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5 Tips to Increased Happiness

What does happiness mean to you? To some It can mean pure elation, to others it could mean being content in your current situation, but to me happiness is the feeling from a fulfilling life. This doesn’t mean that everything in your life has to be fulfilling.

You might feel fulfilled being in your perfect job, having a great social life, or travelling the world. All of which are awesome things to feel fulfilled about. This doesn’t mean you have to feel fulfilled 100% of the time, all day every day, because let’s be real, life can be crap and get you down.

You’ve got overdue bills to pay, you didn’t get the job you interviewed for, or you just generally don’t feel great today (for example, hitting your toe on the side of the bed, which has literally just happened to me and I’m writing this through held back tears!).

The trick is to find fulfillment in the every-day little things. Don’t get bogged down and depressed because you’re not exactly where you want to be in life right now or things may not be going your way for the time being. Just remember than no one is completely fulfilled 100% of the time, that’s not normal and unattainable, not to mention quite unhealthy.

If you feel unhappy and unfulfilled, here are some of my top tips to turning that around that you can use TODAY to increase your level of happiness.

Tip #1: Have a ‘Why’

Have direction, something to work for, a life with a sense of purpose, and work towards it. I’m not saying that you should migrate to China and live in a monastery (I actually know someone who did this) but have something to give purpose to your life. This could be the ‘everyday things’ such as striving to see your friends and family more or saving for a house. Other instances I know that give people direction and joy are charity work, striving for your dream job, being free from work to be your own boss, going for a Guinness world Record even!

Tip #2: Start Your Days Right

This is very important because if you don’t start off right, it will only snowball throughout the day. You want to start it off right so that it snowballs into something productive and worthwhile. This is obviously subjective. Some people have a big breakfast to get them going, some skip breakfast and work their best, some people go to the gym at 5:30 and others meditate. By far and away the most popular way to start the day for most people is to have a cup of coffee for that ‘wake me up’ hit, in order to get that boost of motivation and confidence to take on what the next 12 hours may bring. Experiment with different activities and routines and see which has the greatest effect on you.

Tip #3: Don’t Fixate on Money

Don’t get me wrong, we all do it at some point. Money allows us to live our lives in relative comfort, and money means we eat, but money will only bring happiness to some and not others. For example, someone with very low amounts of money will be made happier in the short term by a large amount of money, but someone who earns £250,000 and comes into more money will not be as affected. What is worse, is that some people compromise their health and happiness in the pursuit of money which Is a fairly toxic habit to get into. I’m not going to say it’s the route of all evil, but don’t let the desire to have it (and more) consume you, because you will never be satisfied.

Tip #4: Surround Yourself With People Who Make You Happy

This can be family and friends, or a community. A great example of this could be a sports team you are part of, a volunteer group, your church. Anywhere you have like-minded people you can socialise and bond with. A great place to start is meetup.com. They have tons of groups all over the UK spanning many interests that I couldn’t possibly list here. Check it out and see what groups are near you. There’s bound to be a group you like the sound of within touching distance, or thereabouts. The homepage as of typing this, states ‘What do you love? do more of it with meetup’, need I say more?

Tip #5: See the Positive When it’s Easier to See the Negative

The following example is dedicated to all those heroes who have had kids. If you are bringing up a child, you have lots of good times, but you also have to deal with nappy changes, incessant crying and temper tantrums, do you see yourself as a slave to this mini human or a protector/nurturer of this little lifeform? You can also think of this as ‘see the challenge, NOT the obstacle’. This is for example purposes, I’m sure you love your kids, but can you see how a mindset change can alter how you would react to sitautions? And ultimately change how you feel, and approach life?

Did you like these tips? If so, make sure you comment below and share this post with your friends….

