3 Habits To Make You Happy
Happiness does not come from outside us; it will not come if and when we get something. It comes from inside us, and if we are always focused on what we think will bring us happiness in the future, we will miss the happiness that we can have right now when we focus on all the blessings that are already in our lives. There are several habits we can adopt that will help us focus on our happiness in this moment
Habits to Make You Happy Regardless of Circumstances
There is probably nobody we are more jealous of than someone who is happy all the time. The worst punishment we can think of for someone we dislike is that they will not be happy. We long to be happy. We strive for happiness, searching for all those things that we think will make us happy. But that is our first mistake. Happiness does not come from outside us; it will not come if and when we get something. It comes from inside us, and if we are always focused on what we think will bring us happiness, we will miss the happiness we have right now when we focus on all the blessings that are already in our lives. There are several habits we can adopt that will help us focus on our happiness in this moment
The most basic happiness habit is to focus on the solutions, instead of all the problems. Stop blaming and complaining. It has been said that the average person complains 70 times a day. Instead of seeing yourself as a victim of circumstances, see yourself as a person who can and will find a solution to your problems. To focus on solutions, Marci Shimoff talks about a method in which you rate whatever is bothering you on a scale from 1 (very bad) to 10 (excellent). Let us say you rate it as 6. Then you find all the reasons why this is a 6 instead of a 1, instead of finding all the reasons why it is a 6 instead of a 10.
Another habit is to not believe everything you think. It is one thing to question what other people say, but how often do you question your own beliefs. It has been said that 80% of most people’s thoughts are negative; that works out to more than 45,000 negative thoughts every day. One practice you can do is to ask yourself the following questions about your negative thoughts and beliefs: Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true? How do you react when you believe that thought? Who would you be without the thought? Then you can create a “turnaround” statement which expresses the opposite of that thought or belief. When you start questioning your thoughts, over time they simply lose the power to upset you.
A third habit is to focus on gratitude for all the blessings in your life. Most of us take many things for granted. We focus on our problems or on the things we don’t have instead of appreciating what we have right now. No matter how little you have in your life, there is always something you can be grateful for, even if it is just the gift of life itself. Gratitude is actually good for our health too. It creates a specific energy that affects our bodies positively. Marci Shimoff tells about an exercise to focus on gratitude. Every day, you can pick a “theme of the day”. If today’s theme is water, for example, then every time you wash your hands, brush your teeth, wash the dishes, shower etc you would notice and appreciate the water, and let it remind you to be present in the moment and purely grateful.
These are just a few things you can do to train yourself to be happy, no matter what is going on around you. If you can start practicing these three exercises you will be become increasingly happy. You will have what you have been longing for.
Tracy Crowe is the author of this article.
For more ideas about how to be truly happy and successful, visit http://www.reachingmypotential.com
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