How To Be Happy - The Ultimate Guide! Click To Tweet
Ask anyone what they want to be and the answer may not be happy, but dig deeper and you will realize that everything that we want is just a step to our ultimate goal, to become happy. Like for example, one person says that want to be rich so you ask they why they want to be rich and they may say something like “because my family will respect me” so you go deeper and again ask them why they want that, “well because that will make me feel happy”. But how to be happy, not just fake it, that is what we are all searching for.
First though I believe that our true goal is to be happy but I also believe that our true nature is that which we are seeking! Yes this is what most well known mystics, spiritual gurus and enlightened ones have said and I truly believe that they are correct in saying that!
17 Ways on How To Live a Happier Life
LOVE & Ridding Negative Emotions = A LOT OF HAPPINESS!!!
I want to start off with the first and truly the most powerful way to have a happier life, and that is to give what you are seeking, which is love. The more you love, the happier we become. When I think about the times that I have been the happiest in my life, it has been the times where I am giving something of myself, usually love to a loved one.
So simply extending loving thoughts and feelings towards people you know and don’t know can bring about some free happiness to you at anytime.
You can also take this a step further and simply love bad situations that happened in your life or enemies. As you do this, the negative and toxic emotions will disolve and/or will be replaced with more compassionate and loving feelings.
This alone will skyrocket your emotional growth as well as allow you to feel lighter about situations that really dragged you down in the past.
Like the Buddha said “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”
OR
“Holding onto anger is like allowing someone to live in your head rent free.” – Unknown
Even though it feels like we are going to give up or let the other person or situation win by holding onto negative feelings, it in actually is the exact opposite. It is just a habit of holding onto things, but you can move past negative or unwanted emotions by simply loving them.
Pull Your Shoulders Back!
In his eye opening book, 12 Rules For Life, Jordan Peterson brought up the interesting fact that lobsters have been around the world for over 350 millions years. Nearly 300 million years before the dinosaurs went extinct! He brings up the fact that they have created the origins of what is now seen and the hierarchy dominance.
That when a lobster wins a fight, his shoulders are pulled back. He/she walks taller and more proud. And what happens is that the lobster actually receives a more plentiful flow of serotonin because of it. Serotonin being the bodies feel good hormone. That when we have more of this chemical in our brain, we are happier people. Our self esteem goes up. And wee feel better about ourselves and our existence.
We can create higher levels of serotonin in our brains by pulling back our shoulders. Back from a slouched position of where we are more vulnerable and in a more “giving up” posture. A posture that is seen in both lobsters, and humans when they lose a battle of any kind. Both physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
It also shows people that we are competent in life. That we are courageous people. Vulnerable enough to expose our heart. That we have the ability to take on the lows and highs of life. And to even thrive in doing so. People naturally will treat us better. Which makes us feel better about ourselves. This causes a trickling effect that bleeds more confidence into all areas of our lives.
Due to higher serotonin levels, we now feel more calm. As the higher the levels or serotonin release we have, the calmer we feel. This opens us up to enjoying our lives more. Instead of being uptight and stressed. Hence experiencing a more happy existence.
Personal Development
Not in the hokey sense of the term. But developing yourself from the inside out will create lasting growth. The more you soak in the positivity of great tapes, books, CD’s and seminars, the more positive you get. It rewires your brain to think more positive and more solution oriented. It creates a sense of being responsible for your life. That you are the master of your own fate and the captain of your soul. Which is an empowering place to be. It shifts you out of victim mode, where no joy can be found at all.
When you become empowered through daily devotion to your growth, your transform your life. There will be literal internal shifts in you which your mind will see the world differently. For good. In the most positive way.
These small, but radical shifts add up on each others. Stacking higher and higher. Each time, you get more happy, confident, loving and accepting.
Seeking and imploring constant and never ending growth into your life will allow you to obtain and retain higher levels of happiness that those who don’t will never have the joy of experiencing.
You will feel better about yourself. Which will cause you to treat others better. They will treat you better in turn. Making your experience and journey on this earth much more blissful, beautiful, rewarding and happy!
Let Go
Now I know people say this and it is a super cliche thing to say, but you can physically let things go that are troubling you like you let go of something hot in your hand. It is really that easy. Take an emotion that you don’t want anymore and simply drop it like you would the hot item. Your consciousness is your “hand” and the unwanted emotion is the “hot item”. Try this out and let me know how it goes!
