If you were to ask most of the people you know what they most wanted out of life, what do you think the answer would be? Chances are, they want a happy life. They want to feel good and remember the good times. Happy jobs, relationships, and lifestyles.
Yet, for many, it may seem out of reach. Is continual happiness achieving the impossible? Here's some steps on how you can achieve happiness:
Recognise the Good and Bad
Happiness is not something that is easy to define. In fact, happiness can be subjective for each person. Happiness could be the joy of getting promoted at work or the feeling you get when visiting an ill family member. In order to be happy, you must also be able to sense and acknowledge the myriad other emotions that lie within. Which can include sadness, anger, grief, etc.
It's also important to understand that happiness is just one emotion on the spectrum of emotions. So if you were to be only happy all of the time, you would not experience the full capability of human emotional experience. Sounds numbing, right?
So encourage yourself to recognise and honour the good times with the hard times. Without overcoming negativity, our inner shadow, self-doubts, and challenging situations, we would never know the true joy happiness brings.
Don't Ignore the Negative
Gretchen Rubin says that our emotions help navigate us through life:
“ If you’re feeling lonely, loneliness is a terrible emotion. Maybe that’s going to help drive you to connect with people because you’re like I don’t want to sit out at home I need to meet people and so that’s going to be a very helpful emotion or you know I’m really bored so yeah you know I think I will pick up the guitar and practice because I don’t have anything else going on. So yeah I think practicing the guitar sounds like it would be fun. Yes so these negative emotions can be very helpful.”
When you are feeling something, do not ignore it or put a bandaid over it (especially if it is negative). Use your emotions to take inspired action in your life to make positive change. A negative emotion can be a signal that you need to do something else in order to feel more habit.
Chasing Happiness
Happiness does not have to be like the immortal fountain of youth. It does not have to be something chased after or even sought- it can become a habit. Choosing happiness becomes a habit when you recognise your emotions and follow what makes you happy with your own wisdom.
