For many of us, we don’t / won’t / can’t quite grasp what real happiness even is, or how we achieve it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and it’s pretty commonplace for human beings to question what makes them happy and how often we’re really happy anyway.
To help you find your own happiness, we’ve gathered some small tips and tricks that you can implement every day. It’s often the small battles that deliver the big wins.
Practice mindfulness every day
Helping to stabilize anxiety, lower depression, lower stress levels, mindfulness is a mental training technique that keeps you focused on the present. The easiest way to start your mindfulness journey is to just sit, in a comfortable position, and focus on your breathing. With deep breaths in and out, keep your mind as still as you can (your thoughts are bound to wander) and allow it to gently refocus on the present. A wandering mind is absolutely normal and to begin with, you may struggle. But if you start small, say 10 minutes a day, and then work your way up – you’ll soon see the positive impact this has on your life and also, you’ll see how much longer you can now mindfully meditate for.
There is no strict discipline here – morning or evening, whatever suits you. You don’t need to burn sage or wear a yoga outfit or suddenly become a Buddhist either. It’s a very simple but hugely effective mental practice that every single person alive will benefit from.
Start to curate your thoughts and emotions, as you would your daily outfits
It’s easy to somehow believe these thoughts represent who we are – but this is a common mistake. A huge mistake, to be exact.
It’s time you learnt that you can, and will, curate your own thoughts and internal discussions, just like you would your outfit. It takes hard work, effort and energy – but the results will be worth it. You need to recognise whenever you have bad feelings or negative thoughts, then actively swap them for a positive replacement.
It’s going to take time and you’ll not get it straight away, but as they say, practice makes perfect.
If you keep doing this, over and over, soon your positive mindset will become auto-pilot and you’ll think different and feel different.
Get yourself a small change money bank
Journal every morning – even if it’s a few sentences only
So if you wake up and write a few positive lines in your journal, every day, you’ll start to create your own future on your wants and dreams. Try writing things you’re grateful for now, things that make you happy now, and then your future ideals and goals.
Not only are you collecting daily thoughts and producing positivity, you’re also creating something to look back on, in the future, in which you can see how much you’ve grown (and hopefully, see that everything has come true too!).
Set big goals but always start small
Instead, make sure you do set these life-affirming goals and dreams, but then set very small ones that help put you on the right path. Break it all down into more manageable, more achievable goals and work slowly towards these. Without you even realising it, you’ll eventually achieve your ultimate goal just by religiously continuing to achieve all the smaller ones, Bingo!
Make dedicated ‘work’ time versus ‘social media procrastination’ time
If you start to get all your work duties done, every day, before home time – the feelings of self accomplishment and less stress will be so overwhelming! You’ll be happy with a sense of achievement.
Never see others as competition
Whilst healthy competition is good to push us all to achieve and strive for more, if it becomes an obsessive negative emotion for you, then it’s bad news.
Instead, try investing this energy to get more of a positive outcome for yourself. Genuinely (it must be genuine!) wish everyone around you the best, hope that they get their dreams realised and focus on realising your own. Heck, you might even learn new things from them that accelerates your own dreams into a reality!
Accept the past is done and the future hasn’t happened
Think about it. Does dwelling on all your previous mistakes make you happier or regretful? Does focusing on ideals or dreams that you’ve not reached yet make you happier or frustrated? The only true happiness you can find, is in the here and now.
So if you find your mind suddenly fixated on bad memories from the past, or angst about future issues, stop yourself in your tracks. Switch these thoughts onto something very present, like your current work project or lunch plans.
Carve a small amount of time, daily, to learn something new
Whilst working hard every day at your job is fantastic, it can often leave you feeling rather uninspired when everything becomes autopilot and you feel you’ve learnt everything you can. To get your brain juices flowing and get yourself motivated, try learn something new everyday.
Whether it’s from listening to a podcast, watching a documentary on TV or even just screening YouTube videos on your lunch – try educate yourself every single day. The growth mindset will really help push your happiness levels, and of course, give you more to talk about during dinner dates.
Go to bed at a decent time to get a restful night’s sleep
Not getting 8+ hours sleep a night will really change your entire outlook that day, your mood, your energy levels and, over time, your appearance too! Sleep is so important, we can’t stress that enough. A severe lack of sleep, borderline fatigue, is going to drain you out of any happiness you manage to find. Try as best you can to hit the 8 hours recommended allowance of sleep per night.
