with negative energies to deter you from your dreams.

A solution to this will be to invoke your conscious spirit to ascend to a level where you can deflect these diametric spirits. Think about the recent energies that have tried to counter your desires and aspirations, these are those worldly energies attacking your spirit (goals & success). Even old energies that you carry from the past can be detrimental, holding you back from your true spiritual success.

At this moment, write down the things that you feel are countering your dreams and success. For me, I write down the feeling of inadequacy. This is why I have spent so much time trying to perfect every area of my life. I often spend time fighting the feeling of inadequacy that I have vividly felt throughout my life. 

To combat this negative energy, I have focused on reaching a spiritual point of internal acceptance for who I am and what I want in life, regardless of the opinions of others. This is easier said than done, but being aware of it will help elevate my spirit, with the ultimate goal of permeating this energy into other areas of my life to maximize success.

You can do it too! Take some time, daily or weekly, to become cognitive of the energies attacking your spirit or the spirits you have carried with you throughout your life that holds you back from your godly potential. Becoming conscious of these energies will be the first step to ascension. 

Next, you must fill this void. That negative energy must be replaced with a reinforced positive energy. For me, I am working on replacing the feeling of inadequacy with reinforced internal acceptance. How will you begin transforming your spirit? Remember, God has already given you the necessary power to eclipse these worldly energies. Elevate your spirit and flourish accordingly!

Bless up,

- young king

be sure to leave a comment. I would love to hear your perspective.

The Art of Burning Fat

"Take care of your body, it is the only place you have to live."
- Jim Rohn

We all follow a few people on Instagram who we deem #BodyGoals, or we have this picture perfect image in the back of our minds of how our bodies should look. Whether to impress someone or to make that morning mirror time more enjoyable, we all want to look good as a way to feel good. I remember being 230 lbs my sophomore year of college and being disgusted with myself. Primarily, I hated how I looked in clothes. I also hated being quickly winded every time I would hoop with my brodies. It was quite frustrating.

I want to share with you some vital tips to building a foundation in your fitness journey, simple fixes that can go a long way as you shoot for those #BodyGoals. Try these methods for 30 days to help build new habits and also to learn new things about your body as it relates to your diet. Remember that the ultimate goal of fitness is to improve your diet permanently, not to find a temporary fix.

-- THE 8 GEMS TO BURNING FAT:


GEM #1: THE ONLY WAY TO BURN FAT IS BY BEING IN A CALORIC DEFICIT

Meaning you must be burning more calories (food) than you consume. This does not mean starve yourself. The way to make this happen is by exercise and a thorough diet. The diet supplies your body with the right fuel for your workouts which in turn create the caloric deficit. In most cases, it is easy to eat more food than your body needs because we are not as active as we used to be. Technology has made everything very convenient, so it becomes necessary to get up and be active every day! Even a walk around the block or standing while reading can make a difference.

On top of that, you want to have a stable diet that not only fuels your body but supplies it with the right nutrients. Eating a nutrient dense diet for 5-6 days a week is optimal, with the 7th day being your cheat day (Yes, even God rested on the seventh day). Of course, there will be days where you mess up, but don’t give up, persistence will save you in the long run. Just try to find the balance of lean meats, complex carbs, and veggies as oppose to pizza and ice cream every day. Remember this, one bad day will not hurt just like one good day will not help you!


GEM #2: MORE WEIGHTS, LESS CARDIO

Many people think cardio is the immediate solution to burning fat, but this is not completely true. During cardio, you are only burning calories while you are doing cardio, mainly because there is little to no resistance and the only thing your body is working against is gravity which it has become adjusted to. So really the only thing you end up improving is your cardiovascular. 

If you want to tone certain parts of your body, then this part is for you. To truly burn fat and get toned, you must lift weights and do resistance training! Lifting weights and also doing high intensity interval training (google this) creates that toned look by maintaining the muscle as the fat melts away. If you just do cardio, you do not force your body to maintain the muscle, thus making it harder to tone. 

During resistance training (weight lifting and H.I.I.T)  your body breaks down the muscles forcing your body to burn calories intra-workout. But wait there is more!!! As opposed to traditional cardio, you not only burn calories during the workout but also after, sometimes up to 24 hours after resistance training! You do the math. Shoot for about 3-4 days of resistance training (weight lifting, sprints, swimming, etc) and watch your body evolve.

(Ladies, I know you think that lifting weights will make you look more bulky and like a man, but this is a myth. Women do not have the adequate hormones to get as big as men so don't be afraid to get in the gym and start crushing that iron.)


