How we achieve happiness may be different for each of us. Our passions, expectations, life experiences, and even our personalities influence the level of happiness we experience in our lives. Some people find happiness in their careers, while others prefer to find happiness in marriage or other intimate relationships.
No matter how you define happiness for yourself, there are certain universal, time-tested strategies for bringing and maintaining more happiness in your life. The following 14 ways to live a happy life can be adapted and even customized to suit your needs. Over time, these strategies will become constructive and lifestyle-changing habits that will undoubtedly begin to bring more happiness and joy into your life.
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.
Laws of a happy life
How to live happily and enjoy life? The basic laws of a happy life will help answer the question:
Live on the bright side of life
Happy people live in a different dimension and think in different categories - they do not get upset over little things, they rejoice at achievements, but do not despair in moments of failure, they continue to act and achieve the desired results; the presence of positive thinking and perseverance can move mountains and ensure success in any field.
Explore the world and yourself
The desire to learn, reading literature or listening to audio books, trainings, obtaining new information about modern technologies helps stimulate brain activity and ensures an active life and excellent health and mind. Developing personalities are not afraid of old age and illness, they are too busy and enthusiastic, there is no time to worry.
Find time for personal interests
A person cannot live like a machine, in a state of “I must”; this approach leads to disturbances in the functioning of the nervous system, depression and physical disorders. It is important to encourage yourself with interesting activities, hobbies, to find joy in life - meeting friends, going to the cinema, theater, exhibitions, playing board games. Every person can find an interesting activity to relieve stress, the main thing is to set a goal, remember childhood hobbies and interests.
A happy life is simply a search for personal fulfillment, the opportunity to do what you love.
Don't accumulate grudges
A happy, healthy life is possible if you learn to forgive. People are not perfect, they are often inattentive, they forget to thank you, if you notice all the little things, then your mood is constantly at zero. It’s better to notice the good - give compliments, thank you for your help, open your heart to people and receive reciprocity in return. In addition, grievances greatly undermine health. Learning to forgive is necessary even to take care of your own condition. It is this commandment that is often used in religions, a wise thought that has been known for many centuries.
Love yourself and the world around you
The road to a happy life opens when there is satisfaction with oneself and external life. It is important to be able to appreciate and respect your own personality. Everyone has positive and negative sides, it is worth concentrating on the advantages and minimizing the disadvantages. Awareness of one's own characteristics, attractiveness and high self-esteem are necessary for life and achieving success in it.
In addition, it is impossible to love others without respecting yourself, the result is self-denial, self-sacrifice and a state of unhappiness, lack of satisfaction with life. You shouldn’t be too strict and self-critical, all people make mistakes - we draw conclusions and move on with our lives. Excessive anxiety is detrimental to achieving inner happiness.
Share experience, help others
Each person has his own mission in life, it is important to find it and realize it. Quite often we have special knowledge, skills, and experience that can be useful to other people. By passing on knowledge, helping people, we feel happiness and make the world more beautiful. Carnegie also wrote that the best way to reduce stress and gain happiness is to help others; it is useful to do good deeds every day for loved ones or others.
A good happy life is possible with the ability to live not only in your own interests, but by caring for others.
Always find a way out, reduce emotionality
In the life of any person there are difficult situations that become important tasks and tests. The rules for a happy life involve seeing life as an adventure, avoiding dramatization. Yes, life can be puzzling, but we can find the answer, and we will search - “let's see who is stronger.”
In such cases, it is important to use logic and avoid emotionality and worry. There is always a way out! The main thing is not to suffer, but to think and decide what to do, to find ways to change the situation for the better. A positive attitude helps you believe in the best, and high self-esteem helps you believe in yourself.
What goes around comes around
Man is primary, his thoughts and actions create the surrounding reality. For a happy life, it is important to believe in the best, build good relationships with loved ones and colleagues, and radiate light. Living a happy life is easy when you radiate happiness yourself, find and create it, without expecting miracles from others. If you take a step towards happiness and people every day, life will definitely reciprocate.
Calm, just calm
The problem of a happy life is as eternal as the world itself; happiness is possible if there is internal satisfaction with oneself, life and peace of mind. This is the most difficult thing, to remain calm in any situation, to develop self-control and immunity to the troubles of life. Of course, optimism and meditative techniques help, as well as self-control - aggression will never help in a difficult situation, only reason and understanding of cause and effect.
Create a mood for happiness
Happiness does not come by chance, it lives on a certain wave. If a person is tuned in to it, then he notices and feels the happiness of life, otherwise he looks at the world, sees the positive sides of life, good people, and breathes deeply. Every day we create a new life, write a new story from scratch, what will it be like? It all depends on the colors or the mood that we set ourselves in the morning.
The lives of happy people are shaped by the people themselves; they know how to correctly create an internal mood for happiness.
