Motivation Monday: The art of finding happiness

As we grow older, life throws at us hardballs that challenge our very core, leaving us sad, devasted and sometimes depressed.

Happiness can be simple and pretty evasive, even though the potential for happiness is all around us. The key is to look beyond the present failure and defeat and accept oneself – the weakness, strength, physical and mental flaws. However, being sad or depressed seems simpler than being happy, which is why most people fall into this category seamlessly. The danger is that a prolonged state of unhappiness could affect our mental well-being, the least of which is not the danger of falling into depression. The consequences are frightening, not just on the sufferer but also to their close family members and friends.

While there is no magic bullet to solving the unhappiness quandary, there are steps we could take that could bring more fulfilment to our lives and hopefully to making us happier people. So, I’ve looked around the web and have put some of these calls to action that could assist us in living a happier life. Enjoy.

1.Volunteer your time

Gandhi once said: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” We all get a little too tangled up in our own lives and thoughts sometimes, that we can forget there is a whole world out there filled with situations and people who are just as complex as we are.

Volunteering helps shed some light on that reality and it gives you the opportunity to reach out, help others, and make a difference in our community. When you have the ability to make a major difference in someone’s day, happiness is sure to flock to you. Helping others will also make you consider all the things in your own life to be grateful for, and again.

 

2. Acceptance

It becomes easy to lose track of your happiness when you are consistently fighting against the current of your life. All things, no matter whether they are good or bad, enter our lives for a reason, and we choose how to respond to each situation. Rather than pushing each of these situations away when they don’t appeal to you, attempt to embrace them and find solutions that help you come out a victor on the other side. When you begin to go with the flow and work with what you’ve been given, you’ll find that you become much happier overall.

 

3. Understand that there is no such thing as perfection.

None of us lives in a perfect world. If you think that striving for perfection, in your personal or professional life, will lead to happiness, you will be running in circles and eventually become disappointed and very unhappy. Each Individual has flaws (which are sometimes the quirks we fall in love with), and business is filled with ups and downs. So, with that in mind, seek to be a better version of yourself and not perfection. That way, you are making yourself a better person for the society without the unnecessary pressure that will cause you to snap.

 

4. Seek out exciting experiences

A stagnant lifestyle can become a boring and unsatisfying lifestyle rather quickly. Even the happiest of individuals can find themselves unsatisfied if they continue to live the same day repeatedly. You should always be seeking out new experiences to learn more about the world around you and to discover new passions and interesting people/places. The best thing about new experiences is that they often don’t have to be large or expensive to be satisfying. Sit down with your phone or with a piece of pencil and a paper and jot down some of the things that you have always wanted to do. After you’ve finished your own personal list, do some exploring on the internet to know how much it will cost and even a less expensive mode of actualising your experience.

 

5. Practice self-care

Self-care is one of the most important things to do to stay happy and maintain your overall mental health. Self-care may involve an hour of intense journaling, a trip to the spa where you get a full body treatment, and a couple of hours of your favourite movies.

 

6. Find your purpose

It’s much easier to be happy when you get to do something every day that you love. It doesn’t always have to be for monetary reasons. Many people are happy because they are part of a bigger picture or because they get to impact the lives of other people in a positive manner.

 

7. Realise that you are indefinable

There is only one person with the ability to determine what you can do and who you can become – and that person is you. The only way other people can define you is if you let them. We all get to define our own existence. So, take charge and become the person you want to be.

You shouldn’t define yourself and allow people define you by you physic, environment, background or mistakes. If you have made a mistake sometimes – big or small – don’t dwell much on it. Learn from it, pick yourself up and move on. Do not be defined by it.

 

8. Set small goals and dominate them gradually

There is nothing quite like setting a goal and successfully following through on it. But setting a big goal can sometimes be overwhelming – especially if you don’t follow through. Set little goals and achieve them. Those little goals will the open ways for bigger goals gradually

Without goals, life can become very bland and you may lose focus on what truly matters to you. Goals are what gives you purpose and motivation to live through each day doing what it is that will make you happy.

 

9. Express endless gratitude

Being grateful is truly a blessing. Through gratitude, we learn that there is always something beautiful going on in our lives. Even during the darkest of days, you can still be grateful for something as simple as getting 8 hours of sleep or having a stranger saying hello to you on the street.

To start practising gratitude, all you have to do is begin reciting the things you are grateful for daily. One popular method for showing gratitude is to grab a journal and to write down three things each day that you are grateful for.