“Don’t sweat the small stuff,” they say. And they – whoever “they” is, have a good point. It’s easy to get caught up in all the little things that stress us out and ruin our day. Hmmmmm…, it’s not worth wasting a lot of energy on a lot of things that happen daily that we don’t like. Sure, we could get upset over the fact that someone else took the last good parking spot or that the grocery store is out of our favorite brand of cereal. Or we can choose not to make a big deal out of it and use that small, fairly insignificant stuff to practice seeing the positive side of things. Having to park further away means we get to exercise a little and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine for a couple of minutes while we stroll into the office. Can’t find our favorite cereal means we get a chance to try something new that we may like even better.
There are often two sides to any situation and as humans, we have a choice in how we look at it. Make it a goal to look on the bright side and watch your happiness and contentment go up. Then take it a step further and start to really pay attention to all the good stuff around you. Stop and smell the roses, if you will.
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I’m serious. There’s a lot of value in noticing all the positive things around you. There’s a lot of tiny little things around you that will put a smile on your face if you take the time to notice them. Make it a habit to spend some of your downtime this week to savor the small stuff. Notice how your cup of coffee smells, how it warms your hands on a cool morning, and how it tastes. Pay attention to the birds outside your window and notice how watching them and their antics around the birdfeeder make you smile. Appreciate the hug your little one gives you after you pick her up from school. In other words, savor all the small stuff that makes you happy. It may not be much, but it all adds up to a very happy life. You just have to take the time to notice it.
Over the coming weeks, practice noticing and savoring the small stuff. Don’t let the bad stuff bring you down. Instead, make it a goal to find something positive about everything that happens to you throughout the day. Pay particular attention to all the little things that make you smile. Acknowledge them, and it won’t take long before you feel this simple little exercise making a big difference in your overall outlook on life.
Like it or not, we are social creatures who crave human connections. It is hardwired into our brains because we need to work together to ensure the survival of our species. We have to work together to make this happen. It only makes sense then that forming and maintaining those connections has a built-in internal reward. On the flip side, when we spend too much time isolated and alone, we start to feel sad, depressed and if that isolation lasts too long, we can go mad.
And it is our interaction with other people more than anything else that brings us happiness. It isn’t the amount of money we make or have stashed away in a bank account. It isn’t the big house, the fancy car, and all the stuff we accumulate over the years. What makes us happy is spending time and sharing experiences with other people.
Of course, not every single person makes us happy. We all have to deal with plenty of people we don’t particularly enjoy spending time together. We do it to work jointly on a project at the office because they are our neighbors or because they happen to work out next to us at the gym. Some people we are ambivalent about, others we’d rather not spend time with given a choice. Yet, there are still benefits to these relationships. We work well together, challenge each other and become better people and better contributors to society at large when we collaborate. This has its own rewards.
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On the other hand, when we are with people we love and whose company we enjoy, we get a lot of joy, satisfaction, and happiness out of those interactions. We have evolved into beings who crave mental, social, and physical connections. There’s a reason almost everyone appreciates a heartfelt hug.
Spending time with people who love and encourage us, and those that challenge us, and make us push harder, helps us grow as human beings. We get better when we have cheerleaders and mentors around us. There’s a reason people say that you are or will become the average of the five people you spent the most time around. Pick those around you wisely if you want to grow as a person and if your goal is happiness, spend as much time as you can with happy, positive people.
Above all, make sure you nurture those important close relationships with family and friends. Those connections will help boost your happiness and make you feel like you’re part of something bigger that gives meaning to your life.
When you’re having a bad day or are feeling down, the best way to increase your happiness may be to exercise. There is a strong link between exercise and improved mood and well-being. Give it a try. Go for a 30-minute walk whenever you’re feeling depressed and unhappy. You’ll notice your mood starting to increase throughout the walk. As you get back, you may notice that you’re feeling even happier.
This increase in happiness and well-being after exercise is caused by two different mechanisms in our body. The first is that exercise causes the release of brain chemicals like endorphins and other mood enhancers. This happens just a few minutes after you work out and the effect can last for a good 12 hours. The second part of the equation is that exercise also helps reduce the levels of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline in the body. That means you’ll instantly feel less stressed. This one-two punch can have a powerful effect on how you feel. Something as simple as a brisk walk can immediately help you feel better.
For best results, you want to exercise a few times per week. Take some time during your lunch break to go for a walk or fit a quick workout in before you head to work in the morning. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you start moving around and get that blood pumping. Pick activities you enjoy that you will stick with.
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In addition to the everyday mood booster you get from exercising regularly, there are quite a few additional long-term benefits. Exercise is good for your health and you will start to get fitter and even slimmer and more toned if you stick with it. This, in turn, will improve how you feel and how you feel about yourself. That added confidence can be a tremendous mood booster.
For best results, try to get as much exercise as you can outside. Fresh air and sunshine add to a feeling of well-being. Come up with some simple things you can start doing right now. Maybe it’s going for a walk each afternoon. Perhaps it’s taking up jogging. Maybe it’s signing up for a Yoga or Pilate’s class at your local community center, or maybe it’s joining a basketball team. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do as long as you make it a goal to get more active and move around. Switch it up and plan a group hike for the weekend or dust off your bike. There’s a lot of fun ways to move around and enjoy the world around you.
