Everyone has their own secret of happiness, but in the general understanding it comes down to one thing: living in harmony with yourself and the world around you, being satisfied and seeing meaning in your life. But the needs and desires of all people are different (not counting the lower needs), as well as different goals, values, and meanings. Therefore, it is impossible to derive a general formula for happiness, but knowing the basic rules, you can create your own individual and unique happiness. However, this is not the only issue that remains to be resolved. What is happiness: luck or the result of one’s own efforts?
Set precise goals
Goals like “earn more money” or “start a family” have no value. You must set yourself achievable and precise goals that you can accurately track. For example, earn 15 percent more this year than last, save a certain amount next month, completely give up sweets for 30 days. You will be able to determine when you have achieved your goal. And by doing this, you will receive a boost of motivation that will help you move on.
Happiness and Needs
If a person stops wanting something, striving for something, it means that he has stalled in personal development. It is known that there is no limit to perfection. Accordingly, complete satisfaction cannot be achieved. But the essence of happiness is that a person knows how to satisfy his new needs and achieve a new goal, makes plans and brings it to life. He is happy because he is active and independent. It moves, develops and improves.
But here too there is a contradiction: a state that causes frustration and strong tension cannot be considered normal dissatisfaction. That is, if dissatisfaction is associated with unfulfilled expectations and losses, then it is perceived as a state of unhappiness. But if dissatisfaction is focused on the future, serves as an incentive to achieve something that a person has not yet had, then this is an element of happiness. As a rule, such dissatisfaction relates to creative activity.
Your thoughts don't define your personality.
Thinking is changeable. If you are suffering, worried or afraid, it says nothing about you. You won't always experience these feelings, you won't constantly replay these thoughts in your head. Learn to control your mind: focus less on mistakes and negativity, think about what gives you pleasure, because a happy life is built on this.
Adviсe
Everyone can be happy. All in your hands
In order to become happy you need to believe in the possibility of your happiness.
Let's figure out what action you need to take to change your life, to find out how to live happily.
- Train yourself to look at the world positively. You need to learn to see at least a little bit of good in everything that happens. If a mistake was made, consider it as experience, as an opportunity to prevent such a mistake in the future. Avoid feelings of guilt, do not reproach yourself for failures.
- Love yourself, accept yourself as you are, with all the shortcomings, shortcomings in your figure, in your appearance. You are human, and ideal people do not exist. There will definitely be someone who will love you for who you are. You can take care of your body and play sports, but you should not resort to radical measures such as plastic surgery.
- Set yourself achievable goals. Having achieved them, raise the bar and begin to achieve more serious options.
- Smile as often as possible and be in a positive mood. Ignore the negativity that other people may project onto you.
- Dream more often, don’t be afraid to do it. Set goals for yourself that at the moment seem fantastic and unrealistic. A strong belief in achieving a dream can lead to its fulfillment.
- Constantly engage in self-development. A person should not stand still or go with the flow. To be happy you need to constantly move forward.
- Change the way you eat. Remember that what we eat greatly affects our mood, the appearance or lack of energy. This is why it is so important to have a balanced diet and eat only healthy foods.
- Play sports. Remember that physical activity promotes the secretion of happiness hormones.
- Find your purpose in life. If you realize that you now find yourself in a job you don’t like, it’s time to change your occupation. Don’t be afraid of drastic changes and the fact that you will have to study, master a new profession, if this will allow you to become happy.
- Identify a hobby for yourself. Having a favorite activity allows you to receive many positive emotions that have a beneficial effect on life in general.
- Learn to forgive, do not hold a grudge against anyone, do not be in a state of resentment, do not engage in self-flagellation.
- Always believe in yourself, in your success, in your strength. Don't despair when faced with difficulties, everyone can experience ups and downs. The main thing is to learn a lesson from what happened and continue moving in the right direction.
