9 rules to ensure your happiness really lasts

9 rules to ensure your happiness really lasts

Enjoying moments of happiness and joy is not that hard.

Making sure your happiness lasts, however, is more challenging.

But you can create long-term, enduring happiness if you follow these 9 rules…

via Inc.com by Marcel Schwantes

Amazon lists over 50,000 books on the topic of “happiness” and you can watch 227 TED Talks on happiness. Yet happiness is in short supply in our hyper-connected tech world deprived of human relationships.

Norman Vincent Peale once said: “Happiness consists not in having, but of being, not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart at peace with itself.”

Ah, yes, the heart, not just the mind. I’m sure Peale would, in part, attribute a “heart at peace” to being in harmony with people, especially those we work with since we spend the majority of our awake time with them, more than our own families.

When I’m at my most peaceful state — when my thoughts, words, and actions align with who I truly am — I’ve achieved optimum happiness. Sometimes it has more to do with me and regulating my own emotions so I don’t affect others in a bad way; other times it has to do with other people–how I respond to them and their actions when they’re not at their best.

To that end, I’ve learned to adapt these nine principles found in people who are generally at peace and in a state of happiness — the same habits commonly found in people of character who value the humanity of others.

1. Happy people avoid arrogance.

Research has found that people with arrogance (coined “hubristic pride” in the study) were found to be narcissistic; they also experienced more inter-personal conflicts and, ironically enough, were also prone to shame. People with a happiness advantage don’t trample over their colleagues to get what they want at the expense of relationships; they humbly acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers and will ask for feedback from trusted sources.

2. Happy people avoid gossip.

Happy people will walk away the moment they pick up gossipers on their radar; it’s in the gossiper’s DNA to dig up things about other people and spread rumors like a tumor. You’ll find that there’s an insecurity about gossipers that, if they aren’t talking bad behind someone’s back or devising some kind of scheme to get their way at someone else’s expense, they’re not being themselves. Happy people take the higher road by not associating with such people because it will save them in the long run.

3. Happy people gauge their emotions and that of others.

They do it this with self-awareness — a component of emotional intelligence — which helps them to tap into their own feelings but also the feelings of others to choose a different outcome, like a win-win scenario. Because they’re highly empathic, happy people are typically great listeners, self-reflective, and curious about the lives of others, according to research

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