We have looked at the basic laws of happiness, everything is simple and clear, but how can you become a happy person who attracts happiness into your life and good circumstances?
Have the strength to love
Actor, essayist and writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) was a civil rights activist.
He came to the same conclusions as Leo Tolstoy - you need to be kind to others:
- “I have always believed that a person can only be saved by another person”
- “The moment we stop holding each other, the sea swallows us and the light goes out.”
- “The love of one person for another is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.”
A person, according to Baldwin, is responsible not only to himself, but also to his descendants. We must pass the baton of love to them...
How to become a happy person?
Often people, especially at the beginning of life, during their youth, say: “I don’t know how to live correctly.” Life seems difficult - you need to get an education, find a job, start a family, earn an income, raise children. There are a lot of worries, but how to live happily and enjoy life, make it easier, get better results and the favor of fate?
Change your own attitude towards life, become a happy person. Let's look at the rules for a happy life based on the book “Ten Secrets of Happiness” by Adam Jackson and determine how to correctly implement them in life.
Ways to become a happy person:
Exercise No. 1 - Notice the good in life, be grateful
When you wake up in the morning, remember why you should enjoy life: “I am healthy, I have a family, I can walk and see the light, the weather is beautiful, I have friends, work, opportunities for development, wonderful children... A wonderful, wonderful day awaits me.”
A person always has bright sides of life, you need to look and understand what is good in life, relying on these thoughts as a foundation for building your own happiness, create mental streams of positive thinking that give enormous advantages in life.
There is a well-known parable about a glass: one person saw it half empty, another - half full. Who is happier in life? Of course, the second is that his thinking is tuned to the search for good. No one can make a person happy except himself. All the riches of the world will not give complete happiness, if you do not know how to enjoy life, you will constantly be missing something, remember the fairy tale about the goldfish.
How to live happily and enjoy life? It is useful to train, write down achievements, good events of the day, learn to focus on positive moments, supporting yourself in any endeavor. A happiness and success diary will help create an internal state of happiness. It is more effective to make notes in the evenings, summing up the results of the day and recording, starting with five important and joyful events in life. Gradually you will develop the skill of noticing the good in life.
Exercise No. 2 - “A healthy mind in a healthy body”
To improve general condition and raise morale, a person needs physical activity - aerobics, breathing and mobility exercises (running, swimming, gymnastics). Walking in the fresh air improves your health, the main rule is: movement is life!
You can start with small loads of five minutes and increase gradually to half an hour. To lift your mood and increase confidence, it is important to walk with good posture and stop slouching. Everything in a person is interconnected: physical and spiritual. If you start the morning with exercise, correct posture and a smile, the day will definitely be successful. And happiness will occur more often, as it comes from a person.
Nutrition is also important - it is useful to enrich the diet with fruits and vegetables, cereals are also useful - buckwheat, for example, has a beneficial effect on brain activity and helps avoid depression. Artificial substitutes and light sugar harm the functioning of the body; you should not abuse it.
An important aspect of the body’s functioning is the presence of light in the work area or place of residence. During winter periods, people often suffer from depression; it is necessary to walk for at least 1 hour during the day; special fluorescent lamps help to compensate for the need for light. We remember that children need vitamin D from the sun, but adults have similar needs.
Help your body become happy!
How to live happily and enjoy life? Provide yourself with movement, quality nutrition and light.
Exercise No. 3 - Live for today and the current moment
To achieve happiness in life, it is important to learn to concentrate on specific actions, notice the world around you, and be attentive. Life happens here and now at a specific moment in time, not yesterday and not tomorrow. People waste time worrying about past losses or predicting the future, forgetting to live today and enjoy life.
Concentrating on a specific moment in life helps you notice important life events, stay in good shape and quickly respond to life circumstances. To make plans, you also need to find time, write them down, and live today and create your own life, develop attentiveness to the world around you and people.
Try to look at life with a fresh perspective, notice the needs of your children, find out the interests of your colleagues, see new flowers outside the window or just a car driving down the road. Attention to life brings happiness and security, makes a person mobile, successful and conscious.
How to live happily and enjoy life? Remember that life is a moment, take care of it, use it for good deeds, so that in the future you don’t regret living in vain, that you didn’t have time, didn’t do, didn’t notice...
Life is today and the current moment!
Exercise No. 4 Forming your own image
Who do you imagine yourself to be? Happy and successful or tortured by life and illness? Are you worried about getting old or are you ready to discover a second youth? A person always remains who he imagines himself to be; the internal image shapes our perception of the world and behavior.
Why do we meet cheerful and happy elderly ladies and unhappy young girls? It's not a matter of age, but a state of mind. You can flit around at 60 and be tired of life and disappointed at 20. The presence of complexes and self-esteem have a great influence on life. Often, as a result of childhood failures, a misconception about one’s own personality is formed. You cannot underestimate your personal abilities or believe negative statements.