Stay Confident,

Luke

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How to Live For Today and Not Worry About Tomorrow (or Yesterday)

Happy the man and happy he alone

He, who can call today his own:

He who, secure within can say:

“Tomorrow do thy worst, for i have lived today”

Horace

Why do we worry so much about what has been, what may come, what we cannot control? We do this to such an extent that we don’t live in the current moment. We are not enjoying our time with our partners, our families or our friends because our minds are fixated on everything else, panicking about the future of which we can do very little about. Causing ourselves to mentally tire out and even make ourselves ill with worry. We let precious moments pass us by only to lament doing so at a later date.

The poem above, written by the Roman poet Horace, is a 2000 year old indication that this worry is nothing new, so how can we overcome it?

The clue is in the last line of his poem ‘Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today’. Ensuring we live our best life today and not give power to the stresses that tomorrow may bring. So, the key is to live in deliberate, one-day segments. Know what you must do for this day alone, by all means this can include preparing for days to come, such as arranging a holiday, but do not dedicate so much time that you forget that you are meant to enjoy life in the now.

The key is to not fill our day with too much ‘stuff’ and to live in one day segments. We do this by:

Planning your day, the afternoon before, and tick off every accomplishment as you go.
This helps you track your progress visually, and gives a sense of achievement to carry on. There are tons of apps that can help you do this, but one that I particularly like to use is One Note, simply for its simplicity. Just go to your app store for whichever platform you are on and search for ‘to-do list’ or ‘planner’ and try a few out.

Remembering that every day is a new life to a wise man.
I forget where I read this, but it has stayed with me for years and I find it quite profound. It tells me that there’s ample opportunity to start over anew each day. There’s a reason why the phrase ‘sleep on it’ is so famous, because after you have recharged your batteries for a new day, you are more refreshed, positive and confident to take challenges on.

Waking up early.
I know, I know, this is an unpopular one. Especially with students (been there too), but tell me you don’t feel great in being up early and productive. Okay, the getting out of bed part is crap, especially in winter, but once you are up and have had your coffee (more on this at the end), you feel great that you accomplished the first small task of the day. Now onto the next one on your list.

Not working too late or too early.
This differs from person to person, but personally I shudder at the thought of starting my tasks at 3 am, whereas the next person may relish it, and I stop working (for example, learning new computer skills, learning a language) at 7:30pm and have the rest of the evening as ‘my time’ to do things other than work. We all need this time to unwind and enjoy other things such as the people around us, and I’ve stuck to my one – day segment.

Take the time to slow down.
Yep, if you’re anything like me then you will have a tendency to think about a million things at once and get stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’ and before you know it, three hours have passed by and you have nothing to show for it. Take time to sit down and relax, have a cuppa (cup of tea for anyone reading this from outside the UK) and stop trying to fill every second of the day with stimulus. You will find that you will be much more confident, satisfied, happy and productive if you stop chasing ‘feelings and stimulus’ constantly and accept that feelings, good or bad are fleeting, you will be much more at ease and your mind will relax. Preventing you from mentally burning out.

Forget your worries of tomorrow and don’t stew over yesterday. Yesterday has gone and you can’t control it, win or lose, we take lessons from yesterday and apply them to today. This is easier said than done, but it’s the only way yesterday can be of any value to us. The worries of tomorrow also have no power over us if we concentrate on one-day segments. Again, this takes practice and may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it works wonders for me :D.

Reward yourself for your accomplishments in your one- day segment.
Been to the gym? Reward yourself with your favourite healthy meal, completed your tax return? Have a beer (as long as your to-do list doesn’t include driving afterward), this could even be your favourite takeaway (maybe do this at the end of a five day streak, as much as I love pizza I think having it every day would destroy me).

Don’t get me wrong, there are things in life that are incredibly important that require prior planning, and to ignore them is silly, such as paying the mortgage, and you’re not going to solve that in just one day, but break it down into day-tight sections and gradually chip away at the bigger tasks. Seeing progress being made in this way gives you a ‘pick-me-up’ and keeps you motivated to continue and smash your task.

The above tips give you more control over your day – to – day life, and give you a confident air of calm about you as you look like (and do have!) your sh*t together that little bit more.

Stay Confident

Luke