Simple ways to get happier
How I approach it
You are doing your goals, work is good, life does not have problems. But you are still not as happy as you think you should be.
I am not talking about one off happiness. You go for shopping, buy something and be happy for a few days. You take a vacation, share pictures and be happy for a few days. They are examples of what I call one off happiness. You escape your normal life to be happy. Then you get back in normal life and wait for the next escape to be happy.
I am talking about your day-to-day happiness. Are you happy when you are working? Are you happy when you are not working? Are you happy when you are not doing anything and sitting around?
New year starts and we make goals. We try to do them. We may fail. We may succeed. Did achieving the goals give you more than one off happiness? Did it last for long?
What causes this day-to-day unhappiness?
The root of unhappiness is lack of clarity of thoughts. We buy something. We get back home. It does not interest us for more than few days. Why did we buy that in the first place?
How do you get clarity of thoughts?
We start by taking out the fluff from our head. Don’t keep in your head than what is necessary. Dump it somewhere.
I have found that writing a diary every day is a great option for this. Had a fight with someone? Had a great day? Lot of chatter? Gossip? There are no rules here on what you should or should not add here. Write all your thoughts down in your diary. But make sure you have a password on it. Otherwise dumping all your thoughts somewhere would seem quite dangerous. I have found Evernote works great for that purpose.
After taking the thoughts out now it is time to do some thinking. Ask yourself some questions and write down their answer too in your diary
- What were the good parts today? What made you happy?
- What were the bad parts today? What made you unhappy? Would this keep you unhappy? Tomorrow? 1 month from now? 1 year from now? 10 years from now?
- If every day for the next 5 years was like today would you enjoy those 5 years? Which part of today I cannot do for the rest of my life?
- Is there any dream that you had? Something that you don’t have courage to do currently? How happy would that make you? Tomorrow? 1 month from now? 1 year from now? 10 years from now?
Write a diary every day. Keep asking these questions every day. You will get surprised what you can realize about yourself. Do not read previous day’s writing before starting today’s writing. Don’t keep these things in a piece a paper that you loose. Write it down somewhere and do it every day for 21 days.
After 21 days read them. You would see what makes you happy. Most of the problems that we get unhappy over don’t matter beyond today. You won’t even remember most of the problems 1 month from now. Let alone 1 year from now. When you answer that question you will see that.
After you have clarity of thoughts, it is time to act. Make a plan. How to increase the things that make you happier? How to reduce the things that make you unhappy. Think long term and start ignoring the things which don’t matter beyond 1 day.
Make goals based on increasing your happiness. Not the other way round. And if you want some help in that part I have written about making goals here.