The Power of Saying YES & Saying NO
Simply saying yes to unwanted emotions can desolve them as well. Simple but extremely powerful and can save you years with a therapist as well as the thousands you would spend!
Utilizing these methods above can bring you an awesome amount of self mastery, which is what I believe to be the most important thing we can seek in life.
“If thou art master to thyself, circumstances shall harm thee little” – Martin Farqhuar Tupper
You can even take this a big step further and live like Jim Carrey in YES Man, which is an epic movie to watch if you have’t seen it yet, if you have then a great one to rewatch! But regardless, saying yes to more in life will bring you more experiences and less regrets.
OR if you say yes to much to people, things and situations then flip this philosophy and say NO to more things, people and situations. Learning how to say no more is just as powerful or even more powerful then saying yes to everything. There is a very awesome post about how saying no more to things in life can help you take back your life. It is written by Psychology Today, you can check it out here!
We tend to feel guilty when we say no. We don’t want to let the person down, especially people we love and care about. But saying no will free up a lot of uneeded stress in life. Plus when you say yes when you really want to or need to say no, you tend to resent doing the thing and that person can consciously or subconsciouly feel that resistance.
From my experience, people tend to appreciate it and “get it” when I tell them no even when I want to tell them yes. This is one thing I have to work on hard though. But when I do it I feel better and the person still loves me, if they don’t then they don’t need to be in my life anyways, so PEACE BRO!
Nourish The Great Relationships, Fire The Bad Ones
“Evaluate the people in your life, then promote, demote or terminate. You are the CEO of your life.” – Tony Gaskins
Toxic people are just that, toxic. If you leave something toxic in any system, it is going to reak havoc long term, even when extracted. That is why you need to get the toxic people out of your life right now.
Even if they are family or friends, tell them that they aren’t good in your life and you are going another direction where you want to seek the most positive and most enriched life possible and you can’t do that with them around. Harsh, but it will pay off in the long run equating to living a more happy existence.
Give Your Time
Reaching out to people in need will also bring you a massive amount of happiness and purpose. I know that when I’m feeling out of touch with purpose, doing something for someone has helped me get more centered.
This can simply being an act of gathering close that you no longer use and giving them to a homeless person, making food for a homeless person, volunteering your time for a cause that you feel passionate about, calling a friend or relative that is struggling and simply just listening to them. The list goes on. Give some thought to what or to whom you can give your time to and carve our some time to do so.
If you have a family, you can also make this a family event or even do so with a buddy. It can create a bonding experience that lasts for a lifetime for both you as well as the person or organization you are giving your time to.
How To Be Happy with Meditation
Meditation can bring you things like peace of mind, more compassion, being more productive, lessening depression and anxiety and more. All of these will bring you more happiness. I wrote about it more on another post that I created around “20 morning habits that will change your life” where I go into how you can integrate it into your life! Check it out and let me know what you think in the comment section!
Human beings are most happy in the present moment, when you lose yourself from thinking. So being that this is the case and if you don’t want to meditate, try to incorporate more things that allow you to be in the moment. For one person, that could be fishing, for another that could be playing baseball or working out. Whatever it is, try to incorporate it more in your life.
If we miss the moment, we miss the clues. In the present, when we allow ourselves to fully live there, we are restored, made wiser, made deeper and made happier.” – Marianne Williamson
If you feel like you don’t have time to do so, well then you need to help yourself see the value of the intrinsic happiness it can bring and see that it is actually priceless, showing you that you need to figure out how to create time for it. This can be a great time to do some self reflection and see what or who is toxic in your life and get rid of it and replace it or who with an activity that allows you to feel more centered.
Also check out this awesome article by the Huffington Post, where one of the things they talk about is how meditation can slow down the aging process. That part alone is worth giving this article a read!
Here is an awesome video that can get you started with meditation!
Seek Out Help or Coaching
Seeking help isn’t weak, its strong as hell actually. The best of the best have coaches and you should too. Now we live in the a day in age where you can get almost anything you are looking for for free or at a small cost. If you are looking how to be happier in a certain area, whether that be in your marriage, relationship with your kids or a relative or shoot even happier with your dang pet! There is a article or video or series of them that have been written and you can have a personal coach within a few searches of your browser.
