Live A Happier Life

November 24, 2020

People always define HAPPINESS as positive emotions such as joy, excitement, pleasure, blessedness, and overwhelmed. This is what we always thought. We are happy when we are having fun at the party, or when we receive gifts from others. We are happy when things meet our expectations or experienced the thrill and passion of love. We are delighted with the fine meals we have on the table or with our new clothes. We are happy when we are satisfied with what we received in our life.

However, those things are just examples of temporary happiness. The real happiness can not be found from the tangible things we received in life - the birthday, the Christmas presents, the fine meals on the table, the new clothes, shoes, and bags, the joy, excitement, pleasure, all are temporary and won't last a lifetime.

True happiness is living in peace and harmony, with your mind, body, and soul. To become truly happy, you don't need materialistic things. It is the outcome of a real effort.

But how to live a happier life?

• DEVELOP A GROWTH MINDSET

Developing a growth mindset is the same as planting a seed. If you water it and take care of it well, it will sprout and grow and will produce bountiful fruits. It even grows on the coldest and rainy days, because the plant knows that the sun will always come out. But if you don't take care of the seed well, it will remain still and stagnant - rigid in its place.

Throughout life, you have that moment that you feel like either of those seeds - the growing or the stagnant seed. The way we see the world around us, and how we behave towards life is called "mindset." You can either chose a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

When you have a fixed mindset, things seem to be so hard. Negative thoughts might cloud your mind, and you give up easily. You always say, "I can't do this!"

However, you can always choose a growth mindset. A growth mindset will help you believe that goals are within reach with effort and perseverance. Life is a great big adventure!

Failure is just an ordinary part of your adventure. The difficulties you encounter will only make you tougher. Challenges and mistakes make you learn and grow as a person. You enjoy the challenges you face and become more resilient, and you will say to yourself, "I want to become my best self!"

Fear is a natural emotion. We all experience it and it can make your mindset difficult. The important thing is to try and face your fear. Here some tips to switch on your growth mindset:
Perfection does not exist. Aiming for perfection is like finding a way out on a desert island. And trying to attain it will only dehydrate you.

When negative thoughts fill your head, you can turn them around by simply adding "yet" at the end, for example, "I don't understand this....yet!"

Consider challenges as expeditions, they will help you become more resilient and can open a new world full of opportunities. If you work hard, you will progress. And do not worry about mistakes, they are a part of life, and we can learn from it.

Always remember that the sun always comes out after a storm!


SET A SMART GOAL

I have mentioned in my article Considerations In Setting Goals about setting a SMART goal. In case you find yourself struggling towards setting a goal, keep in mind the word SMART.

SMART is an acronym that can help you evaluate and make the structure of your goals. It stands for:
S-pecific
M-easurable
A-ttainable/Achievable
R-elevant/Realistic
T-ime bound/Timely

Smart starts by asking yourself a degree towards your goal SPECIFIC. This is the most important part of establishing a goal. The less specific the goal, the more difficult it is to determine how long a goal should take to achieve success.

Like for example:

The goal to make healthy, to lose weight, and to lose ten pounds.

The goal to get healthy is much specific than the goal to lose ten pounds.

The next question asks, how is the goal MEASUREABLE, and what determines success? Some goals can be measurable by simply answering "Yes" or "No."

For example, climbing on top of the mountain, or other goals determined by using a metric for the goal to lose ten pounds.

The key to measurement is to make sure that in whatever way the goal is measured, it accurately reflects success.

ATTAINABLE/ACHIEVABLE is not asking "Yes" or "No," but how will the goal be achieved, and what are your actions plan. Do you have the resources and skills required to obtain success? And what are we lacking? Well-designed goals provide clarity of actions. If the action required to achieve your goal is unclear or there are a large number of actions that need to be taken, we should consider breaking down the main goal into manageable, attainable circles.

In isolation any single goal is RELEVANT/REALISTIC. In life we most often in a process of pursuing multiple goals. People commonly set too many goals at a time or pursue the wrong goal. With this in mind, we need a mechanism to help us monitor our goals to make sure that pursuing our most relevant goals at any given amount of time.

One technique is to place goals in s matrix that looks at an effort required versus the proceed value of achieving the goals. Usually, we want to focus our strength on low effort but high-value goals.

