The Lifeworks Group, Inc.

By: Dwight Bain USA Today Newspaper asked readers  “What do you want the most?”  and the most common answer was to be happy. While this sounds reasonable, it’s actually quite a puzzle because happiness is very individualized and hard to broadly define. What makes one person happy may not have much effect on another, or might even annoy them. While the formula of what creates happiness is elusive,  (think of Thomas Jefferson’s writing about the “Pursuit of Happiness”),  the physical and psychological benefits of happiness are easy to track. Here’s a short list of the benefits of being happier. Happy people are better liked Happy people have more satisfying relationships with others Happy people have 13% fewer fights and arguments Happy students are 20% more likely to get “A” grades Happy teens are 10 times less likely to start smoking Happy people have an income that is roughly 7% higher Happy people have 10% fewer stress related illnesses Happ...

By Chris Hammond, MS, IMH Have you ever begun a project knowing that it was the right thing to do but everything seems to be working against you? Without even realizing it, discouragement overtakes you and what appears to be a good idea has now been put on the back burner. Maybe the discouragement came in the form of criticism by a loved one or in the form of diminished enthusiasm from co-workers or in the form of last minute emergencies that consume excessive amounts of time. Regardless of the source of discouragement, it is there and the once great project is no longer getting any of your attention. There is a story in the Old Testament about a group of people who tried to rebuild the Temple after it was destroyed but got discouraged (book of Haggai). Several governmental officials went out of their way to prevent the rebuilding from happening and slow the efforts of the workers. The workers in turn got distracted with building their own houses, planting crops and tending to the...

By Aaron Welch, LMHC, NCC, CSOTS This article may be less like an article than any I’ve written before. Normally, I really have a grasp of what I’m going to write before I ever write it but, today, the title of my article is an honest question. Truly, why CAN’T I focus on God today? I mean, I’ve done everything I normally would do to spend time with my Creator. I’ve read my Bible, with a focus on how the words relate to my own life right now. I prayed that God would convict me of how I can apply the messages to my own life. I barely got through 3 chapters and, normally, I can read much more, not because I feel obligated, but because I enjoy them. But today, I had to stop because I couldn’t focus. I thought that, perhaps, I needed to spend some time in the awesome workbook, “Experiencing God” and so I read and meditated on the next daily devotional time. It was great! It had some really great ideas about being a godly parent, a topic that TOTAL...

By: Dr. John C. Maxwell Most of us never see our dreams come true. Instead of soaring through the clouds, our dreams languish like a broken-down airplane confined to its hangar. Through life, I have come to identify five common reasons why dreams don't take flight. #1 We Have Been Discouraged from Dreaming by Others We have to pilot our own dreams; we cannot entrust them to anyone else. People who aren't following their own dreams resent us pursuing ours. Such people feel inadequate when we succeed, so they try to drag us down. If we listen to external voices, then we allow our dreams to be hijacked. At some point, other people will place limitations on us by doubting our abilities. When surrounded by the turbulence of criticism, we have to grasp the controls tightly to keep from being knocked off course. #2 We Are Hindered by Past Disappointments and Hurts In the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise plays Maverick, a young, talented, and cocky aviator who dreams of being the pr...