Each person is unique and can demonstrate their personality traits in the best possible way, find a calling, bring something good to people, help, engage in creative and useful activities: heal, build, teach. Any activity chosen by the heart will be useful to society, and an unloved activity will harm the person and others. It is important to learn to understand and respect your own “I”, to accept all your differences, to look for interest in life, to reveal your own potential.
Try to understand your own psychological portrait, who you imagine yourself to be, and write down your thoughts on paper. If you have negative statements, replace them with positive ones, repeat them daily, getting used to the new image of a confident and happy person, life will become easier and more enjoyable. Choose a new role in life, and let it become your second “I”; it’s never too late to change yourself, and therefore your own life!
A happy life for a woman and any person is possible if she has high self-esteem and builds an image of a confident and successful person.
Exercise No. 5 Determine the meaning and goals of your own life
A person cannot live without goals; there is a chance of getting lost on the roads of life. By determining the directions of movement and desired aspirations, you can find a way out of any situation and achieve success in any business. A happy person knows how to find meaning in his own life and ways of self-realization, defines goals and aspirations - helping family and friends, career aspirations, interaction with society, helping others.
Having an important goal in life makes a person happy, sets the direction of life, and fills him with energy. It is incredibly important to determine the vector of life, goals in various segments of life and strive for them with all your soul, feeling a surge of strength and a charge of vivacity.
A meaningless life is empty and worthless; a person does not live, but lives through life or exists.
Write down your main goals on a piece of paper, what is important in life, why do you live? Determine 5 strategic goals, later breaking them down into tactical ones that will help you move forward and achieve what you want. Everything is possible if there is a desire, an understanding and specification of a plan to achieve results. Even unrealistic dreams begin to take shape.
How to live happily and enjoy life? Determine guidelines, goals and follow your own path of life, enjoying every moment along the way.
Exercise No. 6 Look for the positive in life, simplify difficulties
The main problem of a person is his thoughts on a certain situation. Two people looking into a puddle see dirt or the reflection of stars. In any situation there are two sides to the coin; a person’s perception depends on the internal focus and mood of the psyche, thinking at a given moment in time. Often, after some time, we understand that everything was not so difficult, and we laugh at past difficulties and experiences.
Maybe we should immediately reduce the value of troubles? After all, these are the little things in life in comparison with problems on a global scale - wars, famine, deadly diseases.
To practice a new approach to life, it is useful to look at each situation from the positive side, try it. For example, a person has an accident - there are two reactions: thank God - I’m alive, and everything is so bad - I crashed the car. Do you feel the difference? It could have been worse, the man was lucky - he saved his life. It's easier to live with this approach. There are positive moments even in difficult situations.
Often people with physical disabilities or disabilities engage in social activities and strive to be on an equal footing with healthy people. An excellent example is Nick Vujicic, who has no arms or legs, but is a famous lecturer and an excellent family man, has a wife and a healthy child.
The main question: what life lesson, experience, benefit can I draw from a particular situation, what is positive about my incident? Even the loss of a job or business can be the beginning of a new life, contribute to a change in worldview and write a new chapter in life. Nothing is lost as long as there is life, the opportunity to act.
A person himself chooses: to be happy or unhappy at a particular moment in time. What choice will you make today? How to live correctly to achieve happiness? Let's try to find positivity in life and smile, despite the circumstances, life will definitely reciprocate.
Exercise No. 7 Forget grievances, do not keep anger in your soul
Living a right life means learning to get rid of negative thoughts and emotions, this is mental garbage that destroys a person. People who are envious and prone to resentment often get sick and feel unhappy, why complicate your life? It is better to let go of all past grievances and live with a light heart and good mood.
How to do it? Mentally repeat: “I forgive everyone who was unfair to me, and I forgive all my mistakes.”
The affirmation must be repeated at least twenty times daily, gradually you will be able to forget unpleasant feelings and emotions, and tune in to the positive wave of life. It is also useful to refuse to blame and condemn other people, because there are different situations in life, we may not know everything and may not understand a person completely.
Unhappy people engage in discussion and accusation, while happy people notice the good in those around them and can support them in difficult periods of life.
The task is to monitor your thoughts and statements, replace negative statements with positive attitudes, and look for the good in people. There are no perfect people - everyone has their own shortcomings, it all depends on the point of concentration.
How to live happily and enjoy life? Learn to forget grievances.
Exercise No. 8 Giving happiness to others
It is interesting that in the modern world people are often fixated on receiving benefits - expensive purchases, modern technology, constant income growth, girls - on finding a rich groom for a comfortable life. And what can a person give to others, because by giving time, help, attention, we ourselves become happier, we feel our own importance.
It is impossible to live only for yourself. This is why charity is very popular in Western society. Bill Gates, for example, founded a special foundation and constantly helps the poor and orphanages, realizing that this way he can help society and make his life happier. Such people command respect.
