These days are the best time to make new beginnings, to open a new page in our lives and to make decisions about ourselves. Last year has been a challenging year for all of us. After a year in which we worry about ourselves and our loved ones, we change our routines and habits unintentionally, and we have trouble keeping our positive perspective and hope for life with bad news, our biggest wish is to be happier and more peaceful in the new year.
Happiness, which is one of our basic feelings best known by everyone and one of the most familiar to all of us, is a journey for some and a point to be reached for some or a final life purpose. Although the definition of happiness varies from person to person, it can simply be defined as the positive feelings left by all people, behaviors, situations and experiences that give us pleasure in our daily life.
Many positive emotions such as pleasure, comfort, peace, gratitude, hope, inspiration increase our level of happiness; among the positive feelings that motivate us to move forward and improve in life. In other words, it is defined as intense positive emotions and rare or absent negative emotions.
Thousands of studies on happiness so far show that our level of happiness is closely related to some emotions, situations and behaviors in our lives. Our innate personality traits and temperament, physical health, socio-economic level and financial well-being, our attachment style and the relationships we establish, our life purpose and goals, our self-efficacy and self-confidence to achieve these goals, and even the geographical features of our location and Many factors such as the time period we live in have extremely important and powerful effects on our level of happiness.
As you can easily deduce from the definition of happiness, unhappiness is also linked to many negative emotions such as hopelessness, sadness, anxiety, anxiety, and fear. In fact, unhappiness, like happiness, is an integral part of life and we can feel happy from time to time and sometimes unhappy depending on our experiences, health, relationships, personality traits or perception of ourselves. The level of intensity of positive and negative emotions we experience determines our state of being happy or unhappy.
The fact that negative emotions are much more intense in some periods of our lives can cause us to infer that we have an unhappy life. Studies show that unhappiness and happiness are shaped by behavior and thought patterns in our lives. Behavior and thought patterns that we have built throughout our lives; it brings with it stereotyped feelings. If these emotional patterns are shaped mostly by positive emotions, we can define ourselves as happy, and if they are shaped by negative emotions, we can define ourselves as unhappy. Therefore, when we want to take a step towards increasing the feeling of happiness, we need to work with our stereotyped thoughts, our behaviors and the emotions that these patterns bring along.
The emotions, thoughts and behaviors that cause unhappiness can differ for all of us. For example; For some of us, even a very simple situation such as not having a shoe we want so much can cause unhappiness, for some of us the inability to establish close and meaningful relationships, for some of us to lose someone we love, and for some of us not being satisfied with what they do can be "a reason for unhappiness. So the way to be happy or feeling less unhappy is different for everyone. However, research shows that there are some common ways for all of us to develop the positive perspective necessary for a happier and more peaceful life. So it's possible that we can train ourselves and our brains to be happier. How Does? Let's take a look together.
How much of our happiness is under our control?
Studies show that 40% of our happiness level is linked to our genes and our personality and temperament shaped by these genes. The fact that our nutritional, shelter, care and security needs are met in the first years of life contributes 10% to the genetic infrastructure of living a happy life. Despite this 50% slice that is beyond our control, the remaining 50% that determines our happiness is the part that we can determine by taking responsibility and control of our own lives with our own decisions. So, actually, our ability to lead a happy life depends half on our own free will and choices.
In addition to developing a happier and more optimistic perspective, we can train your brain to develop psychological resilience in the face of the difficulties we face in life. Research in the field of positive psychology shows that we can use 'feeling good' as a tool to protect our physical health, mental well-being and mental health. In order to feel better, to make more room for positive emotions and to increase our level of happiness, there are 4 mental patterns that we need to work on.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism, which is a pattern that is compatible with the skills and competencies of the person and is conceptually intertwined with concrete expectations; In fact, it includes unrealistic, abstract expectations that are far beyond the person's competencies and achievements rather than concrete expectations. Inconsistent with the fact that nothing can be perfect, developing expectations far beyond our own or others' abilities and capabilities may lead to failure to meet these expectations, intensify the feeling of dissatisfaction; Secondary emotions such as disappointment and sadness can cause us to be constantly experienced and unhappy. Therefore, in order to be happier, you need to be able to evaluate with awareness what you expect from yourself, other people and what life has to offer, and how realistic these expectations are.
Comparing ourselves to others
Because we tend to find shortcomings in ourselves when we begin to compare ourselves with other people in our social environment; Comparing what we have, our lifestyle, our career, our personality traits or our bodies with those of others can reduce our life satisfaction and cause us to be unhappy. In fact, social comparison is a learning style that can benefit your life when done in a healthy way. It is possible to increase your level of happiness when you find the traits of others that inspire you and choose the ones that can contribute to your life and make an effort. In addition, comparing yourself only with yourself, that is, focusing on the differences between yourself in the past and your present, and discovering what you have developed and what you can improve yourself is one of the most important steps you can take for a happier life.
Materialism and the will to own
One of the most concrete examples of how dangerous it can be to link happiness to environmental resources, materialism includes our belief that we need to have something to be happy. As a result of social expectations, economic order and consumption culture, this thinking pattern that we develop as a result of a collective interaction makes our perception of happiness dependent on external resources. When this pattern of thinking, which is directly related to our material conditions, financial situation and purchasing power, becomes dominant in our minds, even the smallest change in our economic conditions and consumption habits can cause us to be unhappy. Therefore, in order to lead a happier life, we believe that our level of happiness and the positive emotions we experience can only be related to what we have; We need to regulate our consumption habits by making radical changes.
Trying to optimize everything
You have obsessive thought patterns such as using resources in the most efficient way, obtaining maximum results with minimum effort, and doing the most work with the least amount of time. People who try to optimize everything in their life, from eating to time spent, continue to pursue better options, even if they achieve satisfactory results. Even if they have made the best decision, their minds are always on 'other' decisions they cannot get. Since constantly pursuing the best option and trying to reach the maximum is a perspective that reduces life satisfaction and does not leave space and time to thank the person, you need to change this point of view, make it a habit to be content as much as possible and appreciate your effort.
Suggestions for making happiness a habit
There are thousands of ways to live a happier life, increase life satisfaction, be thankful and feel good. Some of these ways are as follows:
Develop a positive perspective. To make happiness a lifestyle, the first thing you need to do is train your mind to see the positive. The easiest way to do this is to develop your awareness by consciously trying to find the things you consider positive in your life. Create three time zones, 2 minutes each, for yourself each day to list the positive things in your life. When you wake up in the morning, during your lunch break, and before you go to bed in the evening, you can try to bring to mind the positive things in your life. After a while, you will find that your mind starts to do this automatically.
If you want a happy life. So be positive man🖤