How to be happy | Personal and Life Coaching, Business and Executive Coaching, Belfast, Northern Ireland (NI)

How To Be Happy – Six Simple Steps

June 13th, 2011 • Comments Off

Reasons To Be Cheerful

“If you woke up this morning and are having nothing more than an ordinary day, you are more fortunate than one million people who will not survive to the end of this week. If you have never experienced the horrors of war, the agony of torture or the loneliness of imprisonment, you are better off than 500 million people on this planet. If you can put food on your table, clothes on your back and have a place to sleep safely you are richer than 75% of the people in this world. If you have a few quid put away or even just a little money left over at the end of the week, you are among the wealthiest 8% of the world’s population. “ Brian Colbert, The Happiness Habit.

Why are so many of us unhappy and how can we start to change this?

Martin Seligman Professor of Psychology says that there is a formula to happiness and its: Pleasure + Engagement + Meaning = Happiness

Pleasure being that fleeting moment of joy, engagement when you are really engrossed in an activity and “in the flow”, meaning when you have a bigger purpose, a real interest something closely aligned with your personal values and core priorities as an individual.

Ask yourself right now – how much of your daily activities are about pleasure, meaning and engagement?

Aristotle

One of the greatest thinkers of our time said “Happiness depends on ourselves.” More than anybody else, Aristotle enshrined happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. Most of us consider happiness as a by product of our goals – something that will happen if we get what we want – “If I get the promotion I will be happy” Aristotle philosophized over 2,300 years that while “ Everywhere we see people seeking pleasure, wealth, and a good reputation and while each of these has some value, none of them occupy the chief good for which humanity should aim. His view was that “happiness was the ultimate goal of humanity “

Happiness & Genetics

Sonia Lyubomirsky from the University of California compared identical and non identical twins to determine the genetic component of happiness. She found that 50% of happiness is predetermined by our genes, 10% by our circumstances and 40% by our behaviour. This is the bit we can really influence.

Happiness & Money

There has been a steady increase in wealth over the last 50 years and yet there has also been a steady decrease in happiness. A study in 1957 reported 53% of respondent being very happy, the same study in 2005 showed a drop to just 36%.

The problem with increasing wealth is that we have initial pleasure for example to a new car, but its short lived as we then get used to it, desensitize, and want more to recapture that moment of pleasure. The rise in media and advertising enables us to compare more and the increase in consumer goods means that we want more.

Happiness & Benefits

Happiness has many proven benefits. We become more sociable/ altruistic, increase our self esteem, become more successful in our relationships & careers and it boosts our immune systems and life expectancy. A study of the sisters of Notre Dame in Milwaukee found that happy nuns on average lived nine years longer than gloomy nuns. Their lives were almost exactly the same – same food, same work, and same routine but not the same life expectancy.

What Makes us Happy?

Marriage – Increases happiness & life expectancy.

Friends and Family - High social capital = increased happiness.

Research from Harvard and Warwick University tell us that a good friend is worth £50,000.

Health – Being healthy makes us happy or happiness increases our health researchers are undecided, as yet, which way round this works.

Meaning & Goals embedded in our values – A clear focus on what’s really important to us and goals that are aligned with our values.

Three Blessings – What Went Well and Why?

Seligman undertook research with 500 participants asking them to record three things that went well and why, every day for 15 days? In this study 92% of people reported increased happiness over the 15 day period. (2005)

Gratitude Attitude

Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough (2003) studied the impact of asking people to write about gratitude. Three groups were asked to spend a few moments each week writing. One group was asked to write about the things they were grateful for, another group was asked to write about things that annoyed them and the final group was required to write about events that had happened that week. The gratitude group ended up happier, healthier, more optimistic and even exercised more than the other two groups. Everyone has something to be happy about but often we just stop noticing what that is.

Ideal Futures

In a study by Laura King from the Southern Methodist University (2001), participants were asked to spend a few minutes for four consecutive days writing about their ideal future. They were asked to be realistic and describe things going as well as possible and that they had achieved their goals. Another group was asked to write about traumatic events and a third group about their plans for the day. The results revealed that those who described their ideal future had much higher happiness levels at the end of the four days.

Affectionate Writing

Kory Floyd at the Arizona State University (2007) asked volunteers to think about someone they loved and spend 20 minutes describing why this person meant so much to them. As a control another group was asked to write about something that had happened to them that week. Each group did this three times over a five week period. The results were again dramatic with those involved in affectionate writing showing a marked increase in happiness and a decrease in stress and even lower cholesterol levels.

Challenge Negative Thoughts

Imagine that you had a friend who constantly criticized your appearance and told you how bad you were at doing things. A person who critically analyzed your every action and always pointed out the worst areas. A friend who filled you with guilt about past events and fuelled you with fear and anxiety about your future actions and goals. What would you do with a friend like that?

The trouble is for most of us we are that person or that person lives inside our head as our gremlin or sits on our shoulder like a parrot pecking away at our confidence and self esteem. Your mind is the one area where you have complete control. What you think creates your feelings and what you feel creates your behaviors. If your internal voice is not supporting you and acting like a true friend then its time to create a voice that will. To be happier you need take a firm control of those negative thoughts and banish the Gremlin and Parrot to distant shores.