Live happier today and every day

As The Happiness Warrior, I believe that as humans we have a basic human right to live our lives with more happiness and acceptance of ourselves. In such a turbulent upside-down world, how we choose to believe in our destiny and the attitude that we adapt makes all the difference between living an ordinary or truly magical life.

As the old saying goes “life is what we make it”. When we believe we can be happier every day we can find that our happiness can rise and help us overcome even our deepest spirals. Happiness is not so much a choice but a commitment to living for ourselves and being true to our nature. Happiness builds our self-esteem and requires authenticity and commitment to living our lives fully and knowing that we can be our best. Being true to ourselves is the way to finding our truth when we make the commitment to being happier, increase self-awareness, and live fully in the present.  By living in the present, we can more readily forgive ourselves for the past and realize our potential from finding meaning from our experiences.

The first and most important step is to believe that we deserve to be happy and give ourselves permission to be happy!

As easy as this sounds, this can be difficult for so many of us. Know in your heart that self-defeating words and actions aren’t as strong as you are. So often, we are told that happiness is something we don’t deserve and should feel guilty about by others. Real happiness comes when we know that it comes from within and guides our spirit to overtake our doubts and fears.

INTENTION FOR HAPPINESS

We can all be happier when our mindset is aligned with our intention and belief in ourselves. When you’re down, confused, and questioning yourself, take a moment and reflect on how great you are and realize your powers. Appreciate the values and skills that you’ve accumulated over the years and focus on what you do best!

The first thing to do before taking any action is to take a good look at our current situation. We can then ask ourselves what’s making us happy and what’s not. When we take an honest look and take “inventory”, we can start the process of retraining our thinking and removing fearful and negative thoughts that hold us back. This creates a mindset where we can begin to make our lives happier and more purposeful and raise feelings of gratitude. This requires self-awareness and some degree of self-discipline.

Developing a strong sense of self-awareness may be difficult at first but it’s the only way to understand the impact that we have on ourselves and others. Discovering who we are and what we want out of life is what being happy is all about and what we were born for!

Learning to be happier can be an exciting journey of self-discovery that brings clarity into our lives.

Happy people are more likely to find their purpose and feel more fulfilled and hopeful. Happy people tend to live healthier lives and are more likely to make good decisions for themselves and understand their impact on others. They focus on the positive even in the darkness and know how to control and remove self-created negative emotions and doubts.
 
For many of us, finding our purpose can be a winding and difficult journey full of unkept promises and wrong turns. We say we “should” do something but avoid taking action and feel discouraged and beaten up when we don’t. Sometimes we blindly follow tempting fantasies full of empty promises and end up feeling disappointed and broken-hearted. Others resign themselves to working for money and prestige and feel unfulfilled and disappointed in their outcomes. In cases like these our sense of purpose can fade away and become a distant memory of who we really are. It’s counter-productive to believe that our careers and wealth are our entire purpose.

We’re always more in control of our destiny than we think we are. By changing our mindset and learning to believe in ourselves, conquer fear, and understand the importance of the words we speak, we create a path for success and greater happiness. This is a daily process of developing healthy steps and routines to get us through our day with a much deeper sense of purpose and gratitude. We can then finally feel that life is moving forward with increased focus and determination. It takes work. It may not be easy at first, but by developing a more productive, and self-confident mindset anyone can create a life filled with more gratitude and happiness. When we feel happier, we have increased opportunities and better choices to bring our dreams to life.

GOOD HABITS FOR HAPPINESS

When the pandemic began to shut the world down, I took a deep breath, allowed one loud “WTF” to escape from my mouth, and tried to understand what was happening and how it was affecting the people around me. All I could think about was my need to hold myself together and be a more effective leader to help others get through the chaos. I was in good shape mentally and physically to begin with, but I knew I was capable of being better. I made a vow to myself that I would improve myself in every aspect of my life by the time the world began to feel more stable again.

The first thing I did was look at my routines and habits to refine and improve upon them.  I took my morning routine to a higher level, improved my already healthy diet to boost my performance, mood, and immune system. I sharpened my focus and looked for ways to be happier and turn around what could have been a drama-filled year of disappointment into the most powerful and life-changing period of my life. It was the year of reinvention and despite everything I was energized and ready for action.

All of this was accomplished by refining my good habits and building more powerful routines. Each small habit kept expanding into better habits that helped me to thrive, learn from others, and take more control of my health and vitality. I became a better leader and set my course on being the example and part of the solution.

Developing good habits requires making easy mindset changes by increasing self-awareness. We can then identify bad habits and begin replacing them with good habits.  Good habits become good routines and healthy routines are the framework for creating a happier and more optimal life. Good habits can take up to three weeks to become fully incorporated into our lives. Beating ourselves up does more harm than good!  Happy people never beat themselves up for failure, they forgive themselves, they learn and grow.

In times of change and uncertainty, good habits will help us to create the discipline needed to move forward, adapt to change, and live happier lives. Good habits can start off as something that might seem small or insignificant at first. We step before we walk. Know for certain that every good habit makes us better able to care for ourselves and increase our sense of well-being.

Habits become important routines and rituals to help get the most out of every day.  Good habits are made by making choices that will improve our lives, increase productivity, provide more time to take care of ourselves physically, improve life-balance, and create more gratitude.  Good habits allow us to progress and be happy. Those with poor habits and unhealthy routines fail to progress, feel frustrated, and increasingly unhappy. Good habits help make us part of the solution for change in and good in the world!

HAPPY HABITS THAT WE CAN BEGIN NOW!

Each of these new habits have the capacity to be life-changing and can be used to create routines to increase happiness and quality of life:

--Review your calendar for important events and schedule energy expenditures to suit goals and accomplishments.

--Take time out for socializing with other like-minded people who lift you up and make you feel part of something. Healthy socializing is important, try to do at least one social event either personal or work related each week. Make it fun by “showing up” and feeling your best. Wear something that makes you stand out and feel great!

--Get started early and focus on completing a set number of important tasks. Productivity increases with less distractions. Multi-tasking creates unnecessary and unproductive stress.

--Maintain a “ready for anything mindset”. Life is going to surprise us and being ready for anything is a mindset for success and peace of mind in times of adversity.

--Set short- and long-term goals, manifest dreams through an intentional mindset. The reality that we want is within our power.

--Take time to relax and disconnect through some type of meditation, vigorous stretching, and/or breathing.

--Actively Listen and let others share their thoughts and opinions. There’s a difference between acknowledgement and respect.

--Eliminate self-defeating thoughts and self-created negative emotions. None of these are real and are invented in our own heads. We never know what someone else is really thinking and don’t need to know either!

--We all have one body to get us through our lives. Be mindful of the benefits of physical health in all its dimensions: exercise, sleep, nutrition, regular sex, and healing.

Understand how truly alive we feel when we make the mind/body connection.

Making resolutions to be happy without first having a set of healthy life-affirming routines and habits will cause any resolution to fail and add to our list of disappointments.

Incorporating healthy habits, words, thoughts, and self-love into our daily lives will help us find the momentum we need to move forward and be happier. Best of all we can help others to be happier and all become our own Happiness Warriors!

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