- Explore the world around you, merging with nature. Spend more time in the fresh air, observe how everything lives and exists, and enjoy what you see.
- Help your loved ones if they need it. Teach, give your warmth.
- Learn to deal with stress, prevent the effects of stress factors. Your task is to minimize the impact of events that can throw you off balance. It is important to be able to relax and remain in a calm mood.
- Remember that our thoughts materialize. Therefore, it is also important to have a desire to be happy.
- Leave your comfort zone more often and try something new. Don’t constantly sit within four walls, go outside the house, visit the theater, cinema, exhibitions, travel.
- Pay attention to your feelings, listen to your subconscious. Don't deny yourself what you want at the moment.
- If you are a workaholic and spend a lot of time at work, then it’s time to realize that there is another life outside the office, in which your relatives and friends are probably present, your family, which so needs your attention.
Understanding the rules of a happy life will allow you to become a happy person. Remember which habits you need to get rid of to change your life for the better, and which ones you need to add to your everyday life. Don’t forget that an optimistic attitude is already part of success on the path to your happiness.
Don't let material things control your happiness
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In modern society, it is very important not to forget about the correct consumption culture. Simply put, you must control things, and not things control you. And if you feel bad because you can’t buy new sneakers or a new phone model, then it’s not your phone that you need to change, but your attitude towards material things and their place in your life.
Don't look for a prince on a white horse
When a woman stops living and developing, and begins to wait for a prince who will gallop to her on a white horse, then her life begins to slowly but surely collapse. But even if the hard times bring to your porch a prince of unearthly beauty, passionate, energetic and singing sweet songs. Such men have never made a single woman happy. But experienced ladies say that a simple and calm, but educated and hardworking guy who will love and respect you can become an ideal husband.
Reboot
Photo: pxhere (CC0 Public Domain)
Don't let stress become your norm. Many people only dream of everyday small joys, which in fact should be the norm: getting a good night's sleep, spending time in silence, getting away from the frantic pace of life at least for half a day. This leads to the fact that stress becomes not a temporary stimulant of strength, but a permanent condition that slowly drains vitality and energy. To prevent this from happening, you need to give yourself a “deload” at least once a week. Turn off your phone and the Internet, put everything aside and do whatever you want: take a bubble bath, draw, watch a new movie, or even just sleep for half a day - the main thing is that it makes you a little happier and reduces your stress level.
Remember your family and friends
Ask 100 passersby what is most important in life, and you will get the answer - family and friends. If not everyone will answer this way, then most certainly will. But we very often forget about our family. We have too much to do and not enough time. We don't have 24 hours to work. What a family this is! But this is irresponsible. Family is truly the most important thing in life. You can always find at least a couple of minutes a day to just call your family. Instead of your Twitter and Instagram feed, call your mom.
Make yourself happy
It is unlikely that anyone outside can make you happy. It's time to accept that you are enough for this. Build a relationship with yourself, go on dates alone, choose conscious hedonism and travel as much as you want. A fulfilling life is just around the corner if you start taking at least some first steps. To those who live in peace with their inner self? you are never lonely or bored.
Live in the moment
Photo: Piotr Szczepankiewicz/flickr (Public domain)
Banal advice that few people listen to seriously anyway. “Now I will be patient, I will suffer, and then it will get better,” the person thinks, and then a new difficulty appears in his life, which he is again forced to “endure.” And in this expectation of some miracle and the evaporation of all problems, life passes. Learn to live in the present moment and make it enjoyable. Even if there are some difficulties now, work on them, but also enjoy something else. Unless, of course, you want to just “endure” your life.
How to enjoy life
The best way to learn to enjoy life is to develop your creativity. Our whole life is creativity. Creativity gives us new knowledge, benefits, achievements, aesthetic and moral pleasure.
Creativity consists of inspiration and work, and only 1% is allocated to the first element. You can create in 3 directions:
- create spiritual and material values;
- create or discover something new;
- express yourself and develop yourself.