GEM #3: YOU CANNOT SPOT REDUCE FAT

It is easy to believe that focusing on a specific area will help kill the fat in that area. But this is one of the biggest misconceptions. For example, most people think if you do 1000 sit ups a day, you will burn fat around your stomach but this is false. Body fat is one big cell, making burning fat an accumulative process. This means once you begin to burn fat you can’t control where you lose it.

Depending on genetics, some people are able to burn fat in certain areas faster than others, this is because everybody stores fat differently in different places. So instead just focus on burning fat and improving your overall physique rather than just focusing on one area or you will drive yourself crazy (trust me I’ve been there). Usually the stomach is the last to go for most, especially for men. For some women, butt fat could be the last to go.


GEM #4: DO NOT LET THE SCALE DRIVE YOU CRAZY

This is important because there will be days where you work your ass off and eat perfectly, but when you hop on the scale it has not moved down or it even had the audacity to go up! (Like what?!?) Because of this opt for paying attention to body changes, by looking at your body in the mirror and by taking pictures, preferable in the morning before you eat or drink anything. My ideal situation is right after I wake up, post morning-pee, in nothing but underwear.


GEM #5: DRINK MORE WATER

This is probably the easiest tool for burning fat. Put down the sodas & sugary drinks and only drink water. Burning fat becomes so much easier when you do not drink your calories (remember we have to burn more calories than we consume). Outside of that, your body is 80% water, meaning water is very important. 

Drinking more water will also make you look leaner by cleansing your body of all the toxins and sodium that give you that bloated look.  Water also increases your metabolism meaning more fat burning! Keep in mind that proper hydration is indicated by light to almost clear urine. You want to drink about 80-120 oz of water a day for proper fat burning. 

I know initially, you will be peeing every 10 minutes, but eventually this will stop. Try to accommodate a schedule of drinking water where you do not have to chug it but instead drink it gracefully throughout the date. I like to get most of my water in right when I wake up and during/after my workout. This is when your body is the most dehydrated. Also drinking water before a meal can help with portion control and overeating. I think the saying goes: "Drink water and flourish."


GEM #6: SLEEP

This is probably the most underrated technique for burning fat. Sleep is the best time for your body to burn fat mainly because you are not consuming any food and because your body is in maintenance mode. By depriving your body of sleep, you begin to stress your body immensely, which results in your body not being able to burn fat. So remember No Sleep = No Fat Burning. Aim for at least 6-8 hours of sleep a day (including naps). 

Personally, I need about 7 hours to functional at 100%. Your sweet spot may be 6 hours or even 9 hours! Try turning that TV off at night, putting down the social media a hour before bed, and reducing the amount of carbs you eat before bed for a better nights rest. Scientist recognize blue light as the major killer in the quality of sleep for most people.

 

GEM #7: EAT MORE

I know this may seem like a weird gem but so many people struggle to eat consistently on a regular basis. Not eating consistently can negatively effect your metabolism, resulting in you not being able to maximize fat burning. Just by eating consistent, nutritious meals you will fuel your metabolism for prime-time fat burning. 

A good way to do this is by regulating when you eat. I like to prioritize when I will have time to eat each day, one day in advance. Typically, your schedule will follow similar patterns, so try to figure out when you will be able to fit in meals at the same time each day.

Another great technique is to find about 4-5 nutritious meals that you can cook or buy that you can eat at any time. Ask just about anybody who has succeeded in fitness, they probably have about 4-5 meals that they eat regularly. It removes the confusion of what you will eat day in & day out and also helps you figure out how different foods effect your body. 

Over time you will be able to incorporate new meals to broaden your diet, but start simple first. Find about 4-5 nutritious meals to be the staples of your diet that will help you burn fat.


GEM #8: HAVE PATIENCE

This is probably the most important step because everyone wants to get their dream body overnight but that is not realistic. Getting your dream physique is a process and requires great patience & discipline. There will be days and weeks where you might not see progress, but you must remember that giving up is not an option! There are many different techniques to get you to where you want to be, and once you figure out the best one for you, you will be on your way to your #BodyGoals.

If you are truly serious about achieving your goals, I recommend tracking everything you eat and what exercises you do. One way of doing this is by using the app ‘MyFitnessPal’ (Youtube how to use). Or you could just write it down in a journal. 

Tracking your diet will help you create those good eating habits because you will start to hold yourself more accountable. I promise you if you write down everything you eat and drink for 30 days, it will be the best decision you have ever made.

