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The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance.
~Victor Frankl
I am hard pressed right now to find anyone who is optimistic about the upcoming year except a few Internet marketers who are bombarding my inbox with messages claiming that they are not participating in any recession.
Fear, dread, and anxiety won't change the economy, the stock market, or energy prices. They just make you feel crummy no matter what is going on. Worse yet, they jam your creative mechanisms and point your line of focus straight at problems rather than opportunities.
This is a time to be resourceful and to be resourceful, we need to clear our head of all the things we can't do anything about. We need to really get that while we don't control our environment or the economy or our teenage son, we DO control our responses to these things. Attitude and feeling good are a choice. So why not choose to feel good and fully engage with your life this year, no matter what the circumstances?
Yes! You Can
Yes, you can feel better, make yourself happier. In the best selling book, "Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience," psychology professor and researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi outlines the eight principles that are necessary to create happiness. This is not another pseudo psychology self-help book but rather it is based on a decade's worth of research by the author and his team out of the University of Chicago.
For you to enjoy yourself and feel happiness, engage in activities or tasks in such a way that at least one if not more of the following criteria are present.
1. You feel you at least have a chance of completing it. Notice you don't have to be supremely confident, just feel a possibility of completing it. Don't choose something that is so easy it doesn't require you to stretch. Too hard and you'll feel more struggle than satisfaction.
2. You have the opportunity to concentrate.
3. The task has clear goals.
4. You receive immediate feedback on your progress so you know whether or not you are on target to reach your goals.
5. Deeply engage with the activity so that your mind pushes aside day to day worries and frustrations. This is one reason why physical activities and sports are so effective at producing positive states.
6. Exercise a sense of control over your actions.
7. During the activity, your sense of self disappears. Think back to the last time you saw a terrific movie and became completely engrossed in the story on the screen.
8. Engage in an activity where your sense of time is altered.
Organize the Chaos
The normal state of our mind is chaos. Without something to occupy our time and our thoughts, most of us will default to worry or trying to solve a problem. By engaging in activities that involve challenge, have clear goals and a way of obtaining feedback, we channel the normally chaotic workings of the mind in a constructive direction. By using concentration and self directed skills, we push aside our worries to become fully engaged and lose all sense of time. We create in essence a sense of flow, an allowing of a greater experience of happiness.
The really good news is the opportunities for flow are endless. Sports, dance, sex, reading, writing, painting, playing music, eating, building a Lego tower with a child. Just about any activity can be transformed into a happiness producing experience by consciously employing some or more of these criteria.
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Regardless of your spiritual orientation, you will find this book packed with leadership tools, workplace wisdom, and professional development tips. 
