10 Things you need to do to be Happy!
You might believe that you are happy, but do you have real joy in your life.
You might have to read this article more than once to really find out whether you are experiencing real joy or just contentment because you have things in your life that you appreciate, such as having a great partner, your children, a nice car a great home.
Or you might be on the other scale of the spectrum where you what you are doing with your life and therefore feel unhappy. If this is you, you are not alone many people lack joy or even the hope of joy.
I will address both ends of the spectrum in this article.
Because I will reveal the 10 things you need to do to have real joy in your life?
Before I get into the 10 steps I want to start off by delving into what joy is?
Joy can be described as a feeling of great happiness, exuberance, contentment, elation, and rapture and delight. However, some argue that happiness is an altogether more superficial feeling we can feel happy about buying a new car, feel satisfied when we’re given a gift or experience intense pleasure. But joy is altogether more intense and strikes at our foundation or our inner wellness.
So what are the 10 things you should know to have real joy in your life
So there you have it friends the 10 ways:
To need to do to be happy is:
- Understand what’s in your control.
- Living in the moment
- Stop judging your thoughts
- Focus on being the best person you can be
- Think of others
- Let go of the pain
- Become more hopeful
- Being grateful
- Self-acceptance
- Doing things you enjoy,
- Understand what’s in your control.
In his book, New York Times best-seller “The Power of Now”, Eckhart Tolle explains three important principle
- All pain is a result of resistance to the things you cannot change.
- A long time ago there was a great shah. He ordered to build a beautiful palace that had many wonderful things in it. Among other curiosities in the palace, there was a hall, where all the walls, the sealing, the door, and even the floor were made of mirrors. The mirrors were so clear and smooth that visitors didn’t understand at once that there was a mirror in front of them – so accurately the mirrors would reflect the objects. Moreover, the walls of this hall were made in a way that they created an extraordinarily increased echo.
- Once, a dog ran into the hall and froze in surprise in the middle of the hall, a whole pack of dogs surrounded it from all sides, from above and below. Just in case, the dog bared his teeth- and all the reflections responded to it in the same way. Frightened, the dog frantically barked – the echo imitated the bark and increased it many times. The dog barked even harder – and the echo was keeping up. The dog tossed from one side to another, biting the air- his reflections also tossed around snapping their teeth.
- In the morning, the guards found the miserable dog, lifeless and surrounded by a million reflections of lifeless dogs. There was nobody, who would make any harm to the dog. The dog died by fighting with his own reflections.
- The world doesn’t bring good or evil on its own. Everything that is happening around us is the reflection of our own thoughts, feelings, wishes, and actions. The world is a big mirror.
If we are constantly barking at things we cannot change then we simply wind up exhausted and in pain.
The dog couldn’t control the mirrors and the echoes but he could control his reaction to it. The moral of this story is also to have real joy in your life you must accept the things that are outside your control
This simplistic yet appealing way of looking at life will not only make you happier but free you from constantly blaming yourself and will also encourage you to take action to resolve your pain. Because we can only change what we have the power and influence if we don’t have these two components resisting it is pointless.
2 Living in the Moment.
Eckhart Tolle
- Life is just a series of present moments.
As John Lennon said
“Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans.”
We often forget about being happy when we stop living in the moment. how often do you forget that this moment was, in fact, the future and that the future will never come because it will always be the present? The fact is that once you come to terms with living every moment to the fullest you will harness real joy.
In fact, once you accept this you can feel joy even if you are experiencing sadness, joy means that you open yourself up to receive all the positives that life can bring and is a refusal to make the negative things that are happening in your life override your feeling of joy.
So how can we live in the moment, well I would like you to think back to when you were a child.
What were you worried about?
Were you worried about paying your bill?
The relationship you have with your partner, children, or at work?
Don’t get me wrong am not saying that you didn’t have problems as a child
But your overall feeling would have been what am I going to do now?
I’m I going to play with Jessy or go to the park with Ray?
I think I’ll go with Ray.