The last thing we want to make sure is that goal is TIMEBOUND/TIMELY. By including a specific date to which a goal should be accomplished, it allows us to monitor our progress.

For example, consider the difference between a goal to lose ten pounds, and a goal to lose ten pounds in ten weeks.

Simply by including an amount of time, we can now calculate how much should we be losing each week. And if after five weeks we only lost one pound, we can revisit our action plan.

It is important to reinforce that goal setting is not an event, it is an ongoing process of action, evaluation, and revision. It is not the law in goals or standards towards achieving success, it is about recognizing goals are dynamic because life is dynamic. The world is not static, everything happens. Not all goal that is relevant today, can be relevant tomorrow. When using SMART, stay flexible, and motivated by setting a time to reevaluate your goals regularly.

• PRACTICE GRATITUDE

Adopting an attitude of gratitude simply expressing appreciation and being more thankful can make you improve your overall well-being. Gratitude and giving thanks is truly one of the most powerful things you can practice every day. If you are determined to accomplishing anything in life. That is the secret why most successful people talk about the power of gratitude. It is that feeling of being blessed. It is getting grateful for those things you DO already have that attract more great things into your life, and truly just give the drive to get more, to go out and work for more.

When you write down what you are grateful for, it should always for things money cannot buy. For example:
Thank you for my drive
Thank you for my mental strength
Thank you for giving me the courage to not give up all those times when it seemed impossible when I know most of the people would have given up.
Thank you for the personality to keep going for so long without any growth until I finally see my way.
Thank you for my health and my family!

These are real blessings. Money is easy, just like how easy it is to make and to spend. And when we reach our end, we can not bring any of it with us. You can make plenty of it, but do not stress over it.

Be thankful for that mentality to go out and get your dreams. You can conquer your goals. So many people lack life and spirit. So many people give up and live lives they don't want to be in just because it is easy. Be grateful that you will never be like them.

To achieve success, always be grateful and appreciative of what things you have in life, and you will soon have more to be grateful for.

Once you start writing down all those things you are grateful for every day, your day will start with power, with pure positive power. Then you are ready to smash the day, to seize opportunities. Your mind is clear and positive. And that energy is so valuable to your creativity and your future success.

So if you want to achieve success and a happier life - BE GRATEFUL!

• SEARCH FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE

The last thing you need to consider to achieve a happier life is to find out what is the purpose and what is the meaning of your life. What if you discover that you live your whole life wrong?

People nowadays often say that ‘life has no meaning.’ Those reasons why people complain about the lack of meaning in life are actually specific examples of unhappiness.

We have all taken time just to stop and reflect many times when we are at our hardest time, where are all this leading to? We must start to find things that we can do that would set us on some firm footing in life. That would enable us to do some things and use some powers, that we have that many of us go through life never discovering that we have those things going for us.

Knowing what it is your life work, what it is that gives your life a sense of meaning and purpose? So if you know what your work is, you should encourage yourself to start working on it. If you can not do it all at one time then do just some of it. And if you do not know what to do, if you do not know why your purpose, encourage yourself to find out what is the meaning of your life. Once you find your purpose, it will set you in a power place.

You usually go to jobs that you hate, working on a job that does not challenge you. You get sick thinking about that job because once you go to a job and you already know how far you can go, you can already see your position in that company. If you are going to a place where you already know how far you can go, you are dead in position. It erodes your self-esteem. It lowers your sense of yourself. It creates inner turmoil. It creates an emptiness in you.

Your life is worth finding, what it is you are supposed to do. Imagine if you will be near the end of your life. Thoughts will come into your mind - the spirit of your dreams, the knowledge, and ideas, the abilities and skills, given to you by life. But you never pursued those dreams for whatever reason, you never developed those ideas, you never used those gifts and skills, there you are, regretting every single opportunity you have missed in life.

Will you wait for that to happen? What if you die today or tomorrow? But you still didn't find the meaning of your life.

Act as early as possible. Seize every opportunity that comes your way. Realize your purpose and understand the meaning of your life.

With all these aspects, you will be able to achieve success and happier life!

Written by: @Jane

Lead image from thriveglobal.com