How to be happy?
This is it one of the questions people ask themselves most frequently and the high search volumes on Google attest to this.
But you can only find your true happiness within yourself and by putting your effort into it.
What I can do is talk to you about my experience and my knowledge that comes from my personal and work journey. In fact, I’ve been working on mine my whole life personal growth and for years I have been helping entrepreneurs and professionals to make the most of their businesses by increasing their performance.
In fact, your career and success also depend on your individual well-being.
I’ll ask you a difficult question right away: are you happy?
I bet your mind is wandering from side to side thinking about both the things that make you happy and the things that make you sad. It’s complicated to give a clear answer to this question if you don’t identify first what does happiness mean to you?.
Everyone wants to be happy but everyone gives happiness a different meaning. For some it means having a lot of money, for someone else finding love and for others still obtaining freedom, of any kind.
Read on if you want to find out how to find your happiness.
But first let’s see…
3 things that prevent you from being happy
Over time I came to a conclusion: being happy is not a goal but the result of a journey that you have to build day after day.
When happiness is missing it is difficult to deal with even small daily actions, everything seems heavy and disappointments appear as insurmountable problems. If you carry on like this you will never be able to achieve your goals or your happiness. In a way, it’s all about mindset.
People who are unhappy in their lives think they know what will make them happy, but they are often wrong. In fact, it happens that we attribute our happiness to ideas that derive from others or from false beliefs that we have created over time.
During my journey, made up of studies, observation and experience, I discovered that there are some things that prevent us from being happy.
I discovered some 3 appellants in most people, and they are:
- Thinking “I will be happy when…” and conclude the sentence as you want, for example “when I move house” or “when I close the right deal” and so on. This is a great way to postpone not only your goal but also your happiness. Don’t wait to be happy, if you want happiness you have to build it.
- Act only to “make others happy”. For example, choosing a path, study or work, just because other people close to you want that for you. Never give up on yourself.
- Making the mistake of “comparing yourself to others”. First of all, if you want to make comparisons you have to do them against your own standards. But above all, remember that everyone must follow their own path.
So, don’t look so much at how others are doing or what they are doing, but look at what you want, define your goals and do something every day that brings you closer to achieving them.
Money doesn’t bring happiness (but it helps)
In most cases, being happy is identified with earning a lot. In a certain sense it is like this, but I want to make a small clarification.
Obviously it’s not the money in itself to make you happy, but that’s what you can do with money. In fact, the more you earn, the more possibilities you have to afford all the other things that make you happy such as a nice house, travel, the lifestyle you like and so on.
So, to the question: Is it worth earning more to be happy?
The answer is: certainly, yes! But then you have to have goals and spend the money the right way.
In the next paragraph I will reveal 5 ways to spend well and find your happiness.
How to spend well to be happy
Happiness is such an important and debated topic that it has even reached the minds of scholars and university professors. In fact, according to research carried out at Harvard University a few years ago, there are some better ways than others to spend your money.
Here I am 5 ways to spend the right way:
- Buy experiences and not things or things that are a reflection of your experiences or that allow you to make the most of your adventure. Experiences remain more vivid over time and in your memories because they are more emotionally engaging.
- Spend on friends and with friends. If you want to create beautiful moments and beautiful memories, share your life together with other people. This way you will increase the emotions even more and you will be able to remember them together with someone else over time.
- Enjoy the journey as much as the arrival. It means that you don’t have to focus all your happiness only on the goal you want to achieve but also on the path you take to get there. This mindset will allow you to be happy for much longer.
- Spend with your heart and mind. If you always use your reason you will hardly experience strong emotions while if you only use your heart you risk letting yourself go too much and throwing your money away. Virtue lies in knowing how to calibrate your mind and heart so as to find your harmony.
- Buy lots of little things. Learn to be happy even for the simple things that populate your daily life. In this way you will enrich your days with many pills of happiness that will make you face all things better.
Live every moment so as not to miss any opportunity to be happy and enjoy your life.
Find out what makes you happy
You may feel unhappy or stressed without really knowing what causes this condition.
But you must not give up: don’t think that you are like this and that you can’t do anything about it. Happiness is a skill that needs to be trained and in order to do so, you need to understand what makes you sad.
Here it is some questions to ask yourself to understand the things that make you happy:
- If you had to choose who to spend your time with, who would you choose?
- What would you do if you didn’t have to answer to anyone?
- Where would you be if you had no obligations?
These three simple questions, in reality, require challenging answers. Take some time for yourself, think carefully and answer honestly.
It may also be difficult to accept the response, but only in this way will you open your mind, become aware of yourself and finally be able to act to change your life.
So if you think you’re not happy, don’t worry. Happiness is a skill you can develop over time thanks to your commitment. You just need to know good habits and put them into practice.
5 good habits to find happiness
We often build our lives on habits that cause us suffering, stress or pain. Not happy, we hold onto negative thoughts by continuing to complain but without fighting against our bad habits.
But they are there so many little things you can do and from which to start to be able to be happy and to make happiness your lifestyle. In fact, if your mind is busy thinking about what you like and what works well, it won’t have enough time and resources to think about negative things.
So, now let’s see right away good habits to be happy.
- Identify what you are grateful for. Every day work to find things to be happy or feel grateful for. Maybe it’s something you take for granted because it’s a habit for you but in reality it represents your privilege.
- Increase your self-esteem. Improve your skills every day and put your effort into what you do to give your best and be proud of yourself. This applies to all areas of life, both private and working.
- Find support from your group. if you have people around you who stimulate you, understand you, support you and respect you, you will have more energy, gratification and you will be happier. Also because having the recognition of others allows you to increase your self-esteem.
- Learn to manage stress. This last factor also depends on the previous three because the better you are at what you do, the more you believe in yourself and the more others believe in you and the better you will be able to manage stress and face challenges.
Here is the cocktail for your happiness. Remember that it doesn’t fall from the sky, but depends on your choices every day.
Conclusion
Being happy is not a point of arrival but a process. The more you grow, the more you improve and the happier you will be.
Wrongly, people think that being successful leads to happiness because all successful people are happy. In reality, things are a little different: happiness and success call each other. If you are happy you have more energy and possibilities to achieve success and this will make you even happier.
Also because, do you know what happens to our brain when we reach a goal?
It happens that he immediately finds another one because the one he just reached already seems normal.
Don’t wait to enjoy your happiness only when you reach your destination because it would last too short a time. The trick is train happinessfinding it even in the little things of every day to all enjoy the journey that takes you to your destination and from there you will also be ready for all the subsequent ones.
This way you will be happy for much longer.
The beauty of all the things I told you is that they have been scientifically studied, verified and summarized under positive psychology concept.
Now you know that you can be happy right away: you have the information you need, you definitely have your common sense and you have my advice. All you have to do is put into practice everything you have learned.
I’ll ask you the question again: are you happy? And what is happiness for you?