Pursuit of happiness –
4 easy ways to find it
Pursuit of Happiness
The pursuit of happiness is probably the ultimate of what people are searching for. With so many external forces trying to invade our everyday life and the time to handle these forces limited, being happy is almost an afterthought.
For those who follow my work know I work with the mind and teach people to think in a way that makes them happy. Happiness is a state of mind and different for everyone. The actual pursuit of happiness is just the journey you experience in life – and what you make that journey mean. Over the past few years, I have started to realise that happiness is not about the BIG things in life – it is all about the little things along the way that can make you feel good about who you are.
The pursuit of happiness comes from your thinking. You thinking is always a choice, so in reality, you can choose to be happy every day, at any time. However, most of us don’t want to feel this emotion all the time as life is about balancing all emotions. In the context of this blog, we will focus on pursuing what makes happiness such an amazing emotion.
Here are 4 easy ways to increase happiness with minimal effort:
Pursuit of Happiness
- Make a decision. When life gives you options and you cannot decide which way to go, it actually decreases happiness and causes stress levels to increase. Many hours can be wasted with negative thoughts all based around decision-making. Take the pressure off by giving yourself a short time frame to make the decision and then make it. Make it a goal in life to develop your decision-making skills and then back yourself. A decision is simply a thought and a thought is always a choice. The more time spent in confusion (without allowing your mind to make that choice) the further away happiness becomes.
- Be thankful. It may be human nature to want more but this does not increase happiness. This is very cliched but to be grateful for what you currently have – really grateful will always increase levels of happiness. Don’t save your happiness for a special occasion. Learn to celebrate your happiness in simple ways like wearing those expensive shoes just because you feel like it, or listening to your healthy child read a book; or sitting out in the sunshine and enjoy your own company. Gratitude is not just about changing your attitude, it is actually changing it.
- Stop judging yourself. This one can be a little more difficult but is essential to increase levels of happiness. Allow yourself to have a negative day/week without punishing yourself for it. Understand it is ok to feel sad for no reason and allow this emotion to become a natural part of your life without it always having a negative stigma. If you have made a mistake, own up, rectify it and move on. This is a big part of trusting yourself and the people you surround yourself with. Judgement is not friends with unconditional love – an emotion we all need to strive to achieve for ourselves.
- Start touching other people. Human physical contact increases the happy endorphins and therefore will increase happiness. With so much of our modern lives occurring online, skin on skin contact has decreased over time. There are many ways to increase contact from hugs, to hand holding, to touching someone’s arm while talking to them. Even a more simple way is to look at someone in the eyes – watch them speak and begin to feel the emotions they are trying to share. We have evolved this far living from connections, it is an easy way to increase levels of happiness.
In a busy life, happiness can easily be put on hold. With these easy ways to increase happiness, there is no excuse it cannot fit into everyone’s life.
Are you in the pursuit of happiness? How do you find your happiness?
Love Always
Linking up with Kylie for #IBOT and Leanne @ Deepfriedfruit
This is great. I’m going to try to speed up decision making, makes so much sense!
It’s funny the decision making process for many is simply procrastination – and it’s a form of self-sabotage.
Love this so much! This makes perfect sense to me – I once listened to a podcast with a similar message. I think happiness is a bit of an urban myth – it’s made out to be this goal that we all need to attain – but really like you say, it’s a journey, not a destination. I am totally with you on the hugging and being grateful – it’s the little things we do that have the biggest positive impact.
And all these little things cost nothing – except a little time and a little energy.
I definitely can get caught in indecision spirals. I’m much better at realizing them and leaving them now though.
That’s called practice Ness. The more we do, the more we recognise and the better we get.
I am less a seeker of happiness these days and more a “aha, this feels nice…contentment” person. I think noticing it is the best bit. I certainly used to think it was about more material things but no longer.Great post, Nat. I also ‘touch’ people in a kind and caring way. Denyse x
The touch is so important. I used to be more stand off-ish when it came to touch but have taught myself that it is important. Sometimes it is still awkward but life is about lessons.
I was listening to a podcast with Nigella Lawson a few weeks ago and she said happiness is what you find in the pursuit of something else…or something like that. We need the textures or emotional weather – just like we need the sun and the rain.
I love that Jo. Most of think that happiness is something you achieve and then you are done. It’s not. It’s about all the beautiful and not so beautiful stuff you experience along the way that shapes your perception of the world and what you want out of it.
For me, happiness became easier when I started taking responsibility for my own joy. I spent too long being buffeted by how I perceived other people’s feelings or reactions and let that sway me. If they weren’t happy then I wasn’t happy – now I’m getting better at being grateful for my life and allowing other people to be responsible for their own happiness while I get on with taking responsibility for mine.
So well said Leanne. So many women I know take on the responsibility of other people’s happiness and often forget about their own in the process. But at the end of the day, you can never be responsible for how someone else sees the world. Your perception is the ONLY one that counts.
I tend to aspire more to contentedness / contentment than happiness (which I think can be more fleeting) but they’re just definitions either way.
For me the concept of acceptance is important. I need to stop ‘wanting’ and be more grateful and thankful! x
It’s human nature to want but it’s human love to be grateful. And being grateful brings more of what we want anyway.
I totally notice an absence of number 4 in my life and need to fix that, starting with my husband, lol! Sometimes it’s hard when you’re married to someone who is just not a touchy-feely kind of person!
#teamIBOT
I used to be more a ‘forced’ touchy person – just so I could make that connection. Now that I have practised it so much, I am pretty natural.
Some great tips Nat.
Thanks Leanne.