It’s hard to be happy when you’re stressed. I don’t have to tell you that. I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourself. Think back on high-stress situations like missing a flight to go on vacation or when you were planning your wedding and things got overwhelming and started to fall apart. Hopefully, you were able to recover and enjoy your time away or your wedding day, but the chances are that you weren’t too happy while you were stressed out. Stress sucks the happiness and joy right out of us.
It only makes sense then that one way to increase our happiness and our quality of life is to distress. Not only is it good for our soul, but it’s also good for our overall health and wellbeing to reduce the stress in our lives. Here are some simple things you can do to distress.
Get Enough Sleep
An easy way to stress less is to ensure you get a good seven to eight hours of sleep at night. When we don’t sleep well and don’t sleep enough, our bodies are in a constant state of stress, trying to make up for the lack of sleep. Sleep helps us relax and gives our mind time to process everything that’s been happening. Stop burning the midnight oil and get some sleep. You’ll get more done when you’re fresh and rested and you’ll be less stressed out.
Move Around And Get Some Exercise
Without a doubt, the best stress reliever is exercise. Start moving around and burn that stress right out of your system. If you can get outside to workout, even better. The fresh air and sunshine will do wonders. Go for a run, or even just a short walk whenever you’re feeling stressed. For best results, work out regularly.
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There are times in our lives when we have to spend a lot of focus and attention on others. Maybe you are raising a toddler, or perhaps you’re working hard to get a new company off the ground. When busy times like these take a lot of our attention and time, it’s easy to forget about ourselves or put our own personal needs last. Make an effort to spend at least a little bit of “me” time each day. It doesn’t have to be much. Even ten minutes spent relaxing and doing something completely selfish can be a great way to decompress and distress.
Practice Meditation
Let’s wrap this up with one last technique to keep stress at bay. Try meditating. Again, you don’t have to spend a lot of time on this. Sitting quietly and praying or going through a guided meditation once a day can do wonders. Once you get in the habit of practicing them daily and get better at it, you can draw on the techniques you’ve learned whenever you encounter a particularly stressful situation. You can spend a minute or two in meditation, even at the most stressful time and allow your mind to relax. Trust me; this will come in very handy when life throws you a curveball or when you’re feeling completely overwhelmed.
We are hard-wired for taking action and getting stuff done. It only makes sense, right? Our survival as a society depends on the actions of lots of different people. If each of us does our part, everything runs smoothly. It only makes sense then that we have an internal mechanism hard-wired into our brain that rewards us for getting things done.
I’m sure you’ve seen this in action in your own life. You feel proud, accomplished, and happy when you wrap up a big work project or finish reorganizing your closet. It’s a great feeling and drives us to get things done. The internal reward we feel is motivation to get to work and take action.
On the other hand, when we don’t have anything meaningful to do, we don’t feel like we’re contributing have value results in us becoming depressed. People who don’t have a fulfilling job or feel like their work is useless are much more likely to feel down, frustrated, sad, and depressed.
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The best way to turn that around is to find work, projects, causes that we can get involved with to make us feel productive. If we feel like we’re contributing to others, positively impacting their lives, all the better. Give it a try. The next time you feel down, force yourself to do one little productive thing. I call them small wins. Go clean the bathroom, use your skills to help a nonprofit or neighbor, learn a new skill to enhance your performance at work, or call a friend or family member you know is going through something to encourage them. Then use that accomplishment to motivate yourself to get something else done. Keep building on your momentum, and before you know it, you’ll notice your mood changing for the better.
If you want to supercharge this experience, go out and do something that positively impacts others. Go work at a soup kitchen for a couple of hours, or help out at your local animal shelter. Offer to babysit for a friend with little kids who haven’t gotten out all week. Do something that benefits someone else and you’ll feel even better than before. Helping others is a great way to get your mind off your challenges, as well. 🙂
As you plan for your future, set a goal to pursue opportunities, work, or build a business that helps fuel this feeling of contributing and giving back. Wouldn’t it be great if the hours you spent earning a living each week also contributed to your overall happiness and a feeling of fulfillment? What can you do this week or this month to work towards this goal? That’s where you want to start and in the meantime, keep volunteering, keep taking action, and do things that make you feel happy and accomplished.
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Use the fillable PDF Journal to respond to Challenge prompts, record your thoughts and develop a success plan. Each two-page daily challenge is filled with prompts and calls to action that provide an opportunity to develop a new mindset, incorporate change in your daily activities, follow a process to achieve your goals, and keep you on track and organized.
Ultimately, your transformation is a direct result of your investment in yourself. Change is not easy, rarely happens overnight, and will be challenged – so believing you deserve a better life is imperative to keep you motivated to achieve your goals. Whatever chapter of your life you are in, you write the next one… so make it a great one by working on yourself and pursuing your desires to live a passionate, purpose-driven, and happy life.
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