Your swinging on the swings and thinking WOW am really enjoying this let go higher.
And your swinging and your swinging and your feeling so good about yourself and saying to yourself.
I feel great
I am enjoying myself at this moment.
I have all the things I need in life.
WOW am doing good
And you’re are grateful just for being in the moment.
3 Stop judging your thoughts:
- You can free yourself from pain by constantly observing your mind and not judging your thoughts.
Along with this Tolle, explains that we should remain conscious of our thoughts and not judge them. This, in view, creates a level of peace and joy most of us merely dream of.
4 Focus on being the best person you can be:
A big part of the joy is graduating to be the best version of yourself, even if things aren’t going your way you can still try to put out the best.
Give some powerful ways you can do this by
1. Be a Great Communicator
Let Go of Anger and I will look into this in more detail later on.
Leverage Your Strengths
Use the “Stages of Change” Model
Take Care of Yourself
Ask yourself: If you had a magic wand, what would you like to see in your future? Ignoring the ideas of how you’ll get there, vividly imagine your ideal life, and what would be included in it.
Take a few minutes to list, on paper or on your computer, the changes and goals that would be included in this picture. Be specific about what you want. It’s okay if you want something that you seemingly have no control over, such as a mate who is perfect for you. Just write it down.
Nutrition
Sleep – Sleep is important for your emotional and physical wellbeing
Downtime
You may not always have control of the circumstances you face. But you can control how well you take care of yourself, which can affect your stress levels and enable you to grow as a person when you face life’s challenges.
Good social connections:
Good friends can help you to process negative emotions
Learn to Be User-Friendly
To improve your relationships and yourself, learn conflict resolution strategies. These include being a good listener, understanding the other side when you are in conflict, and anger management techniques.
5 Think of others
Did you know that acts of kindness can actually make you live longer?
Doctor David Hamilton
Says among other things kindness
- Kindness supports the immune system Research shows that kindness (due to how it feels when you’re kind) boosts levels of an important immune system antibody..
- Compassion reduces inflammation Compassion is close to kindness. Amazingly, compassion has anti-inflammatory properties.
- Kindness supports mental health. Lots of research shows that kindness increases happiness.
From a Christian standpoint, Christians Believe That Joy Is Born
Out of Love
Joy to a significant part of Christians’ core beliefs. Galatians 5:22-23 states:
“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.”
To Christians, the fruits of the spirit signify liberation because Jesus died and was resurrected and his presence as the Holy Spirit allows him to live in us. Christians experience all the fruits of the spirit, joy being one of them.
Joy, means you lose sight of your own selfish needs and feel inner personal satisfaction. Your self-denial is worth it for the greater good. Joy brings you closer to a deeper and more profound sense of who you are, because, like love, it’s much bigger than ourselves.
7 Let Go of Pain
“Joy comes from being able to let go of pain”
Emotional pain can bring with it physical pain placing stress on our body. Our brain sends signals to our body that we are experiencing emotional stress which can damage our long and short-term health. Going through pain can also weaken our faith in humanity and leave us feeling empty.
When we experience extreme pain it’s important to find a way of releasing it and not allow it to define us. A Christian approach to dealing with pain is summed up neatly in Psalms, 30:5 which says, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
It means that when we are hurt instead of internalizing it we should cry acknowledge our pain, seek help if we need it, and appreciate that “joy comes in the morning”.
Joy comes from being able to let go of pain and remember that you’re responsible for your own happiness.
When someone causes you emotional pain it can be soul-destroying and leave you heartbroken. Being open to dialogue to express your feeling of hurt and disappointment is important. When we open up and share our feelings it acts as a way of releasing our suffering.
Earlier I explained how Christians feel liberated by Christ as the Holy Spirit living in them.
The Cambridge English Dictionary states that liberation is “an occasion when something or someone is released or made free.” So with liberation comes a sense of freedom and with it empowerment and control.
