Happiness is that sometime elusive thing that we all want. Who does not want to be happy? But what is happiness really? Happiness is when you feel good generally. It can comprise feelings of inner peace and contentment. Happiness means different things to different people. Some seek adventure and excitement to feel happy. Others seek comfort and predictability. It all depends on our unique qualities and preferences, what happiness means to us.
Happiness is not always something that just happens. Sometimes we need to make an effort to attain happiness. There are things we can do to make our sense of happiness blossom. Read up on the following guidelines to help you in your quest towards happiness.
1. Surround Yourself With Positive People
The people around you have an undeniable effect on your state of happiness, or lack thereof. If you are spending time with negative people, do not be surprised if their negativity rubs off on you. Being in a negative mindset is not the base to build happiness upon. Conversely, spending time with positive people can buoy one up in mood. The positivity rubs off on you and brightens your day. So choose who you spend time with wisely in your quest for happiness. Choose positive people to create a positive force in your life.
2. Set Goals for Yourself
It is difficult to feel a sense of motivation if we have no goals. Setting goals for yourself fosters a sense of challenge. It spurs motivation. A goal gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning and start your day. Motivation contributes to our feelings of happiness. Goals should be realistic. They should be something that with effort we can accomplish. Setting unrealistic goals will not serve to increase our sense of happiness, in fact it will likely do the opposite, causing us to feel bad about ourselves and therefore less happy. We want to feel good about ourselves to increase happiness. Accomplishing goals creates a sense of pride in oneself. That sense of pride contributes to one’s self-esteem. Having higher self-esteem increases happiness, because with healthy self-esteem you are happy with yourself. So set (realistic) goals to increase your happiness.
3. Do the Things You Enjoy
In order to increase our happiness, it is important to spend some time doing things we enjoy. This could be listening to music, watching your favorite show on Netflix, cooking, partaking in a hobby, or just relaxing. It is important to carve out time to do the things we enjoy. Leisure activities can act as a happy distraction from troubles, a time to heal from our stressors. TV shows and movies can offer an escape from our reality, an escape that gives us, at least temporarily, relief from our problems. Listening to music can soothe and calm us, energize and uplift.
Life can be hectic, and taking time for enjoyable activities can fall on the backburner. We may believe that it is not of importance for us to have that time for fun. But nurturing our happiness is important, and taking time for the activities we love is part of nurturing our inner happiness. So don’t feel guilty the next time you watch your favorite show. You deserve that leisure time, and it will serve to increase your happiness.
4. Find Your Spiritual Center
Getting in touch with one’s spiritual side can be very uplifting to one’s psyche--whether that means practicing a religion, independent prayer, meditation, or quiet reflection. Finding one’s spiritual center can help one attain a sense of inner peace. Life can be very hectic, and taking the time for spiritual reflection can easily fall to the wayside. But nurturing one’s spirituality is important to increase one’s happiness. Simply spending time in nature can help to guide our spiritual growth. The beauty of nature is awe-inspiring and can lift our spirits and serve as a backdrop that welcomes our quiet reflection. It is in those quiet times that we can get in tune with our inner spirit and find our way to inner peace and increased happiness.
5. Take Time for Physical Activity
Taking time for physical activity is another way to boost one’s feelings of happiness. Physical activity gets our metabolism going and stimulates hormones that make us feel good. Physical activity can mean structured exercise, like working out in a gym or running, or it can be the walk you do for your morning commute. Dancing is a wonderful form of exercise that most anyone can do. Exercise is an individualized activity. We can all exercise in our own way, and in so doing, pump up our energy level and increase feelings of happiness.
6. Practice Positive Self-Talk
What we say to ourselves in our own minds has a direct bearing on our happiness. Negative statements about oneself or one’s life psyche one out. They make you feel low and even without hope. The negative statements could not be more personal than coming from you yourself. Ironically, ideally you should act as your own best friend. But when you make negative statements to yourself, you are acting like an enemy.
Negative self-talk can become a bad habit that can take effort to break free from. But with diligence, you can break free. The first thing you need to do is to catch yourself when you are engaging in negative self-talk. It can be helpful to take an action once you have caught yourself, like clapping or pinching yourself. This reinforces the fact to you that what you are doing is wrong. Next, replace the negative statement with a positive one. Dig deep if you must and find some positive statement, however small, to say to yourself.
Positive self-talk buoys you up. Over time, it helps you to gain confidence and to feel good about yourself and your life. The positive statements can run the gamut. They can be most anything, as long as they are positive. They can be about yourself, an aspect of your life, a person in your life, or your pet, for example. The task is to come up with some statement that is positive, and that is all. Practice positive self-talk and feel your happiness rise.
7. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
In this modern age, we are offered a peek into other people’s lives, including the rich and famous, through social media. It is easy to get caught up in a game of comparison. Seeing the highlight reel of another person’s life can easily make us feel that our own life is lacking. But we have to remember that what is displayed on social media is just that, a highlight reel. Everybody has their own set of problems. These are just usually not displayed on their social media feed. It is important to remember that, and to not get caught up in comparing oneself to the highlights inundating us on social media. The focus should be on one’s own life. And if you are going to compare, compare your own life to your life in the past. This can bring insights and motivation. Self-improvement should be your focus. So stop comparing yourself to others, and feel your happiness grow.
8. Focus On Self-Care
Our lives can be busy and hectic, and sometimes self-care can fall to the wayside with all that we have to do. But it is important to put self-care on your to-do list too. Taking time to care for yourself lays a foundation for your personal happiness. It signals to you that you are important. It exhibits self-love. We all need time to destress and relax. Those times of self-care can rejuvenate us. Self-care can include anything from taking a relaxing bath to eating nutritional food, caring for one’s appearance, or spending time doing destressing activities that we enjoy. Taking that time for self-care is crucial to one’s happiness. Life shouldn’t be made up of constant stress and constantly focusing on others. That is not an optimal situation for our happiness to thrive. Focus on self-care too in order to allow your happiness to thrive.
9. Practice Gratitude
The feeling of gratitude leads to a sense of happiness. Gratitude can be cultivated. Taking time in your daily life to think about the things you are grateful for is a habit worth developing. One can write down those things in a list or journal, or just contemplate them in one’s thoughts. We all have something to be grateful for. In the rush and stress of daily living, we may not take the time to think about what we are grateful for. That is why it is good to develop a habit of remembering what you have to be grateful for. Practice gratitude and feel your happiness expand.
10. Live in the Present Moment
Focusing on the present moment helps one to destress. Focusing on the past can lead to feeling regret. Focusing on the future can lead to worry. The past is over and the future is not yet here. But what we do have is the present. It is the here and now. Living in the present moment helps one to live more fully. It is the present where new memories are being made. You do not want to lose that time by thinking too much about the past or future, when the present is right here. Focusing on the present will help you to seize the moment, instead of letting it slip by without fully experiencing it. Live in the present moment to increase your happiness.
Conclusion
Happiness is that thing that we all want. Some of us chase it; some of us hope it comes our way. Happiness is about finding our place in this world. It is about finding a balance in one’s life. Our outside circumstances contribute to our level of happiness, as do our inner thoughts and mental state. So looking for happiness involves looking outward, as well as looking inward. There are things we can do to increase our happiness. Follow these guidelines and you will be on your way to happier times!
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