Original article on pro.psychcentral.com.
How happy are you? Have you noticed that some people who seem to have so much in life would hardly describe themselves as happy, while others who seem to have so little feel happy with their lives and themselves? Truly, happiness is an inside job!
Yes, some of us have wiring that makes us more easily content with our lot in life. Regardless of what is in our DNA, however, we all have some control over our levels of happiness by controlling our perceptions and our mindset.
At the end of this list of 10 happiness tips, you will find a link to a quick quiz to help you determine how highly happy you really are!
Ten Happiness Tips
1. Highly happy people embrace their greatness. They appreciate who they are – not just what they do or what they think they “should be.” Their sense of self-worth is unconditional. They have nothing to prove.
2. Highly happy people don’t compare themselves to others. The only person they compare themselves to is themselves, and how they have grown since yesterday. They don’t need to be better than others – as they know comparisons with others only end up making us bitter.
3. Highly happy people have a strong sense of social support. Happy people love to love – and be loved. They have at least someone to whom they can self-disclose and do not feel isolated.
4. Highly happy people are forgiving of themselves and others. They refuse to be weighed down by shame and grudges and forgive themselves and others for being unhealthy; differentiating unhealthiness from being bad. Instead of feelings of shame, they tend to be empathetic.
5. Highly happy people spend little time looking over their shoulders. They live life picking themselves up and moving forward. Looking back is useful only to learn from, not to live in. they refuse to give the past more power than their present.
6. Highly happy people fully realize that there are some things they will never get over. Some things are never really healed, but know that we can be happy despite the thorns in life. They don’t deny the thorns, they just don’t dwell on them.
7. Highly happy people are trusting and don’t spend much time being self-protective. They acknowledge that trusting others comes from at first trusting themselves. Rather than look for their self worth by pleasing others, and being defensive and self-protective in case they don’t, they have trust in their own wisdom.
8. Highly happy people are optimistic and positive. Optimism is not pretending things are okay when they are not, but rather making the best out of things. They remain grateful for what they have rather than lament what they don’t.
9. Highly happy people are proactive – not reactive. Happy people don’t wait for things to happen – they MAKE them happen! They are victors – not victims!
10. Highly happy people are compassionate towards themselves and others. Instead of beating themselves up and being their own harshest critic, they are accepting of themselves, flaws and all, and extend the same courtesy to others.
In looking at this list, are there some areas that are more challenging for you than others? To help you identify which areas to work on, here is a quick quiz to scale how highly happy you are. After taking the quiz, what are the areas to work on? How about making an action plan to work on improving those much needed happiness habits!