“We should cry acknowledge our pain, and seek help if we need it”
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You see we all have something we are good at we can use to propel our lives forward and fulfill our dreams and ambitions and this is a large part of what makes up happy. When we can be of service to others, and build a future from doing good happiness frequently follows.
If you are interested in finding out exactly what you have at your disposal to build true happiness in your life check out my new eBook, by clicking the link below.
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7 Become more hopeful
If you have a goal or mission for your life, joy can help you achieve it because joy can fuel your ability to hope.
Imagine standing on top of a mountain looking down at the vision you want for your life. You unearth the building blocks to make our vision come alive.
What you would build?
The hope of what you plan for your future can introduce a sense of joy and fulfillment. This is because your hope produces faith in your ability to grow and persevere through hard times which gives way to joy.
Story – winnersstory.com. Once there was a man who was running a business. He faced severe losses and had to sell his properties and cars to continue running the business.
Seeing the situation, the son asked his father, “Why are you still running the business when you are at a loss?
Why don’t you shut the business?
Father smiled and replied, “My son, life can bring us many challenges and even can push us down. But we have to hope that we can overcome any challenges.”
Son, “How can hope help us?”
Father, “Ok, I will show you!
Father took his son to a big well and asked him to jump.
Son, in shock, “Father, I don’t know how to swim, So I cannot jump. But his father pushed his son to the well and went into a hiding place.
Son struggled and kept on trying to float for close to 5 minutes. Then when he was about to get drowned, the father jumped and pulled his son out of the well.
The next day, the father again took his son to the well and asked him to jump again. First, he hesitated, then he jumped into the well. Father again went into hiding.
The boy again struggled to keep floating, and he pushed harder. Time kept on running. Even after 15 minutes, he managed himself. Then Father came and pulled his son out of the well.
Father asked his son, “Why were you pushing harder than yesterday?”.
Son replied, “Yesterday, I did not know what to do when you pushed me into the well. With fear, I drowned.
But today, I know that you will come and save me if I am about to get drowned”.
Moral of the story:
Life can bring us many challenges. When you push yourself with the hope of overcoming it and trusting people around you can overcome it and introduce joy in your life.
8 Being Grateful.
You probably have so many things to be grateful for but don’t even realize it.
The fact that you are able to read this article is testimony itself that you are alive and kicking and definitely something to be grateful for.
And this reminds me of what I said in my YouTube video the 7 ways to Instantly Build Self-Esteem and that is:
Think about what you are anxious about.
Is it about your job?
Your children?
Your finances?
Now think about what you have to be thankful for
Is it about your job?
Your children?
Your finances?
You see many people have none of the above, yet they still manage to feel good about themselves and are happy.
So always remember to be grateful for whatever you have.
Courtesy of inspirational stories I want to tell you about a clerk
Story About Seeming Simplicity In Life | Inspirational Stories
There were coming out of his office, glanced at the Emperor’s palace with its shining domes, and thought: “What a shame that I wasn’t born in the royal family. Life would have been so easy then”. The clerk went in the direction of the town center, where the rhythmical banging of the hammers and loud shouts was heard.
The workers were building a new building right in the middle of the square. One of them saw the clerk with his papers and thought:
“Why didn’t I go to study as my father told me. Now I would be doing easy jobs, writing texts the whole day, and life would be so easy then.”
At that time the Emperor came to the giant window in his palace and glanced into the square. He saw the workers, clerks, salesmen, buyers, children, and adults, and thought how it must be good to be in the fresh air all day, doing physical work, working for someone, or just being a street vagrant, not thinking at all about politics and other difficult questions. “What a simple life these simple people must have” – he whispered.
Like the workers, clerks, salesmen, buyers, children and adults, and the builders, you might be living a simple life but, the lesson here you should learn to be happy is to always be grateful for whatever you have.
Real joy, therefore, is appreciating that we may not be able to change the weather but we can change your attitude towards it.
You can also take steps to lessen the effects of the weather by wearing a coat and sensible shoes.
And the same goes for self-acceptance.
