Naturally, I can't argue with Michaela's excellent answer :)

I thought I would use this opportunity to expand a little more on how to use 'Joy first. And anything else you have time for' since, as you're beginning to realize, it is really the key to everything in life.

One vital point of understanding about 'Joy First' which may not be immediately obvious is that the statement does not actually say 'Get Into Joy First', it just says 'Joy First', which actually means 'Aim For Joy First'.

Aiming for an emotion is very different to getting into an emotion.

If you are currently feeling Depressed, there's no way you can leap into Joy anyway. It's just too much of a jump up the emotional scale.

In the diagram below, Depression (No. 22) is at the bottom of the scale while Joy (No. 1) is right at the top.

With the emotional scale, you generally only have vibrational access to a few emotional setpoints above or below where your dominant feeling regarding a subject currently is.

So if, say, you are feeling Hatred (No. 19), the best you may be able to feel in that moment might only be Anger (No. 17) and the worst might be Guilt (No. 21).

That's not to say that you cannot move your current vibrational/emotional setpoint (using methods like Focus Blocks) but it does mean that your emotional range is fixed and in that moment you cannot perceive Joy at all.

Joy First means you should aim for the best-feeling emotion you can at the time...the one that brings you the most relief.

One interesting sidenote about your emotional range being fixed is that someone who, say, habitually lives in Revenge (No. 18) murders another and then immediately regrets it cannot feel any worse in that moment than someone who say, lives in Optimism (No. 5) and then dips into Blame (No. 15). Both will be experiencing similar amounts of emotional pain even though you might think instinctively that the regretful murderer would be suffering more.

As Abraham say, when you are feeling good, a little bit of feeling bad can go a long, long way.

The sidenote to this sidenote then is that as you start to feel better about things in your life, you have a responsibility to yourself to consciously release resistance as it comes up otherwise the thoughts you may have been able to settle on previously with little discomfort while your emotional setpoint was lower will wreak havoc upon your new mental state (and your physical body) as you try to settle into this new better-feeling emotional setpoint.

Those old thoughts will now be on the extremes of your emotional range and will cause a vibrational contradiction within you that will feel painful even though they previously felt comfortable when your emotional range was at a lower setpoint.

This vibrational contradiction, when carried to the extreme, is the real cause behind many physical terminal illnesses such as cancer.

This idea of humans having a fixed emotional range is worth contemplating because it will explain alot about how people behave around you.

And you'll realize that often people are behaving in the best way they can, even though you think they should be behaving better.

Sometimes it is unreasonable to expect people to be reasonable :)

Back to the question of Joy First now...

I said earlier that the phrase really means Aim For Joy First. (Bashar uses the word Excitement rather than Joy to describe exactly the same idea and you can use that word instead if you prefer).

Now here's how you use the idea of Joy First...

Whenever you reach a point of decision in any moment in your life about what to do next, stop briefly, and look at all the options available to you.

The best choice for you is to do the thing that most aims for Joy.

As said previously, if you are in Hatred in that moment (No. 19), the most aiming for Joy emotion you might be able to reach might only be Anger (No. 17) so that would be your preferred choice of action in that moment.

By action, I don't necessarily mean only physical action, I mean also mental action (thought). It's usually not a great idea to take physical action when you are feeling bad, but sometimes you may feel you have no choice but to physically act.

Now once you have acted, you keep going with your action until it no longer feels like the most aiming for Joy (or exciting thing) to do anymore.

Then you stop briefly again and reconsider your options, and again, choose to do the next thing that is the most aiming for Joy (or exciting) thing you think you can.

This may lead to you apparently doing a series of random unconnected tasks during your day, but they won't be unconnected at all...they will all actually be the things that will be the most beneficial for you to do in your life at those times even if you don't consciously understand why...those tasks will all be connected by a thread of joy...and if you continue following that thread of joy in everything you do, your life will transform rapidly into how you really want it to be.

'Joy First' is a complete toolkit for living your life in the best way you can. It contains everything you need to know about how to run your life in every moment, and continued use of it will seemingly work miracles if you trust it.

To summarize:

• Whenever you have a choice about what to do next in your life, pick the thing to do that seems to you to contain the most joy or excitement from where you are emotionally.

• Do it for as long as you want, or until you feel doing something else now would contain the most joy or excitement. In that case, stop and do that instead.

• Repeat the process for the rest of your life.

To summarize the summary:

• Joy first. And anything else you have time for

If you are interested in applying this idea systematically in your life, you could try using one of the free AutoFocus time management systems which fit well with this idea of "work on the best-feeling thing as long as you feel like it".