Creating yourself, transforming the world around you is also creativity. Creativity is something between work and rest. On the one hand, this is relaxation from the process itself, but on the other hand, it is targeted effort. Creativity makes us burn, rejoice, and open up. If you perceive your whole life as a continuous field for creativity, then the feeling of flight and joy will permeate it “from” to “to”.
The modern world allows everyone to express themselves. How? Of course, via the Internet. You can create a page on a social network, a group, a website and publish your own drawings, comics, articles, videos, poems there. Moreover, I am sure that every creator will find his audience.
But this is not even the only option. Associations with artists, singers, and poets are becoming a thing of the past. Today, the term "creativity" has a much broader meaning. But it is important to remember the 2 main risks of a creative person:
- Dependencies. It is no secret that many geniuses were accompanied by drug, alcohol or cigarette addiction. These substances provide that state of happiness that is impossible at the time of creative crisis. But our body cannot calmly accept these substitutes. Many famous people had to die early or end their careers because of this.
- Workaholism. Another extreme of receiving endorphins (hormones of happiness). With active mental activity, the body produces natural hormones, they are not harmful, unlike synthetic ones (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes), they are not dangerous due to “swings” and prolonged depression, but mental work for wear and tear devastates mitochondria - glucose storage facilities, cell batteries. When they are depleted and the level of endorphins is high, the blood begins to circulate faster, intracranial pressure increases, which can cause cardiac arrest. Unfortunately, death at the table during active mental activity is not a fiction. For example, such a fate befell I. M. Tronsky, a Russian philologist and an avid workaholic.
From everything mentioned above, the conclusion suggests itself: you cannot build happiness on one thing, you need to create your own multi-component formula. This is important in order to regularly maintain a state of joy, satisfaction, expectation, inspiration, but not to overstrain any system of the body. The golden mean and moderation are good in everything. You should not put happiness on one card; it is important to always have many options for insurance and safety.
Measure in food
There are a lot of centenarians in Japan. It is from them that we should learn skills to prolong life. The secret is simple: their nutrition determines their life expectancy. The Japanese recommend not eating enough, leaving the table after being lightly full, so that the feeling of hunger is reduced by 80%. This will allow you to avoid such dangerous obesity and many diseases associated with it. What is noteworthy is that among centenarians there are absolutely no people with increased body weight. They all talk about a fairly moderate diet, trying to avoid overeating and eating too much.
More antioxidants
Antioxidants are substances that prevent the death of body cells. The more of them in our diet, the higher the likelihood of living up to a hundred years. The Japanese diet includes a large amount of seafood and vegetables. The peoples of the North Caucasus - also famous long-livers - eat vegetables, fruits, natural cheeses and nuts. All of these foods are sources of natural antioxidants.
At the same time, it is useful to limit the amount of red meat and animal fats in your diet. They provoke obesity and cause heart disease and cancer. A healthy diet based on grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, several servings of seafood per week and no more than two servings of red meat per week is correct.
Ways and art of living happily
Those who have a calm life can focus on developing other aspects, achieving new goals and normal communication with people. Good relationships are what make life happy, and no material things can replace that. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about an official or civil marriage, friendly or business relationship, it is important to maintain a balance of relationships in all areas of life.
If your earnings are completely enough for everything you need, then there is no need for additional work, which means that your life can be considered happy, because you can spend all your free time communicating with your loved ones and having a good time. But for some, on the contrary, it is self-realization in their career that is important - and for them, a happy life is unthinkable without promotion on the career ladder and success at work.
Let go of the past
Neither words, nor actions, nor anything else that happened in the past should stop you from making decisions in the present. Yes, this was your experience, but you shouldn’t focus only on the bad. Even the mistakes of the past and the departure of loved ones should not drive you into a dead end. There is a whole future ahead, in which you can not only fix everything, but also do it better.
