12 Aug Happiness Requires Practice
The subtitle to this article is … “Feeling happier is the result of daily efforts to create a fulfilling life.”
Which is very similar to The Happiness Institute’s motto, of about two decades now, that … achieving happiness requires little more than practising a few simple disciplines, each and every day.
Happiness undoubtedly comes easier to some.
But for many of us, happiness requires effort and dedication, over and over again.
But that’s OK; because so too does almost everything else worthwhile in life.
So if you’re interested in learning more about the “practice” of happiness then check out this Psychology Today article by Cortney Warren …
KEY POINTS
- Happiness is not a trait. It’s an emotion that fluctuates over time.
- Feeling happy it is the result of creating a fulfilling life.
- To feel happier, it’s best to be grateful, build social connections, think positively, and create meaning in one’s life.
Source: Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
“Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.”
— Buddha
You probably want to feel happier. To wake up each morning with a smile on your face, thoughts of gratitude on your mind, and a lightness in your step. It sounds blissful. Believe me, I want that too. But, achieving happiness is not an actual place or trait—it’s a daily practice that leads you to experience positive feelings about yourself and the world around you.
The topic of happiness has received considerable attention in the last few decades through the work of scholars in the field of positive psychology. Spearheaded by psychologists like Martin Seligman and Ed Deiner, researchers are exploring what leads us to experience greater happiness and wellbeing over the course of our lives.
Emerging data suggest that “being happy” is actually much harder than it sounds. For starters, happiness is an emotion—like anger, fear, and sadness. It’s a positive, pleasurable feeling that comes in and out of your experience over time. In other words, happiness is not a trait that describes something fundamental about who you are—it’s a state of being in a given moment. As such, it’s not reasonable to expect to feel happy all the time! In addition, what makes you happy is highly personal. Your happiness in any given moment will be affected by a host of things, like what you enjoy doing, who you’re with, how your body feels, your mood, and what you value about life.
Given that happiness is an emotional state, it’s better to strive to be fulfilled and satisfied with your life than to be “happy.” For the better you feel about your life in general, the more likely you are to experience feelings of happiness throughout your day.
The great news is that there are many things you can do to increase your general satisfaction with life, which will lead to more moments of happiness. It requires a daily practice of monitoring your own mind because how satisfied you feel is much more about how you perceive your life than it is about any objective reality. Here are some skills that you can start practicing today.
1. Be Grateful.
The more you can see the goodness that is already in your life, the more positively you will feel about yourself and the world around you. Make a deliberate effort to appreciate the things that you already have in your life that you love…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE