5 Simple Ways to Live a Happy Life
Happiness can have many different shapes and colours depending on people’s perspective. If you ask a professional athlete, happiness looks like a gold Olympic medal. In case you ask a mother of three, happiness is the health and happiness of her children.
A common belief is that happiness has a lot to do with material things and wealth in general. This is why people who struggle to succeed in business and earn a lot of money often feel sad and depressed.
However, studies have shown that being rich doesn’t necessarily mean being happy, so it seems that money and happiness don’t always go hand in hand. These studies also offer a few practical pieces of advice that everyone can use to feel happier in years to come.
Count Your Blessings
Many popular psychology books consider gratitude as the key component of living a happy life. The system includes taking a small notebook in which you write all the things you are grateful for. You should do this either first thing in the morning or just before going to bed.
The aim of this practice is to shift your focus from bad things to good things in your life and evoke pleasant emotions. Writing it in the notebook should keep the feeling of gratitude alive and intensify emotions.
After some time, your brain will become reprogrammed to see more of the good around you. Therefore, you will completely change your perspective and, ultimately, your life.
Stay Tidy
At first glance, tidiness doesn’t seem to have much to do with happiness. However, it’s been proved that a clean house can lead to a clean mind and we all know that happiness has a lot to with that one.
The actual connection between a tidy home and happiness is the reduced level of stress. When your house is a mess, it’s more likely you will feel stressed. That’s because you won’t be able to find what you are looking for or you’ll be thinking about how you’ll need a lot of time to get everything back in order.
When everything is neat and tidy, you will have more time to relax on the couch with a glass of wine after a long and tiresome day at work.
Try Something New
Staying in our comfort zone for too long can be one of the reasons why we feel stuck in life. When that occurs, it seems like nothing is happening in our lives.
Luckily, this problem can easily be solved — you just have to try something new. And when we say something, we literally mean anything. Try a new hairstyle or a different way of applying your makeup. Watch a movie from a genre that’s rarely on your list. Use another way to get to work, or maybe choose a bike over your car on a sunny day.
You cannot expect your life to change if you keep doing the same things over and over again. Therefore, make a small change and you might discover something that can change your life for the better.
Enjoy Little Things
In the quest for happiness, people often run after something big while they overlook the little things that make up most of our lives.
These little things can be anything you might be overlooking because they seem irrelevant. When was the last time you enjoyed a great cup of coffee and noticed that it tastes just the way you like it? Maybe your mother was giving her best to teach you how to make her special cinnamon roll while you only wanted to get it over with?
Take some time to reflect on all these little moments you didn’t appreciate in the past and make a commitment to pay more attention to them in the future. You will notice how happier you will feel shortly after you integrate this practice into your life.
Find Balance
What most of us need is a reminder that balance is a must in these modern times. Even if you are a person whose synonym for happiness is material wealth, you need to rest from time to time or you will become so drained that you might end up with some serious health problems.
Recently, the word lagom has become a hit all around the world. Lagom comes from Sweden and is translated as ‘just the right amount’. This means you should have a bit of everything in life — not too little nor too much.
If you manage to find a balance between your job and personal life, happiness is guaranteed.