Most of us want to be happy, but what is happiness?
The concept of happiness has been defined in many ways. Perhaps it's being content with yourself, having a solid group of friends who will always accept you, or it is following the greatest desire that makes you live happily.
We all want to figure out ways to be happier and to enjoy our lives more. Whatever may be the source of happiness for you, living a better, more fulfilled life is never difficult.
A few changes to your daily routine will help you get there. But one of the most crucial things is our habits. Our good habits are so crucial that incorporating them into our daily routine is a must if we want to live a better and happier life.
How Changing Habits Increase Happiness?
Our daily habits act like a medium that helps to shift our mindset towards positivity and thereby make us feel good and happy every day.
Happiness is a state of mind, not a circumstance. Small changes in our behavior, surroundings and relationships can all help us get on the path to a happier life. So, here are the top 15 tips that will help you to discover ways to live a happy life.
1. Positive In Every Situation
The first thing you can do to live a happier life is just to look for positivity in every situation. Ultimately in the end everything works out well or it just becomes a learning experience.
Every experience we get becomes a part of life's story. It is these experiences that shape us. Finally, it is we who need to choose how we respond to it based on how we view it.
If we view it, positively, we look for the positivity in it.
How Positivity Actually works?
A positive mindset boosts your motivation to strive and achieve your goals. It will persuade you that you will receive what you desire. It will also inspire you to achieve more than you could have imagined.
In short, how you feel about yourself is heavily influenced by your attitude and the way you think.
But if we just view things as negative, or if we just notice the negative aspects of things, then we won't learn from them and instead, we'll just feel bitter and unhappy. So looking for the positive in everything is important to persuade yourself that happiness is based on how you view things in your life.
2. Prioritize Your Values
The second thing you can do to live happier is to consider what your values in life are and figure out how you can actually live them out.
A lot of us go through the daily motions of our life and we just follow whatever course society put in front of us and we do things without even thinking about why we're doing them and why we spend our time on the things that don't really reflect the things in life that are truly important to us.
So take some time to figure out, actually what you care about in life. Do you care about freedom? Do you care about spending time with family? Do you care about living in a luxurious environment? Do you care about having adventures?
Figure out how these things in your life make you happy and how you can make your life more in line with what your values are.
3. Plan
It can be so easy to wake up and just get caught up in responding to things and being reactive. So you wake up and you have emails and texts that come in and notifications on your phone and you just start responding immediately. I guess everyone among us does the same thing once we wake up.
But not checking your mobile after getting up in the morning and making note of the things that are on top priority for you for that day and how you want to work on it will help you to spend your time a lot more meaningfully and do things that matter to you more.
4. Socialize With Uplifting People
Socializing with good uplifting people regularly.
Nothing lifts the mood more than spending time with good friends who are encouraging and are really uplifting you.
There may be a bunch of friends you must be having with whom you must be spending your time, sharing your life, having just normal chats, and then just passing time on normal conversations. On the other hand, having a company of people who gives you real advice, who motivate you, who helps you to see the positive side of life makes you feel great and positive and motivated in your life.
I feel one of the ways where happiness also depends is the type of people we chose to spend our time with. Isn't it?
5. Prepare A List of Things That You Would Love To Do
Make a list of things that you love doing and then make time for those things regularly.
When we are working, most of our time we spend in the office and keep ourselves busy in office work and then after reaching home we just spend our time relaxing, or just watch TV and then have dinner and sleep. This is the normal routine of every one of us who spends most of his time at work. And then we keep wondering about the things that we wish we could.
We see YouTube videos on traveling and we wish we could travel more or we wish we had time to go on a hike or maybe wish we had time to watch our favorite movie or read a favorite book or to spend some time on a hobby that we really loved. But nothing becomes a reality because we get so much busy in our daily life that we hardly could think about spending our time on the things that we would love to do.
So, make a good plan to spend at least some time from your day on the things that would make you happy. Try making a list of small things you would love to do and would like to experience.
Making a list of things that you want to experience will help you to remember them and make a plan according to your convenience.
6. Be Thankful
The next thing that you can do to live a happier life is to be intentionally thankful.
Often we say thanks to people without really meaning it or without really feeling it. But instead, if you take some time to really put some thought and some emotion behind the giving of thanks and tell them how their support has helped you and impacted your life in better ways.
The power of thankfulness is undeniable. It can have a profound impact on your personal relationships, happiness, and mental health.
There are many benefits to having an intentional practice of gratitude. Leading psychologists have found that being intentionally thankful helps people focus on what they are grateful for and acknowledge that there is always something to be thankful for.
Practicing thankfulness creates a significant, positive effect on your physical health, mental well-being, and social relationships.
Creating a gratitude attitude will help you feel more satisfied with your life and are more likely to have fewer physical health problems. This is because, when a person feels grateful, they are less likely to experience stress or depression. Eventually keeping you happy with less worry and stress. So next time you meant to say thank you to someone who touched your heart, don't hesitate.
7. Listen To Your Body
It's hard to feel happy when you feel bad physically. Though, it's good to be physically fit and exercise daily and follow a healthy diet. But sometimes you get tired of following this routine and you feel like giving a break to your body and having some different food than that regular diet. Having a cheat meal day or taking a break from your regular exercise for a day and spending that time on things that interest you or having food you would want to will make you happy.
Remember to listen to your thoughts as it's always a message from your body. Forcing yourself against the things you wish to do will irritate you and you will be less happy than you would be. So follow your instincts whenever you get them.
8. Define Your goals
The eighth way that you can live a happier life, is to make meaningful goals. Whether you're a very goal-oriented person or not, every individual has different goals and desires. Some people want to save for retirement, some people want to buy a house, and some people just want to be happy.
The idea is that if you work towards your goals, you will reach a level of happiness. It's been often observed that the pursuit of working toward something that challenges you to really work on if you want to achieve becomes a pleasurable thing to do. And the happiness you feel after achieving your goal cannot be measured with any other things that would give you pleasure.
Recent studies show that goals are an essential ingredient to happiness. If you want to be happier, you need to define your goals.
You are more likely to attain your happiness if you focus on what you want out of your life. There are many different strategies for attaining happiness, but there is a common theme for most of them, that is, work towards achieving what you want.
9. Maintain a Diary
Childhood is the golden day of every person's life. Those innocent days when our teachers were making us practice a habit of maintaining a diary and writing about the things that are happening in our life, writing about how we spend our day, what we want to achieve, and whatnot.
Research says there are plenty of benefits of maintaining a diary.
Maintaining a diary helps you to note down the goals - small or big that you want to achieve, places that you wish to see before you get old or you record the happenings from your life. As you write a diary, your descriptive language improves, you use your creativity to express your feelings. You try your best to explain your viewpoint and thus all this leads you to feel relaxed, stressfree and happy.
Therefore making a habit of maintaining a diary and writing what you feel helps you to get over emotional stress and have motivating self-talk.
10. It's Experience That Matters
We spend a significant percentage of our lives working, so we should take the time to do something worth remembering.
One of the most effective ways to make your workdays more rewarding is by making sure you're spending your money on activities that are actually fun and enjoyable.
An easy way for you to start doing this is to set aside part of your paycheck each month for personal experiences, like buying tickets to an event, registering for a class.
Take for instance going to see your favorite band in concert. You buy a ticket and enjoy the show. But at the end of the show, you have nothing but memories. Some people might even say they enjoyed the show more because they had to use their imagination and fill in the details themselves.
Experiences are vital to a person's happiness because they create memories that you can look back on and reminisce. Memories make you think about the feelings that you felt and the people who were with you when it happened. Therefore, experience is more important than anything else. Material goods can be replaced, but an experience gives you a lifetime memory.
11. Change For a Better
Human life is never meant to be constant. So, if we are stagnant as humans and we are not growing and changing and getting better, we won't feel positive. And we won't feel like we are moving forward in life and becoming better.
But if we take the time regularly, learn new things, and set goals for ourselves goals that challenge us, then it will continue to help us to grow and become better.