Remember, everything will not be perfect right away but with effort and discipline, you will be able to not only improve your body but your confidence as well. I have faith in you, if you apply yourself you can accomplish any goal. If you have any questions or topics you would like to see discussed in a future blog drop it in the comment box or contact me on any social media platform @jay_dreamin (except Facebook).

Bless up,

- young king

be sure to leave a comment. I would love to hear your perspective.

The Art of Pain & Pleasure

"Most of us have created numerous ways to feel bad, and only a few ways to truly feel good."
- Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

I remember it like it was yesterday, pressing my favorite white dress shirt. Fastening my new orange tie and shining my new wingtips. I purchased a spring grey slim fit suit just for this special day. The day I graduated undergrad with a BS in Electrical Engineering, the happiest day of my life. Just writing about it provokes a joyous feeling like no other. Often times I think back to this day to bring back the jubilant emotions I felt when I walked across the stage. I want to share with you this tactic and how to utilize it to promote better success in accomplishing your goals. 

One thing that is certain in life is that there will be challenging situations, many will be unavoidable. In certain instances, we can not control the timing of certain hardships. But we can control our response to these hardships. In my recent learning, I have discovered that your life is immensely dictated by emotions. Emotions are present in every decision we make, sometimes limiting us from our true potential. 

Managing these emotions becomes the strenuous task that most people encounter both consciously and subconsciously. It is almost unfair to yourself to let emotions dictate your life when you have full control over them. Now this is easier said than done, but let me put the concept into perspective.

In this very moment, if you smiled as if you have just won the lottery, you will feel a striking feeling of happiness. When God created us, he gave us the ability to shift our emotions in an instant. This shift is made possible through the way our brains are wired. We attach emotions and feelings to certain ideas, images, and sounds. 

If you at any moment started to imagine a joyous moment in your life, it would undoubtedly bring a feeling of joy and happiness into your present state, possibly even making you smile. Contrarily, If you were to imagine an unhappy moment in your life, you would feel your mood darken. Let me explain why. 

The two emotions that dictate our life the most are pain and pleasure. The things we associate pleasure with are where we usually find the most success and they often bring us the most joy, while the things we associate pain with brings us fear and hesitation, often times resulting in failure. Thus, addressing those areas of pain and boosting the areas of pleasure becomes a tactic to promote more success in your life, by removing doubt, fear, and hesitation and replacing it with joy, confidence and triumph.

For example, a past relationship of mine failed because I began to associate more pain with the relationship than pleasure, causing me to give up on it. I lost faith in the pleasure of the relationship and only associated pain with it. This is a position many people find themselves in during relationships, they reach a breaking point. But the difference maker is whether or not that pain breaks them, or if they are strong enough to replace those painful experiences with pleasurable experiences. 

This is what you must do with the goals you want to accomplish in life. You may be in a position where you have associated pain with exercise and eating healthy because you have constantly failed at staying consistent or seeing progress. Or you may have failed at approaching someone you were attracted to because you could not find the courage. That lack of courage causes you to associate pain with approaching people. Over time, the cascading effects of these painful experience begin to hinder your approach to these goals. 

Instead you must challenge yourself to create pleasure with the goals you set. Find a technique that works, don't be afraid to try new ones either. Remind yourself of your success often as a confidence builder. No one has ever got better at something by staying the same. 

As humans we have only been able to evolve because of the new and constant challenges we face and the evolution that follows. Once you start approaching those attractive people or start sticking to that diet plan you keep putting off, you will then begin to remove the painful experiences and also begin to build the confidence and discipline necessary to be successful. Find success and joy in the goals you set, no matter how small. 

As a way to promote more pleasure, I challenge you to not view something as 'painful' but instead as a 'challenging situation'. When something bad goes wrong, instead of thinking "Why?" think "How?". Ask yourself "How can I become better?". Asking yourself "Why?" is more of a question of pain, whereas asking yourself "How?" will promote cleaner emotions and evoke your brain to find an applicable solution. It is your God given ability to find a solution to any problem you face, as humans we have been doing it for years. 

Think back to the Civil Rights Movement. If those glorious leaders would have sat around asking "Why" no progression would have been made. Ask yourself "How can I lose 10 lbs this year?" and "How can I hit my work deadlines early?" and watch your brain do the rest. Remember that Faith without works is dead, so don't forget to complement this tactic with some hard work and dedication. 