If you think that his won’t cut it and you need to dig deeper on issues that are affecting your happiness, it isn’t weak to reach out to a professional. Remember though, you have to be ready or it will be a waste of time and money. If you are truly ready, a therapist can bring you profound results on issues that you have been dealing with that need help clearing up.
Adopt Healthy Eating Habits
Eating healthy will bring you happiness on many levels, from the chemical level to the physical level where it will in turn give you a better body, if you are monitoring your caloric intake that is. It also will bring more self mastery because the more you choose healthy choices for consumption over something like fast food, the stronger your mind and willpower become.
Remember though that not only is eating bad a deeply ingrained habit in most, its breaking an addiction to food which has been likened to be breaking an addiction to a drug. A great post by ABC News talks about how junk food can actually be just as addictive as as street drug and how we literally have to ween off of junk foods, which can be done with alternatives like using stevia instead of sugar as an additive and swapping out the saturated fats for better alternatives that have to do with the more healthy unsaturated fats like olive and sunflower oil as well as good nuts and seeds.
Remember moderation is key and is the way to break habits for MOST people. Slowly weening off of junk food will allow you to have more success over the long term. It will help you also ingrain the habit on the cellular level, creating good subconscious eating habits.
Be YOU
Being yourself feels damn friggin good because you don’t have to try, giving your more free flowing creative energy that is coming from within. Trying to emulate someone is really tough and you’ll never be as good as acting like the person you are trying to emulate because that person is simply not YOU. To avoid sounding cheeky, you bring something original and unique to the world that when expressed will have a better and more affect on intimate relation as well as on strangers. It will allow you to truly shine my friends, the real you to truly shine!
Always keep this quote in the back of your mind when you are having trouble, by the legend himself:
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a sucessful personality and duplicate it.” – Bruce Lee
Just like working a muscle, the more you deliberately work it the stronger it will get. It is the same with expressing your true self. The more you go out of your way to consciously express the true you freely, the easier and more natural it will become. Just like a muscle that you have worked on, you may not realize how strong it has become until you do something like lift something up that was previously heavier but now doesn’t feel hard to lift. The same is true with expressing the true you!
I love the quote by Drake, who even though receives a ton of flack for how “fake” or “soft” he is, the quotes is epic and the dude lives it, and you should to.
Started not to give a F*** and stopped fearing the consequence” – Drake
Realize it’s You VS You
Comparing yourself to others is the fastest way to misery. Yes it can drive you and if you compare yourself to others to allow it to do something then for all intents and purposes still do so and move onto the next topic. But if you compare yourself to people and allow it to create negative feels, like you aren’t measuring up or doing enough, stop as soon as you can.
Also remember that other people are also comparing themselves to other people and go even deeper, the person you are comparing yourself to may be comparing themselves to you! Once you realize its you VS you, you are able to reflect on how far you have come from where you were a certain amount of time ago, instead of comparing yourself to other people, you gauge results on how far you have come. If you haven’t come far in an area that you are comparing to yourself, evaluate why you haven’t and be more aware on a daily basis of it and do things that will allow you to look back 6 months from now with a smile due to the fact that you have progressed in that area.
Like the personaldevelopfit.com proverb says – Seek first PROGRESS FROM WITHIN! Also remember the quote:
“It was always me vs the world, until I realized it was me vs me” – Kendrick Lamar
Ok I promise to slow down on the rapper quotes now, or maybe I won’t if they are relevant!
Exercise!
There has been so many studies linked directly to the fact that exercising and reshaping your body through weights and other different forms of resistance training develops higher self esteem in it’s participants.
When we look better, we feel better about ourselves, plain and simple. Feeling better about yourself will naturally allow you to feel happier.
But to get into a more scientific level, your body releases endorphins during a workout that have been shown to counteract depression and anxiety. A study by WebMD delves deeper into this subject and has shown a link between exercise and how the endorphins released are that similiar of a morphine injection.
This is a big reason why many millions of people are actually able to swap out a very bad habit with exercise because it give them a similar high than that of a substance that many people abused. It also shows how it can better your sleep as well as increase your pain threshold.
Doing some form of exercise daily has been shown to increase your lifespan by YEARS. A great study showed that doing 150 minutes of exercise a day can increase an obese persons lifespan by anywhere from 2.7-3.4 years and up to 4.7 years for those who are of average weight. So not only will you live longer, you”ll live happier and more fit longer!