Reading books is a great way to do this. You might also consider watching Ted Talks on YouTube or joining courses that would help you to move ahead in life in better ways. You could even consider subscribing to this blog to read interesting articles.
12. Smile
Many things can leave us feeling down. Sometimes it's personal, sometimes it's professional, and sometimes it's just the weather. While we can't always do anything about life's challenges, we can control our reactions to them.
The next time you are feeling down, try smiling. Smiling is a simple and effective way to keep yourself feeling good all day long.
It might feel a little silly or strange, but it will keep your mood up.
Smiling is scientifically proven to make you happy. In fact, research has found that a smile can trigger endorphins in your brain, which are the body's natural feel-good chemicals.
You can also use smiling to fool your brain into making you feel more positive. Every time someone smiles, they activate the parts of their brain associated with happiness and positivity. When you smile, you are essentially tricking your brain into thinking that you are feeling better, so you will start to feel better!
Also, when you smile, your mouth turns up in a smile and your face glows brighter and you look full with a positive attitude.
People want to be around happy people--it makes them happy too. It also gives you an edge. Studies have shown that when people see someone smiling, they assume that person earns more money, has better health, and is more sociable than those who don't smile.
So, smiling can be called a way that leads to happiness that can help you to get along with people who would love to be with you.
13. Be Generous
Generosity is an important virtue, which is not only a good quality for society but also helps you in many ways. Generosity can be defined as giving and sharing something that you have.
Helping makes you happy. Thus, Generosity can be a great way to make someone feel special. It's a good way to spread happiness and make people feel special.
People are more likely to reciprocate kindness, and they are more likely to help you out if you're nice to them. Being generous is also a great way to show people that you care about them, and it can make them more willing to help you out in the future.
Generosity makes happiness. Generosity is a positive trait that makes us happy. It is a quality that increases our happiness, makes us feel positive, contented and helps us to grow. Generous people are happier than those who are not.
14. Take a Walk Outdoor
Nature trekkers have "calmer" brains and a lower blood flow to the area of the brain linked to rumination. According to several studies, even looking at photographs of nature might enhance your attitude.
Sunlight has an impact as well. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a real condition.
Natural sunlight exposure is beneficial to your mood, whether you spend time outside or live in a room with natural light.
So, always make a schedule to spend some time with nature. If there is any park near your area or even a corridor garden. Experience some time in nature and feel the fresh air.
Spending even a little time in nature helps you to relieve yourself from stress and refresh you to get over the problem and reset your mood to be happy.
15. Spend Some Time Away From Mobile
People spend a lot of time on their phones, which should come as no surprise. And you may be wondering, "What's the big deal?" Why would you want to give up a habit that doesn't appear to be causing you any problems?
While not everyone is affected by smartphone use in the same way, spending a lot of time on your phone unknowingly makes you addicted to mobile and can harm your mental health, eventually diminish your ability to focus, cause relationship problems and depression.
Mental health issues like stress, depression, worry, anxiety are some of the causes that hinder happiness in our life.
Too much of being online on social sites and seeing your friend's status, posts can make you compare your life with theirs and distract you from your life thus, making you worry and stressed for no reason.
Therefore, spending a small amount of time offline and away from mobile can help you to divert your mind to the things that need your attention in the real world. And these things can be a reason for happiness in your life.
PERSONAL OPINION
Make happiness a habit.
Life is full of ups and downs, and we often find ourselves in a situation where we are unhappy. The reason behind this is that we fail to understand that happiness is a choice.
If you want to be happy, there are various ways that you can do so. Finding what makes you happy is the greatest virtue while being grateful for the things you have and doing something for someone else and making them feel they are important. Also making an effort to improve your life and free yourself from comparing with others while taking good care of yourself can all help you to be happy and create happiness in other's life.
We've all experienced times when we're unhappy, but we don't let it consume us or stop us from doing what we need to do. By reading this blog post, you have taken an important step towards making that choice. We hope you enjoy your time on our blog and wish you the best of luck in finding happiness.
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