What If Happiness Is Something You Choose?

Derwent Water, Keswick

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

This is the time of year when we start to think about hibernation, feeling cosy and being at home, remembering what’s important to us.  What we often don’t realise is that it is also a great time to reflect and reassess where we are and where we wat to be, really focusing in on our priories.  We are led to believe that the new year is the time to set our goals and look to make changes but when we take time to stop, rest and recharge we are able to think so much clearer making this the perfect time.  Why wait to create the life you want when it could all start in front of the fire feeling rested and ready.

November is also the month when we recognise: World Freedom Day (9th), a day to practise respect and embrace the diversity of our world, a reminder for us to act now for a kinder, fairer world, to use our voice against hate and inequality; International Day for Tolerance (16th), an annual observance day declared by UNESCO to raise awareness of the dangers of intolerance, by learning more about tolerance and celebrating the differences between cultures, leaning into understanding, to start the uncomfortable conversations, and to see that difference isn’t danger it’s depth.; World Hello Day (21st), a day dedicated to promoting peace and unity through simple greetings, highlighting the importance of personal communication and being a lovely human being, bringing it all back to something beautifully simple connection, a smile, a greeting, a moment of warmth can ripple further than we realise; and International Stress Awareness Week (3rd-7th), with the mission to highlight and raise awareness to the effects of stress in modern life and promotion of techniques and strategies to help reduce it, it’s a great time to acknowledge how modern life can wear us down, to remember that we don’t have to push endlessly, rest isn’t laziness it’s wisdom.

November is also lung cancer awareness month, something that sits very close to home for me after losing my Dad suddenly and quickly to the disease almost ten years ago.  For me a stark reminder that life is fragile, it’s not guaranteed and sometimes the only way to honour that is to live fully with courage, compassion, and purpose. Losing my Dad so suddenly and at such a young age was definitely one of the factors that helped me to reassess and make changes to create a life I wanted, a life I felt proud of and one where I felt I was making a difference. How often do we stop ourselves from making a change because we’re afraid of getting it wrong, looking foolish or stepping out of line? What if the real mistake is staying still? What if happiness isn’t something we find, but something we choose and create every single day, in the way we show up?  November, with its quietness, gives us space to ask the big questions:  Am I living in a way that feels authentic to me? What would make me truly happy, not just comfortable and safe but fulfilled?  What do I want to be remembered for? These questions matter more than we realise, because our answers shape the life we’re creating, moment by moment.

So, as we move through this month, I invite you to slow down, reflect, reassess.  Ask yourself what truly matters and have the courage to align your life with that truth. It’s the perfect month to think about how you show up in the world and what you want to be remembered for.  Because at the end of it all, it won’t be about how much we did or how “perfectly” we lived, it’ll be about how deeply we loved, how boldly we showed up, and how authentically we made it count.