Like most people, you probably want things. Think of three things you want (before you read on). 1, 2, 3 things.

Did you do it? Whether or not you want a spiffy car, to lose weight, a new relationship, fame, fortune or whatever, you want what you want because you believe it will make you happy. Feeling good is the bottom line behind every single goal. Even if your goal is to help other people feel good, you want to do it because it makes YOU feel good. It makes you happy.

The interesting part about this is that we can be happy now before we accomplish the goal. We dont have to wait until we achieve it. As a matter of fact, we have a much better chance of reaching our goals when we can use the power of now to be happy in the present and enjoy the goals game while we play it.

Our source of joyful life energy is available to us at all times and when we let this life energy flow, we feel good. But when we block it or pinch ourselves off from our energy source, we feel bad. How do you know when youre blocking the flow of life energy? Its simple: if you feel bad, youre blocking; if you feel good, youre in the flow! What could be easier right?

Well, like many profound universal truths, its simple, but not necessarily easy. Why? Because weve learned to think in ways that cause us to feel bad, weve developed habits that bring on bad feelings and weve come to justify feeling bad. Plus, when feeling bad becomes too painful, many people turn to temporary addictive feel good solutions such as anti-depressants, junk food, alcohol, recreational drugs and other chemical mood altering crutches.

But lets not dwell on why. Lets move right past why into a healthy, self-empowering, leading-edge mastery of how. How can we make the mental shift into feeling good right now and right now and right now? How can we learn to identify how we feel and turn a bad feeling into a good feeling? How can we have it all and be happy while were pursuing our dreams and achieving our goals?

Mastering the art of focusing your mind in order to feel good right now is a very powerful skill. There are many different methods, but in the end its up to you to use whatever works in each particular moment.

The first step is to be sensitive to how youre feeling. It doesnt matter what your emotions are you either feel good or you feel bad. Period. If you feel good, acknowledge it, bask in it, stretch it out and accelerate. Take your good feelings as far as you can, for as long as you can. When youre feeling good is an excellent time to practice managing your emotions.

If you feel bad, there are various things you can do: you can start by counting your blessings; you can remember and relive past happy events; you can acknowledge any value you see in whatever is upsetting you; or you can even take a little fantasy virtual reality trip a mental vacation to someplace that makes you feel happy.

The only real difference in an ordinary person and a genius is their ability to focus. Developing and mastering the art of focusing your attention just takes practice. Feeling good, under any circumstances, also just takes practice. Over time, well go into much more detail on how to master these skills, so that you will eventually be able to take full advantage of the power of NOW. In the meantime, keep on practicing!