Ways To Be Happy
No one can guarantee that you will always be happy, but there are things you can do and ways you can think that will help you lead a happier life. Here are some of them.
Think Highly of Yourself
Self esteem is one of the key ingredients for a happy life. For healthy self esteem, I recommend the following practices:
- Teach yourself to like who you see in the mirror. Foster a positive self image. Something that worked for me when I had a negative self image was to look at myself in the mirror and actually tell myself how great I am. Learn to look at yourself in the mirror and smile affectionately at what you see.
- Do what you think is right. You will always respect yourself if you always try to do the right thing.
- Don't beat yourself up. This can be a tough one to beat, but calling yourself stupid or otherwise thinking negatively of yourself for your mistakes is counterproductive. Instead of blaming yourself, coach yourself to do things differently next time.
Do For Others
Few activities help us feel good about ourselves more effectively than helping other people.
- Help members of your family
- Help your friends and people you know
- Volunteer or fund-raise for a charitable organization.
- Help people you come in contact with accidentally
If you can say you are a person who helps others, it definitely will help you think highly of yourself.
Be Calm
Learn to control your mood. Both the heights of ecstasy and the depths of depression are dangerous to your overall happiness. Meditation is an excellent practice for smoothing out the hills and valleys. Steady happiness is much better than a manic depressive roller coaster ride.
Treat Yourself
Do things you like to do. Eat things you like to eat. Treat yourself like someone you love. If you love yourself, you will feel loved even if no one else loves you.
Exercise
One of the best ways to be happy is to be fit. Now, fitness is a relative thing, but I can tell you, the fitter I am, the better I feel. Adopt a regular program of exercise. Find a way to measure your progress. Develop a reward system. Regular exercise is good for mind, body, and spirit and will almost always help you feel better.
However, try not to hurt yourself. Injuries can be an imperfection in your happiness.
When Bad Things Happen
As I said earlier, don't beat yourself up. But especially don't beat yourself up about occurrences over which you had no control. This is not only self destructive, it's stupid. Bad things happen to everyone. If it happened because it was your fault, own up, learn your lesson and move on. If it happened because of circumstances outside the sphere of your control, take comfort in the fact that it was not your fault.
There is much unhappiness in the world. Sometimes it's just unavoidable. But you owe it to yourself to bounce back as soon as you can. Life is too short to spend it otherwise than happy.
I wish you happiness.