Eating healthy never hurt anyone
It will not be a revelation to anyone that centenarians try to eat healthy. But the hamburgers are so delicious! However, if you want to live happily ever after, you will have to part with them. Just associate each sandwich you eat with a certain period of your life. If you ate a sandwich, you took a week of your life, your beloved one. I agree, the comparison may seem stupid, but in fact this statement is not so far from the truth. Try to follow this rule: make sure that 80% of the food you eat is natural. This should include vegetables, fruits, lean meats, nuts, legumes, dairy and whole grains.
Take pleasure in everyday small rituals
Photo: DanaTentis/pixabay (CC0 Creative Commons)
Yes, purchasing a new thing, which is equivalent to buying happiness with money, is, although short-term, a quick way to feel better and gain satisfaction from the present moment. But by constantly resorting to this method, you risk becoming dependent on things. Another method is also fast and short-term, but has no harmful effect, but rather the opposite. Taking pleasure in everyday little things means taking your time to drink your delicious coffee in the morning, instead of doing it automatically and on the go. Treat yourself to a delicious and leisurely breakfast on your day off. Turn the road home from work into a walk. Much nicer than living the whole day mechanically, isn’t it?
Be kinder
Both to yourself and to those around you. Let them not treat you exactly as you deserve, because you have a different goal - to be polite and not provoke conflict. Try to come to the aid of those in need and try to put yourself in the place of another: no one knows what is hidden inside the interlocutor. A kind word will always and everywhere come in handy.
Notice what you need
Some of us see the glass as half full, others see the same glass as half empty. The next time you're stuck in traffic, start thinking about how good it is that you have a moment to reflect on today, focus on the problem you're trying to solve, or think hard about your next big idea. Accept all such life situations from the perspective of what can be learned from a particular situation. At the end of the day, you will be more satisfied, calm and happy. Start noticing what you need and you will see the world begin to change before your eyes.
Don't worry about the future
Focusing on the future is just as destructive as dwelling on the past. All this prevents you from living here and now. No one forbids you to plan your time ahead (even 10 years in advance), but still try to stay in the moment. What you definitely shouldn’t do is impose on yourself the feeling of “it will only get worse.” Believe me, it won’t: stop keeping everything under control and don’t complicate life.
Be honest with the people you care about
Photo: Natalya Zaritskaya / Good Free Photos (CC0 / Public Domain)
This is as important as being honest with yourself. Silencing grievances and concealing anger is worse than even the most complex quarrel. Because in a quarrel you can discuss and come to a compromise. Or at least after it, having calmed down, replay the conversation in your head and think about both points of view. But hiding your feelings from loved ones, you will certainly feel bad, even if you try to hide it from them and from yourself. This severe suppression of feelings prevents you from being happier in everyday life. So be open with your family, and then you will free up space within yourself from resentment for more pleasant emotions.
The meaning of life and happiness
An interesting connection: having the meaning of life gives us a state of happiness and harmony, but at the same time, the very acquisition of happiness can be the meaning of life. What then is happiness-meaning? Perhaps the most generalized and universal answer will be: preserving one’s individuality (personal) in the context of social relations (general).
Remember how often you have heard or admitted that the root of unhappiness is misunderstanding on the part of others, the inability to be yourself. The contradiction between personal and social is one of the most dangerous and destructive. An unfree person cannot be happy. Although freedom does not guarantee happiness. You need to have freedom and be able to use it, to use this right rationally.
Fight your fear
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There is an expression that people themselves are often “afraid to be happy.” This does not mean that if you are offered instant fulfillment of your dream, you will be scared and refuse. And the fact that many don’t even try to take a step towards her because they are afraid of defeat. But any dream becomes much more real when we begin to realize it. If you dream of learning how to move objects with your thoughts, then this is most likely impossible. But if your greatest desire is to become a famous musician, then it seems “impossible” only because of the fear of difficulties. And it will become more real as soon as you begin to take action to implement it.