A beautiful, happy life is possible when it is filled with meaning, a person realizes his purpose, finds ways of self-realization, and helping other people.
Every person can learn to share happiness, it is not necessary to have large finances, you can say something good, support a person, help an old man cross the road or carry a heavy bag, give up your seat in transport. There are many opportunities around to make the world a better place, to give a person a smile. Happiness is always mutual - when we give, we get back.
How to live happily and enjoy life? The easiest way is to help other people, bring joy and happiness. The task is to try to do at least five good deeds towards other people throughout the day.
Exercise #9 Communication is the key to happiness
In the modern world there are many people suffering from loneliness, even in a crowded city. Why? It is difficult for them to build relationships with people, find friends, and open their souls. We often prefer to worry alone, to trust our thoughts to our friend the moon or a piece of paper, but without communication and loved ones it is impossible to be happy. Even big finances cannot replace friendship, family and love.
The problem of a happy life is not possible without solving the issue of building relationships. How to communicate with people correctly and make acquaintances? It's simple - you need to be open, smile, be sincerely interested in other people, strive to understand their interests, hobbies, be friendly and friendly. To maintain communication and friendship, strive to make communication mutually interesting and useful, avoid petty insults. A friend is a reliable and devoted person who knows how to come to the rescue in a difficult situation.
Communication is necessary for a person to relieve stress, because by sharing joy, it increases, and troubles decrease. Man is a social creature and needs to maintain contact with other people, so it is worth learning how to build good relationships. A happy life and family do not arise independently, but are the result of a person’s desire to build strong relationships and the ability to care for others.
The task is to think through your behavior, attitude towards other people, learn to make new acquaintances, become a good friend, life partner.
Not just a conversation
Nowadays, when there are many means of communication, it is still difficult for people to pour out their souls to each other. As before, this cannot be done without a frank conversation.
American writer Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) believed in the power of real (rather than virtual) human communication:
- “Speech connects us so directly and vividly because it is a physical, bodily process.”
- “The sound is dynamic. Speech is dynamic - it is action. To act is to take power, to have power, to be powerful. Mutual communication between speaker and listener is a powerful act.”
- “Speaking is magic. Words have power. Words are events, they do things, they change things. They transform both the speaker and the listener; they send energy back and forth, amplifying it.”
Ursula Le Guin believed that verbal communication creates a unique and powerful environment between people. Use the magic of words to better understand others.
Choose good
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) serves as a moral guide for the whole world. He enriched the lives of many people who were trying to find the meaning of life.
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Tolstoy had the courage to admit his own imperfections and was always in search of the truth. For this purpose, the writer compiled a special calendar, which is now known as “Thoughts of wise people for every day.”
Work on the book lasted 20 years. It contains not only quotes, but the great philosopher’s own thoughts:
- “The kinder and more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people.”
- “Kindness enriches our lives; with kindness, mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy, and boring things become fun.”
- “You must respond with good to evil done to you, and you will destroy in an evil person the pleasure that he receives from evil.”
Leo Tolstoy believed that kindness is simply necessary for the human soul, just as the body needs health. Only goodness can make life beautiful.
Love and self-sacrifice
The poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a courageous man. Despite the complete indifference of critics, he independently published his own book of poetry when he was 36 years old. “Leaves of Grass” is now considered a classic.
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Wisdom from a concentration camp
Viennese psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) is widely known for his book Man's Search for Meaning. Victor managed to survive the concentration camp. But these difficult times did not break his spirit, did not deprive him of optimism and desire for life.
His lectures were recently published in which Frankl discusses the two pillars of life force. He drew strength from music and the very feeling of life: “Imagine sitting in a concert hall and listening to your favorite symphony, your favorite bars ringing in your ears, and you are so moved by the music that it sends shivers down your spine; Now imagine if it were possible for someone to ask you at this moment if there is meaning in your life. I think you would agree with me if I said that in this case you can only give one answer, and it would sound something like this: “It would be worth living just for this moment!”
Frankl also suggests that you can feel this way in the presence of a loved one.
Soul without age7
This is the most important obstacle that accompanies a person throughout his life. Just think about it: when a child is small, he dreams of growing up quickly. In adolescence, faced with many problems, he strives to become independent and reach adulthood. Then he waits until he graduates, and then real life begins.
But looking for a job, gaining experience, and now the time is approaching to start a family. Understand what age you were not at if at this stage you truly want to become rich and live happily. You can achieve it, but you just have to strive. The concept of late and good age does not exist. Forget about the numbers in your passport!
Take care of your body
A person consists not only of the soul. Nobel Prize winner in literature Toni Morrison (1931-2019) celebrated the body in her book Beloved.
She calls to love every cell of your body - not only your legs, arms, neck, but also organs hidden from view.
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