Your habits create happiness above all else in life. These 11 habits can make you happier today. Whenever we think about happiness, we typically think of things that bring us immediate pleasure — a decadent meal, a favorite book or a relaxing day on the beach. These pleasures do bring happiness, but only temporarily. Recent reports have shown that true happiness, or life satisfaction, works slightly differently.
In one study, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman categorized hundreds of people into three groups based on how they pursued happiness:
The Pleasant Life: People in pursuit of the Pleasant Life seek happiness by looking for pleasure. They are great at savoring the moment and making their pleasures last. These people are are often referred to as “thrill-seekers.”
The Engaged Life: People in pursuit of the Engaged Life seek happiness by making an effort within their passions. They immerse themselves so deeply within these that they can sometimes come across as cold and uncaring; however for them, time generally seems to melt away as they experience a state of total engagement.
The Meaningful Life: People in pursuit of the Meaningful Life use their strengths to work toward something they believe contributes to a greater good. This greater good motivates them deeply.
Seligman found that individuals who pursued the Pleasant Life experienced little happiness, while those that pursued the Meaningful Life as well as the Engaged Life were very happy.
While Seligman’s studies is simply a single study, it shows that where you focus your energy and attention has a big influence on your happiness. Those who pursued the Engaged Life and the Meaningful Life had something important in common — these people were deeply passionate, and they used their strengths to better themselves and the world around them.
Habits of Truly Happy Individuals
2. Surround yourself with the right people.
Happiness is contagious. Surrounding yourself with happy people builds confidence and stimulates creativity, and it’s flat-out fun. Hanging around negative people provides the opposite effect — they need people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. Consider it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke?
3. Get enough sleep.
We’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough regarding the importance of sleep to improving your mood, focus and self-control. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, removing toxic proteins that accumulate during the day as byproducts of normal neuronal activity. This makes certain that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your energy, attention and memory are typically reduced when you don’t get enough quality sleep. Insufficient sleep also raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without having a stressor present. Happy people make sleep a priority, because it makes them feel much better and they know how lousy they feel when they’re sleep deprived.
4. Live in the moment.
You can’t reach your full potential until you learn to live your life in the present. No degree of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future. It’s impossible to be happy if you’re constantly somewhere else, not able to fully embrace the reality (bad or good) of this very moment. To help yourself live in the moment, you should do two things: First, accept your past. If you don’t make peace with your past, it will never leave you and, by doing this, it’s going to design your future. Second, accept the uncertainty of the future. Worry has no place in the present. As Mark Twain once said, “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”
5. Learn to love yourself.
Most of us have no problem marveling at our friends’ good qualities, but it can be hard to appreciate our own. Learn to accept who you are, and appreciate your strengths. Research indicates that practicing self-compassion enhances the number of healthy choices you make, improves mental health and decreases your tendency to procrastinate.
6. Appreciate what you have.
Taking time to take into consideration what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. In addition, it improves your mood, since it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis discovered that individuals who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.
7. Exercise.
Getting your body moving for as little as 10 minutes releases GABA, a neurotransmitter which makes your brain feel soothed and keeps you in control of your impulses. Happy people schedule regular exercise and follow through on it because they know it pays huge dividends for their mood.
8. Forgive, but don’t forget.
Happy people live by the motto “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” They forgive in order to prevent a grudge, however they never forget. The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Holding on to that stress can have devastating consequences for your health and mood, and happy people know to avoid this at all costs. However, offering forgiveness doesn’t mean they’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Happy people will not be bogged down by mistreatment from others, so they quickly let things go and are generally assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.
9. Get in touch with your feelings.
Attempting to repress your emotions doesn’t just feel bad; it’s bad for you. Learning how to be open about your feelings decreases levels of stress and improves your mood. One study even suggested that there was a relationship between just how long you live along with your ability to express your emotions. It saw that individuals who lived to be at least 100 were considerably more emotionally expressive compared to the average person.
10. Concentrate on what you can control.
Instead of dwelling on the stuff you can’t control, try putting your effort into the things that you can. Have a long commute to work? Try listening to audiobooks. Hurt your leg jogging? Try swimming. More often than not, we use the bad and let it hold us back when it doesn’t need to. Happy people are happy because they take their failures in stride, not given that they don’t fail.
11. Possess a growth mindset.
People’s core attitudes fit in one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you’re challenged, because anything that appears to be greater than you can handle is bound to cause you to feel hopeless and overwhelmed. People with a growth mindset believe that they’re able to improve with effort. This makes them happier because they are better at handling difficulties. Additionally, they outperform those with a fixed mindset because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn new things.
Bringing It All Together
These strategies won’t just help your happiness; they’ll also allow you to be a better person. Pick the habits that resonate with you and have fun using them. If you have any suggestions on any other healthy habits, we would love to hear from you. Simply click here to leave us your comments.