Happiness… the degree varies, the reasons vary, and the manner of expression varies. What does not vary is how it benefits someone and how it makes life more worth living. Research builds on the common reasons for happiness but cannot neglect the factor of individual differences also, can we? And then, there’s also the spiritual angle of happiness lies in our hands and that only we decide what makes us happy or upset. Either way, whether you believe more in science or spirituality, there’s only one route to happiness and that begins with you wanting to be happy! Some help? Take a look at some of these suggestions on how to be happy.
Avoid Thinking Negative!
It’s a basic human tendency to focus more on bad experiences and thoughts than positive ones. Our mind is conditioned to over-learn from hurtful and bad experiences, to react quickly, and avoid them in future situations.
However, staying calm and handling situations better require you to control your negative thoughts.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Don’t try blocking your negative thoughts: Telling yourself “I have to stop thinking about this,” makes you think about it more. Instead, own your worries. When you are in a negative thought process, acknowledge it. “I’m worried about money.” “I’m obsessing about my career.”
- Treat yourself like a friend. When you are feeling negative about yourself, ask yourself for advice you would give your friend feeling low. Now try applying the same advice to yourself.
- Challenge your negative thoughts. Challenging your irrational thoughts is proven to reduce the symptom of depression. The purpose of this process is to move you from a negative frame of mindset to a positive one. Here are some examples of questions you can ask yourself to challenge negative thinking.
The first step is to pen down your negative thought, such as “I’m facing problems at work and which is making me question my skills.”
- Now ask yourself: “What is the evidence for this thought?”
- “Is it based on facts or just feelings?”
- “Is it possible if I’m misinterpreting the whole situation?”
- “How might other people see this situation differently?
- “How might have I seen this situation if it had happened to somebody else?”
So, the bottom line is, thinking negative is natural, but recognizing and challenging it is the key to our happiness.