What is your goal? What is it that drives you? After achieving your goal how do you feel? You feel happy, right? So does that mean your eventual goal is to be happy?
What is happiness? We can find a lot of different definitions for Happiness, but we know it when we feel it, and we often use the term to describe a range of positive emotions, including joy, pride, contentment, and gratitude. Happiness is a state of mind.
Many people associate success with happiness and they feel that they can be happy only if they are successful which shouldn’t be the case because success is circumstantial and happiness is not. You can stay happy even if you don’t own a big bungalow, fast car or a large bank balance. But the important thing is that you must first identify what makes you happy?
1. Change the way you think: Glass half full. Occupy your mind with positive thoughts. Look for the positive in all your experiences. The old saying that you find what you look for is true. Start. Because of this, make it a habit to actively seek out the positive in any experience.
Focusing on your experiences in the present moment without worrying too about the future. If you have 10 tasks, break it down. Set a goal that you have to complete 2 of those tasks by tomorrow and don’t worry about the other 8. Accept harsh experiences and problems as learning opportunities. It can be tempting to let challenges or roadblocks keep us from feeling happy. Sometimes, it looks like there’s nothing good about a particular situation or experience. However, it’s important to think about even the greatest setbacks as experiences we can learn from for great results in the future tomorrow.
Cultivate optimism. Why does winning the lottery not make people happy? In the 1970s, researchers followed people who’d won the lottery and found that a year afterward, they were no happier than people who hadn’t. This is called hedonic adaptation,which suggests that we each have a “baseline” of happiness to which we return. No matter what events occur, good or bad, the effect on our happiness is temporary, and happiness tends to quickly revert to the baseline level. Some people have a higher baseline happiness level than others, and that is due in part to genetics, but it’s also largely influenced by how you think
“I’m terrible at math. I’m going to fail that test tomorrow. I might as well just watch TV.” This statement suggests that your math skills are inherent and unchangeable, rather than a skill you can develop with work. Such an outlook could lead you to study less because you feel like there’s no point to it — you’re just an inherently bad mathematics student. This isn’t helpful.
An optimistic outlook would say something like “I’m concerned about doing well on that test tomorrow, but I’m going to study as well as I can and do my best.” Optimism doesn’t deny the reality of challenges, but it interprets how you approach them differently.
Show yourself self-compassion. Beating yourself up or giving in to negative thoughts can leave you feeling weak and unhappy. Dwelling on negative thoughts or feelings of guilt doesn’t promote improvement; it actually hoslds you back from growing and learning. Instead, show yourself the same kindness and generosity you should show to a friend
Make friends, happiness can be contagious. But stay away to from depressing people.
Meditate:
In one study, a research team from Massachusetts General Hospital looked at the brain scans of 16 people before and after they participated in an eight-week course in mindfulness meditation. Neuroimaging concluded that after completing the course, parts of the participants’ brains associated with compassion and self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank.
9. Move Closer to Work: A Short Commute is Worth More Than a Big House
If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
Happiness is Not A Final Destination but it’s a journey!