This is something I spoke about in my last YouTube video, where I said……
When you are prepared to spend positive time alone with yourself, to do the things that you enjoy, it’s a way of saying you have self-worth. I value myself. I love myself. And I celebrate who I am faults and all. When you touch base with yourself in this way, you open yourself up to building headspace to fill yourself up with positivity.
And man is that true. When was the last time you did this?
Okay, let’s get in a bit deeper here because maybe you’re not prepared to say you love yourself, but how about the fact that you accept yourself.
But how do you do this?
This reminds me of a story Melanie Robbins is an American lawyer, television host, author, and motivational speaker. Said she had a moment in her life when everything seemed to be going wrong. She had a zoom meeting and just got out of bed and was feeling rotten. She managed to make it to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror as a 50-something woman, looking like she just got out of bed, which she had.
She states as life’s disappointments, the feeling of shame, and stress cause us to pick ourselves apart, we become our own best critics. You reject yourself and this is the reason why you are so thirsty for everyone else’s validation.
But what she saw was a reflection of a human being that needed acceptance for just being a human being, when you see that person in the mirror that you have compassion for that wants to be liked faults and all.
Mel says she is on a mission to make sure everyone does this to help them to accept themselves –
Every morning look at yourself in the mirror and give that person in the mirror a hi-five- . This requires that you pause and take note of yourself as a human. You do have to say anything, in fact, Mel says that you shouldn’t because it reduces the effects this powerful action does on your brain.
You see, it’s not about what you have, or what society says you should have it’s about seeing yourself for who you are and accepting yourself as another human being. So, stop looking at everybody else just do you.
- Doing the things that make you happy
The final thing that will bring joy is going through the things that make you happy.
Again this is something I highlight in my YouTube video about building self-esteem.
I talk about what stirs your passion, and what makes you feel most excited.
This is something that only you can answer
But to help think about
A. What is one thing you spend money to do?
Because this will often reveal a passion that makes you happy.
You see, can use this passion as a point of focus whenever you feel down.
Just imagine if you’re in a negative situation at work.
Or at home with your family, you’re going through a tough time and you feel bad about yourself because you know you didn’t do something that you should have done and know you have to face the consequences.
At the moment you need to face up to whatever you did wrong.
Just imagine yourself doing whatever it is that makes you feel good and transpose those negative thoughts into feeling you when which makes you feel most alive.
When you can get excited about something even when you are facing something negative it is a powerful habit that will introduce joy into your life
HuffPost states we can introduce joy into our lives by doing really simple things like:
- Play with kids.
- Learn something new (play a new sport or game, learn how to cook a new dish).
- Getting out in nature.
- Help someone in a small way (by carrying their groceries or paying their toll on the highway).
- Count your blessings.
- Spend time with your pet.
- Travel.
Whatever, makes you happy get out there and do it more, the more you do it the more joy you introduce into your life.
A. What is one thing you do that makes you fear judgments?
Stuff you enjoy doing in secret is key to answering “what makes you happy?”
I will leave you to think about the things you do in secret?
Think about why you do it?
Think about how you feel when you’re doing it.
When you’re doing it your brain creates dopamine that gives you the adrenaline
Dopamine is also called a happiness hormone. It’s a hormone that occurs when you feel you can get something, even if you haven’t achieved it yet. It is a substance in the brain that is released before adrenaline is released, and adrenaline supplements the motivation released by dopamine.
This is a brilliant way to introduce joy into your life.
So there you have it friends the 10 ways:
To need to do to be happy is:
- Understand what’s in your control.
- Living in the moment
- Stop judging your thoughts
- Focus on being the best person you can be
- Think of others
- Let go of the pain
- Become more hopeful
- Being grateful
- Self-acceptance
- Doing things you enjoy,
True joy is getting to a sweet spot where you find that holistic balance between the things you love to do in life and the things you need to do in life.
“Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”
Mother Theresa.
By doing good to others, you can experience love and selflessness, and pure joy. So you experience joy by seeking to gift it to others allowing it to reflect back onto you.
The esteemed Russian writer Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy said:
“Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.”
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