How To Find Happiness
Everyone is seeking happiness in this life. We all want more out of life, and we constantly want things to be different. A lot of my clients come to me in times of distress when they aren’t in a very happy place. They think that if circumstances were different or if they had things the way that they wanted then they would be happy. The also might think a certain amount of money will make them happy, a certain person can bring them happiness, etc. Happiness is actually a choice and it is something that is found internally rather than by external reality. If you think about it you’ll realize even when we get the certain things in life that we want this only allows us to be happy for a moment, and then once again we are unhappy. So the best way to combat this is focus on how to choose to be happy more often. I feel like it is a muscle and if you choose to be happy more often than not your level of happiness will go up.
Below, I’ve added ways you can be more happy and how to choose happiness.
Accept Your Reality – Perception is everything, and just learning to accept the reality for really what it is can help make you more happy. By accepting reality I mean that you fully embrace where you are in the moment and do not conceptualize your situation as being better or worse. Where you are now is just that, it’s where you are now. It isn’t going to be forever, it is temporary but accepting where that place is for you will help with the road to happiness.
Feel Your Feelings – A lot of times we don’t want to allow ourselves to feel a certain way, or allow ourselves to feel anything at all because we are afraid of what these feelings will bring up in us. Only when you truly tap into your feelings, can you process them, and release them further to find happiness. I’m not suggesting you wallow in your feelings, but having a notebook by your side and writing down your feelings about happiness and the situation you are in can be a sobering experience. Just the sheer act of getting these thoughts out on paper can be a great way to start your climb towards happiness.
Start With Being Grateful – When we appreciate what we have no matter what that is we start to feel better and start to feel feelings of happiness. So start with the basics, what can you be grateful for? What do you have in your life right now that you are blessed to have. This can be friends, family, health, career, etc. It might be something small like your pet, or the fact that you have clean running water. We do not all have the same set of circumstances, and many of us take this for granted. The sheer fact that you’re able to access the internet and read this content is a privilege to be grateful for because many others in the world do not have this same access.
Learn What You Can Control – There are things in our control, and things that are not in our control. The best way to be happy is to focus on what you can control. Focus on small actions that you can consistently maintain to reach happiness. So for example pick a certain situation or focal point that is not making you very happy right now. What can you do about this situation? Really think about this, is there anything at all that you can do action-wise right now to change the situation? If there is do that, if there isn’t forget about it all together and focus on another area of your life where you can make positive action happen.
The tips above seem easy to state but harder to implement. As stated at the beginning, happiness is a choice you need to choose over and over again. By choosing this over and over again you are able to make happiness a more consistent part of your life and not worry so much about the things in your life that aren’t making you happy.