A key thing understand is that being happy does not need to be an external circumstance. in other words, you do not have to wait for this state of mind to occur because of something that has happened, instead you have the power to create it and choose it for yourself on a daily basis. By factoring in habits that we know will enable us to feel happy we will create a greater feeling of being happy overall.
Here are my top tips for creating happiness habits:
1/ NOTICE when you are happy. Write down daily 3 positive things that have happened. This leads you to focus less on the negatives and things that go wrong. Also, very often happy feelings are so fleeting we can forget they have occurred, so by writing it down it cements it in out minds.
2/ Exercise & healthy eating. The link between body & mind is too strong to ignore. Anything that ,makes your body feel good will help your brain to feel good. Plus it boosts self esteem as you are psychologically telling yourself you are worth taking care of.
3/ Connect. Whether it be with nature, music or art, make sure you make time to nurture habits that feed your soul.
4/ See friends as often as possible to talk and laugh with and share your feelings. It will give you a huge boost.
5/ Understand that it is unhelpful to rely on someone else to make you happy. If you feel you need another person to make you happy you will always be fearful that if that person leaves you, you won't be able to feel happy. It is far more powerful to create happiness for yourself.
6/ Accept negativity. We all have a 'negativity bias', it is an evolutionary necessity to keep us alive as a species but this often leads to us focusing more on what we don't have in life rather than what we do. Accepting that you can be negative but working towards overriding it with more positive thinking habits makes the impact of this negativity far less damaging to our over all happiness. Accept when you are being negative and then let it go as soon as possible.
Lorna x