Now that I have supplied you with this new tool in accomplishing your goals, go out and start putting it into action! You will always find yourself trying to accomplish new and challenging goals, and by adding this tool you will be more prepared. Every day is a chance to become a better version of yourself! Love.

Bless Up, 

- young king

be sure to leave a comment. I would love to hear your perspective.

The Art of Setting Goals

"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps."
- Confucius

How cool is it to set a goal and accomplish it accordingly?

It is very easy to talk about what you want to do in life and all the dreams you have. The hard part is putting it into action. Many people say "I'm going to lose 30 pounds this year" or "I'm going to save more money this year" but quit after only a few weeks. 

The worst part of this is the distraught felt everyday when you realized you did not stay true to your word. It becomes very troublesome, especially if the goal has emotion attached to it. Maybe you have insecurities about your weight or you want to find success as an entrepreneur. Emotion plays a big part in securing such goals.

When you put an goal in your mind that you want to accomplish, it is important to actually follow through to the end for the sake of building confidence in yourself. Imagine if your parents told you they would pick you up from school everyday but they only did it once every few weeks. Eventually, you would lose faith in the idea of your parents picking you up from school. This is what happens when you tell yourself you want to accomplish a goal but only tend to it every so often. If you want to lose weight, you can not go to the gym once a month or eat one salad a week; if you want to do better in school you can not only study one day a week or go to class every blue moon. This forms habits of failure and inconsistency. 

In 2016, I have dedicated myself to avoiding the habits of failure and inconsistency in life and want to share with you the vital components of accomplishing goals efficiently. These techniques have helped me accomplish numerous goals in fitness, academics, and other areas that many people struggle in being successful. These FOUR STEPS TO SUCCESS have been the foundation to my progression over the past year. Whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, the following steps will help you tremendously.

Step 1: SET ONE GOAL

Of course, the first step to accomplishing a goal is setting actually goals. However, one mistake people make is setting many different goals at one time. For example, people enter the new year with multiple goals like working out more, eat healthier, smoking less, etc. 

When you try to attack multiple goals simultaneously, you will find yourself juggling your goals and never being able to give 100% effort equally to the objectives. Instead, set one goal you want to dedicate all of your effort into. The process necessary to reach that goal will become second nature, then you will be ready to start on a new one.

After you decided on the goal, decided on the exact parameters of the goal. Instead of saying "I am going to lose weight this year" say that "I am going to lose 10 pounds in three months." Instead of saying "I want to study more during the week" say that "I will study 2 hours a day." It is hard to attack broad goals, but when you have an exact idea of what you want to do, it is easier for your brain to acclimate itself to working towards that idea.

Step 2: MAKE A PLAN

This is probably the most important step, make a plan. Any goal without a plan is a failure already. Let's put this into perspective. Imagine if you were presenting a project to a billion dollar company and did not plan what you were going to say or if you were making a road trip to Miami but did not have a plan of directions. Both situations would probably result in disaster and lost time. This is what happens when you set goals without plans. You find yourself doing random things with no sense of direction or progress.

This same principle applies to fitness. You need to create a plan of what workouts to do, what foods to eat, when you are going to gym, among other things. Many people go into the gym and do random workouts expecting results. Random actions produce random results (a quote from one of my favorite Youtubers - Brandon Carter). If you want great results, you need a plan. Plan your meals, plan your sleep, plan everything you are serious about.

When Steve Jobs died, he left behind a 4 year plan of new products and blueprints for Apple, which is why the company continued to thrived. Without that plan, Apple would of saw a progression and production halt. Whenever you begin college, they give you a 4 year plan of what classes to take to reach your goal of graduation. Imagine going through college without a planned curriculum, you would probably find yourself taking random classes with no area of focus.

Apply this idea to any area of your life and you will see the same correlation. I often wonder why I have a hard time saving money. It is probably because I do not plan my spending, I often find myself spending randomly. Budgeting is not as important to me, so I have yet to develop a plan to become better at it. Maybe you are not as passionate about something as you think, especially if making a plan for it sounds like too much, and that is okay. But if you come to the conclusion that a certain objective is important to you, make it a goal and create a plan to reach that goal.

Step 3: TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

As a college student, I hate when a professor does not post grades. It makes it hard for me to track my progress in the class. At the end of the semester, it is essential for you to have all of your grades tracked so you can calculate what is needed on the final exam to get your desired grade. This same is true with any goal. If you are serious about your goals, track your progress and adjust accordingly. Tracking your progress helps you figure out what is working, what is not working, and what must be changed.

