Five ways to cultivate your inner optimist

Happiness is a word that captures a broad range of emotions. One researcher in this area, Barbara Fredrickson, includes ten emotions — joy, awe, gratitude, love, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement and inspiration.

I love this broad definition as it provides a gateway into a deeper discussion on how we bring more happiness into our lives.

And there are a lot of reasons aside from the obvious that we might want to do this. Increased happiness can result in stronger social relationships, superior work outcomes and more activity, energy, and flow. And as if that isn’t enough, happiness also brings with it good coping abilities, a bolstered immune systems and the likelihood that you will live longer.*

So what can you do to increase positivity in your life?

The first step is to accept that happiness is a choice. It’s a perspective we choose or a lens we wear through which we view the world. It’s not always easy and happiness or a positive view can seem elusive. If you accept that, there are several actions you can take towards being more positive. Here are five that I like and use in my life:

1. Be selective in the news you read. News doesn’t represent the real world. The media provides a specific view on the world — mostly war, drama, death, rape and economic disaster. This isn’t a rant against media — perhaps another post — but rather a stating of the obvious. The news is mostly irrelevant to your life — name one story you read in the last 12 months that allowed you to make better decisions in your life, or improve your life/relationships in some way. News is entertaining but it doesn’t add value and even worse, leaves us with a feeling of helplessness and worry about the future of the world.
2. Perform a daily random act of kindness. The evidence shows that being kind to others is a gateway to our own positivity. As the American politician, Bob Kerrey said “Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change”. Pay for someone’s coffee, walk the neighbour’s dog or write a note of appreciation for someone.
3. Train yourself to catch your inner critic. We all have these inner voices that criticize us (“You are an idiot for thinking that would go well!”) that know how to poke our vulnerabilities (“Well, she doesn’t really care about you”). Most of this internal narrative is something we would never say to people we care about yet we allow it to run free in our own minds. The first step is to be aware of the inner critic. The next step is to recognize that this is just an internal voice that is attempting to protect you (the fight/flight response of the mammalian brain). You can then choose to be impacted by this narrative, or to put it in a mental box of “thanks but no thanks” and move on.
4. Leverage your strengths. Identify your strengths (this is a great site to inventory your strengths). Another method is to poll your friends and family. ** Ask say 10 people you trust to give you three stories about the ways you add value and make important contributions. Then analyse these stories looking for themes. Once you are clear on your strengths, reflect on your life so you can use your strengths every day. Which aspects of you life allow you to make the most of your strengths — and which aspects stunt them? What changes are you able to make to leverage your strengths?
5. Mindful Meditation. Be it in the practice of mediation, mindfulness or dance mediation like 5Rythms, the practice of focusing on being present has a powerful impact on our lives. Our mind is an incredible machine and spends much of its time in the past of the future. Meditative practice builds our ability to be present in our own lives and to appreciate what is in the here and now.

Let me know what your favourite way is to bring happiness into your life.

*” The benefits of frequent positive affect: does happiness lead to success?” Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, University of California, 2005

** “Positivity”, Barbara Fredrickson, 2011