Living your strongest and happiest life.

I've found that the universe always has an uncanny way of leaving you little hints of what's to come; always showing you that you are on the right (or wrong!) path, with small signs here and there to guide you along the way.

All you have to do, is take notice, and listen; to be prepared and armed with a plan, ready for action.

Not too long after I wrote about my resolve to be (and become, still) a happier person a few days ago, I received in my inbox an interesting newletter article from SUCCESS Magazine titled, "Come on and get happy."

*looks around*.

*points to self*.

Wait. Who should be getting (more) happy, me?

Oh, yeah. Me.

The article referred to a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, where research suggested that life satisfaction, particularly among women, is declining. Data pulled from the study, which involved over 45,000 women over a period of 40 years, pointed to two things: that not only are we less happy than our male counterparts, but that we are also gradually becoming less and less happy, period.

I was both relieved, yet appalled when I read this. Relieved because it feels good not to be alone in my discontent, but completely appalled because we aren't the helpless, passive, or reactive sex that society seems to (still) make us out to be. We can totally do something about this. We can actively and fully regain and embrace our power to be happy.

But perhaps the bigger question on everyone's mind is, how?

I then found out about Marcus Buckingham, a New York Times bestselling author, motivational speaker, and all-around personal strengths expert, who tackled the subject of women's happiness in his book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently. According to him, the happiest and most successful women of our time exhibited certain similarities, such as:

• focusing their lives on their best moments;
• letting go of what doesn't strengthen them;
• and, perhaps the most important one of all to me, accepting who they are.

More specifically, he urges women to explore the role they were born to play -- and then play it well.

(To find out your role, you can take his quiz at StrongLifeTest.com, which gives you a number of different hypothetical situations, with a variety of possible decision choices for each. The choice you make in each situation then indicates your interests, strengths, and the corresponding role that's likely to be most fulfilling for you.)

"Knowing your role is like having a compass providing direction on where to find happiness," he says. "The test provides a clear distinction of your biggest strength and suggests career moves that match those strengths."

Now, as we all know, women play a multitude of roles these days, from mothers, daughters, and sisters, to executives, consultants, or assistants. But I think Buckingham's on to something here, and I'm just mad he jumped on it before I (or anyone else) did.

After taking the quiz a few times over the past few days, and consistently scoring the "Creator" role each and every time, I've realized that I am at my best -- and, ultimately, happiest -- when I am developing new content, writing or blogging, brainstorming ideas or implementing new systems, or even just randomly doodling on the side of my notebook during meetings.

And although this realization was more of a reaffirmation of my existing strengths versus a more epic A-HA! moment of utter clarity, I took this as a good sign that I am doing something right; that even though my current job is nowhere near what I envision myself doing down the line, "for the rest of my life", at least I am creating, and finding, opportunities for myself to get to that point, one day.

And, you better believe I will appreciate it so much more when I do.