If you set a goal to lose 10 pounds by the end of the month, track each week what you ate and how much you exercised. If you lost a few pounds at the end of the week, than you know you are doing the right thing. If you did not lose weight, you can look back and adjust what you ate and adjust your workouts to get better results the following week. Fitness, much like everything you do in life, is personal. What works for someone else may not work the same for you.

There are many ways to track your progress. The old school way would be to just write everything down, I saw my best fitness results when I was writing down what I ate, what workouts I did everyday, and how my weight changed each week. The idea of tracking progress keeps you accountable. You are able to recognized where you are faltering to help avoid the mistake next time.

Step 4: GO HARD

This is the final step. Go hard at your goals, and enjoy the process. Once you reach your goals, you will be able to look back and admire where you came from. Conquering a goal builds confidence within yourself, making it easier to accomplish other goals. There will be bad days but remember, with consistent effort over a long period of time, the good days will ultimately outweigh the bad days. Nothing worth having comes easy. Once you have created a goal, remain consistent and diligent. Research new ways to attack the goal, find what works the best for you and go hard as you can!

Now, go and attack your goals and become the best version of yourself!

Bless Up,

- young king

be sure to leave a comment. I would love to hear your perspective.

The Art of Happiness

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony” 
- Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is so special, that many people spend their entire life searching for it. It comes in many different forms for some people, but how do you know what genuinely makes you happy? Lately, I have been strategically focusing on what makes me happy and one of the first steps that I took was analyzing what makes me unhappy and how I can fix it.

Happiness can be defined as a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions, ranging from contentment to intense joy. The golden thread of this definition and almost any definition you find for happiness will be emotion. 

The terms emotion and emotional have taken on a connotation usually associated with sadness or pity. This correlation has blinded us from understanding how to use our emotions to increase the happiness we thirst for. As humans, we want to feel important in every situation and feel a sense of external value unique to ourselves. One way of doing this is by examining our emotions and figuring out what things give us happy emotions versus the things that give us unhappy emotions.

These emotions that dictate our happiness do not reside in external sources such as money, jobs, popularity, or people. Happiness is dictated by the relationships you have with these external sources. You can control your happiness easily by dictating your relationships with the things you have in your life by simply viewing them for what they are instead of viewing them for what you would like them to be. I know that may sound a little confusing but let me explain.

Often, I found myself complaining and stressing over the things I didn’t like about myself. For example, one thing I became unhappy with was my weight. I remember buying a bunch of expensive clothing during my first summer internship, only to be disgusted with the way I looked in them.

In response to this issue, I began to examine my relationships with my diet and exercising (which were piss-poor). I started to do more research on nutrition, weight-lifting, and dieting. Instead of complaining to myself every day, I began working towards improving the relationship. 

I started to see a huge improvement over time and started to fall in love with the process. This change did not occur overnight, because I was attacking an obstacle that had plagued me for years. But with consistent effort, I was able to drop 30 lbs in 3 months. Now, I’m obsessed with nutrition and exercise because of the happiness it brought to my life. I had to restructure my relationship with diet and exercise to gain genuine happiness in that area of my life.

Improving the relationships you have with things in your life is vital to being happy. We often form a habit of being unhappy without even realizing it. Subconsciously, we begin to settle for being unhappy because we’ve been unhappy (with whatever) for so long. The quote, “You are what your habits are,” relays this concept and is something I live by.

If you’re unhappy with something in your life, take a minute, and examine your habits and the relationship you have with it. Chances are you have developed habits that you do not notice, habits that are negating from your ascension. If you want a higher GPA, examine your relationship with studying. If you want to stop drinking, examine your relationship with alcohol. Everything is rooted in habit.

This is a concept of controlling your emotions and habits to improve the relationship you have with things in your life. A wise man once said "control the controllables". Once you begin to take control of the things in your life and removed the power from external sources, I promise you will feel much happier and get more out of life. Remove the “what if” and become more dedicated to your happiness and you will see an elevation in your life.

I have many ideas on being happy and sincerely want to help people feel happier and be confident in their everyday lives. Helping people become happier is something I have always been interested in and it inspired me to start this blog. I know how easy it is to be unhappy and lose yourself, and I want to prevent people from getting stuck in that unhappy state that I was once in. So always remember to make your happiness a priority because only you can give yourself true happiness.

Bless Up,

- young king

be sure to leave a comment. I would love to hear your perspective.