At the end of the day, it is deeply rooted in our genes to simply be active beings. Technology, cars and other forms of transportation have taken away the need to be active to survive so we need to seek out other alternatives.
You will appear and feel more attractive to the mates you are trying to attract on a physical and chemical level, leading to better self esteem and maybe even a new lover!
Joining a gym, doing yoga or pilates, jogging, running or simply walking your dog. Get out there and be more active and you will increase your levels of happiness.
Analyze Thy Self!
A great way to find more happiness is to turn inward and really find a couple big root causes of your unhappiness. Maybe it is time for a career change because you dread going to work, or getting out of a toxic relationship with someone who isn’t supporting you in a way you need to be supported. Looking inwards and doing some self analysis can create massive change for the better in your life when you look at what you don’t like in your life without denial.
Really self evaluate without judgement, and start plucking the things out that don’t need to be there.
Pet An Animal
I once heard a story of a kid, a very young child who told their mom that dogs live a shorter life because they have already learned the lessons of how to love, they don’t need to stick around as long as humans do to learn. Even though those weren’t the exact words, it was along the lines of that.
So the take away from this extremely deep and profound child? Hang around animals more, espcially dogs! I’m a dog guy. They love you whether you are cool or uncool, fat or skinny, tall or short, male or female. It doesn’t matter who you are, they love you for you. Hard to say for about 99.9 percent of the population.
They are also great listeners too. My uncle talks to his dog about his day, no joke. He feels better after he does so and moves on with life. A little wacky? Maybe, but hey if it helps you feel better then it saves a bill from a therapist, plus they don’t talk back to you!
Smile and Laugh More
It takes more muscles in your face to frown than to smile, 4 muscles to smile and a whopping 64 muscles to frown! So you actually utilize more energy, a lot more, when you have a frown on your face!
But lets talk about the health benefits of laughing and smiling more. Smiling increases seratonin, known to most as the feel good hormone. So right there, you will feel better at a cellular level, leading you to more happiness in your life. Medical Daily put out an awesome article talking about the benefits that come with these two acts, some of which include:
- Replenishes the lungs
- Stress hormone reduction
- Eases tension in the body
- Builds better immunity
Reality Check – LIFE Is So Darn Short
If you remind yourself on a daily basis about how short life is and really intrinsically feel that fact in your being, it will put things into perspective. Do you really need to tell your loud neighbor to shut up? Do you need to flip off the guy that cut you off and create 10 minutes of stress inducing road rage? Do you need to, well you get the point.
Don’t let the small things bother you. Realize that they are small things, don’t treat them like big things. Save that for the BIG things! By laughing off the small stuff, you decrease the emotional frequency around the event so that it doesn’t linger through out your day. Plus you save yourself from looking and feeling like a lunatic, which I know I am hugely guilty of!
So stop trying to act tough, laugh your way through life! When you catch yourself with a frown, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but turn that thing upside down!
Become a Student on the Subject
Whoever you may seem to think is the happiest person in your life, ask them what makes them so happy or what their daily life looks like to make them that happy. This also includes celebrities or political figures that you admire for their happiness. Read their stories and autobiographies and learn what makes them smile more than than they frown!
Also, read books on happiness and watch movies about it. Some great books are:
- Stumbling Upon Happiness by Daniel Gilber
- The Secret To Happiness by Billy Graham
- The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
- The Happiness Hack by Ellen Petry Leanse
Become a student of happiness!
Live Like Children Do
Remember what is was like to be a kid? It was the best right?? You never cared what anyone thought, set big goals and dreams without thinking if you could reach them or not, you just knew you could. No limits on anything!
As your out, just become aware of the joy that children simply embody, and let that be a reminder to let your inner kid shine!
Conclusion To How to Be Happy In Life
So I will leave you with this. Happy people live longer, learn better and are actually more successful so implement the hell out of these suggestions!
I really hope some of these resonated with you and that you are looking forward to incorporating one or more into your daily life. I truly believe that integrating just one of these habits will bring you more happiness and it will begin to snowball into your life.
The more you do one more of these suggestions, the more happy you will get, its like a compound effect. Also you will attract happier people into your life and happier experiences! Even if you were once happy and woke up one day asking yourself how to be happy again, I hope this hit home for you as well.
I would love to hear what you think about the post as well as if you have anything to add, agree with or disagree with about the post! I really appreciate your feedback. Much love!
Chris
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