Written by: Karen Mc Dermott, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Quote page: Joy is at the heart of any success worth having.
If you don't prioritise joy, or doing something that brings you fulfilment, you will always feel like you're sacrificing some of yourself. You're not living to your full potential. You will feel burnt out, overwhelmed and unfulfilled.
I consciously prioritise joy in my business and life because whenever you're feeling joyful success comes easier. Try to find as much joy as you can around what you’re doing because if you aren’t enjoying it, it will feel like a chore. The soulful entrepreneur knows there will be hard days and challenges and embraces them as part of the journey but even with that perspective, it is normal for challenges to pull you down a bit. When you're facing them from a higher vibration—and joy, or happiness if you choose to call it that, is up there as one of the highest vibrations—you're able to pick yourself up easily. You do what you need to do to get back up into that higher vibration again.
Here are my 5 top tips to living a joy fuelled life:
Find what you love and do more of that!
Never compromise your values.
Know that when you are happy those around you benefit.
Embrace gratitude every day.
Learn to appreciate the journey as much as the destination.
I know from my own experience that when you are running on empty and the hard things happen, it knocks you down. These are the kind of experiences where people can have a nervous breakdown, slip into depression, or enter survival mode where they are just going through the motions of every day.
And to me, that's a tragic life, because that's a life not lived to its fullest potential. It's not a life that is explored and enjoyed, which is so, so sad because life is to be enjoyed, to be embraced, to make your dreams come true. That stems from being in a space of joy. Let's face it, wouldn’t you prefer to be around someone who's positive and joyful than someone who's depressing and dragging you down? There are so many people in the world working in mental health, hospitals and various places where they don't necessarily encounter the best of people and they are amazing.
I would gravitate towards someone who is living at a higher vibration than someone who's putting others down or just so sad, though I am empathetic and would always reach out to help someone who's fallen. It doesn't have to define them for a lifetime so you can share your story with them and help them up. You can show them the way. I do that with my Life Magic Mastery books and all the conversations I have on those.
You can show the way, but you don't have to do it for them.
You can put the wheel in motion for them, help them get it going, but you're not supposed to do it all for them. Otherwise, it creates a dependency and there's no fulfilment in that for anybody.
Everything else falls into place when you prioritise joy. Opportunities gravitate towards you, money gravitates towards you, the right people that you want to be around gravitate towards you. That's just what happens. These are a by-product of joy, and it's so important to embrace that journey.
Things happen along the way, but when we're coming at it from a growth and evolutionary perspective with a joyful zest for life, that is where we make dreams come true. That is where goals and intentions become realities. We don't need to control how that happens, but we need to control our minds and to open up to the possibility that they can happen.
The journey is as valuable and as worthwhile an experience as the destination itself and being joyful on that journey is not prioritised enough. It's not valued enough. We need more people valuing the journey and the joy that can be experienced on it, because it's on the journey that you make the connections, it's on the journey that you elevate, that you grow in yourself.
When we are achieving through joy, we inspire others to give themselves permission to achieve true joy. So many people think successful business entrepreneurs have to sacrifice so much for so little reward to get to where they want to go.
Most of the high vibrational things I've achieved have happened in flow, they were the next right step, because I believe I connected with the energy and I knew the time to connect. You don't have to slug your guts out building up a CV portfolio, a press or whatever it is you are aiming for. You can start where you are right now and take the next step to that next person, to that next thing.
When your life is in flow you will see things happen that are bigger than you could have imagined. That is the true magic of life. Why would you deprive yourself of that? Why is anyone depriving themself of the magic of life? There is nothing that will make you feel more alive than when you are actually in flow and being filled with love for your life, and zest for your life and for your future.
There is nothing more powerful. It is so beautiful. Let's all aspire to that. And let's enjoy the journey
Karen Mc Dermott, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Karen Mc Dermott is an award-winning publisher, multi-genre author, and TEDx Speaker. Karen realized her passion for the story after an epiphany led her to write her first novel in only 30 days.
Karen has built a publishing empire and is the publisher for many well-known, best-selling authors and aspiring authors alike.
She is a regular Forbes writer, and her signature book series is the Alchemy of Life Magic series. Karen is a passionate teacher and runs her publishing academy, Everything Publishing Academy, which recently won an innovation award.
Her motto in life is 'When time and circumstance align, magic happens.
