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To be happy is the most basic desire, and the birthright, of every human being. These 10 points presented in the video, and article below are simple and vital steps to creating the happy and fulfilling life you want and deserve.
Watch the Video - 10 Ways to Be Happy
Appreciate the things that are good in your life. Train yourself to pay attention to as many positive things around you as possible. Paying attention to the one dark cloud in an otherwise blue sky is simply a habit, and habits can be changed. It simply takes attention and practice. If you can just spend a minute enjoying something simple like the smell of coffee brewing in the morning, rather than worrying about how bad the traffic might be on the drive to work, you open a window that allows you to be happy. The more frequently you can do this throughout the day, the more happiness you are going to experience.
Decide to pay the minimum amount of attention possible to the things that you don’t like about your life. There are things in all our lives that are not exactly as we would wish them to be, and often we need to attend to these areas, such as figuring out how to pay this month’s bills. However, once you have made as good a plan as possible, and taken care of the necessary practical tasks, refuse to dwell on the subject. Turn your attention to something that makes you feel good, instead, and as a result, allow yourself to be happy more of the time.
Make doing things as easy and fun as possible. Figure out ways to make tasks you don’t enjoy much more enjoyable, or more fulfilling. Listening to your favorite music or inspiring audios during the potentially tedious drive to work can make a huge difference to how happy you feel.
Stop trying to be perfect, and to do everything perfectly. If you can start letting yourself feel okay with the fact that you have done your best, your best is good enough, and you don’t need to be perfect, you can ease up on being so hard on yourself, and actually enjoy your life and your efforts.
Figure out what you really want. It is so important to have a clear picture of what you want to do, have, and experience in your life. If you don’t know where you want to go, how are you going to get there? Having clear but realistic broad goals gives purpose and direction to life. A sense of purpose is a vital ingredient in fulfilling the desire to be happy. I say broad goals, because it is not necessary to plan every single detail of some goals. You may not know the exact job title of the job you want to have, and that is perfectly okay. However, it is very important to know the essence of what that job will give you; for example, ‘I want to work from home, I want to have a flexible schedule, I want the majority of my working time to focus on interacting with people, I want writing and speaking to be major functions of my job.’
Take time every day to imagine how wonderful your life will be living out the dreams and goals that you have chosen. Make your pictures as detailed and as real as possible. Focus on the feelings that you are going to have, and allow these joyful and positive emotions to sweep through your body. This not only allows you to actually be happy right now as a result of the good feelings your visualization is producing, but also gives a powerful boost to your motivation and ability to create the future reality you desire.
Make including more of the things you like and want in your life a priority. It is important to do things that are related to your broad goals, such as spending time doing more writing, or reading about people that are already doing the type of work you want to do. It is also equally important to do things that are just for fun, like taking a bike ride, walking barefoot in the park, or going dancing. If you want to be happy, decide that you are going to do things you enjoy as often as you possible can!
Pay attention to how you feel, and decide whether any negative emotions are based on a recent experience, or based on habit of thought.
If there are emotions that you are feeling due to a recent experience, take time to process, vent, and release these emotions, to make way for happiness to enter the space you clear.
If you are feeling habitual emotions, decide to replace the thoughts that are causing these emotions. For example, you may recognize that your habitual frustration is often a result of a thought such as, ‘Nothing ever works out the way I planned.’ One very effective way to replace these thoughts is through changing the script of what you tell yourself by using positive affirmations. Start from what you are currently saying, and move it over a notch in the direction of being positive. This might go something like, ‘Everyone has hiccups in their plans, and most of my plans do work out the way I want. There is definitely more going right in my life than wrong. Even though some things don’t work out as I planned, there is a lot I can gain from the results anyway. I am learning to find the good aspects of whatever experiences I have, and feeling happier and happier more of the time every day.’
Applying these ten ways to be happy makes an enormous difference in my life, and the lives of the people I work with. I trust that they will also make a positive difference in your life, too!
