With the stress of work, bills, and modern life, happiness is becoming more and more of a luxury for many people.
A lot of us are trading our current well-being for the promise of a stable, prosperous future. This manifests itself in working long hours, working multiple jobs, or attending classes in our spare time.
All of this work and stress in the short term is supposed to provide us happiness and success in the long term, right?
According to a study by Stanford Researcher Emma Seppala, that may not be the case.
For most of us, we simply have the order backward by believing that success equals happiness. However, it turns out we just need to reverse our thinking to achieve both.
In other words, we need to be happy in order to succeed.
How does this work? Seppala, in her new book The Happiness Track, tells us that the key to happiness lies from within, not from without. While it may seem logical that a better job, a bigger house, and stable finances can put us at ease, it does not necessarily make us happy.
So how do you make yourself happy (and hopefully successful as well)? Emma suggests these five steps:
Be Nice to Yourself
As anyone who has looked in a mirror knows we can be our own worst enemy.
It’s typical for an individual to be much harder on themselves than they are towards other people, or than other people are towards them.
While some may consider this a positive trait, as it can lead you to always trying to better yourself, too much negative feedback from within can lead to misery.
Instead of beating yourself up, try reacting the same way you would if a friend messed up. While this can be difficult at first, with practice, it can become second nature.
Be Nice to Others
Charity and selflessness are a quick way to get on the path to happiness.
Helping someone in need, or just going out of your way to do something nice for someone you care about, can go a long way to brightening your mood.
Bringing a smile to another person’s face immediately makes us feel better, so the more charitable you are, the better off you’ll feel.
Live in the Moment
For too many of us, we are constantly living in the past or the future.
Agonizing over past mistakes or worrying about upcoming events can lead to extra stress, which makes us unhappy.
Instead, focusing on what we can accomplish at this moment, even if it is something tiny, can benefit our mood drastically.
While they say don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s best to relish in the little victories you achieve every day. Make sure to live in the now, not in the later.
Learn Something
A lot of the time, we like to stay in our comfort zone.
This is because the brain hates change, and will stop at nothing to keep things as simple and efficient as possible.
However, this can ultimately lead to misery as our brain also craves stimuli and excitement to keep it running smoothly.
To maintain the proper balance of change and similarity, it can be helpful to learn something new. Whether it’s a skill, a hobby, or something smaller, learning is a great way to achieve happiness, as it makes us feel like we accomplished something.
By going outside of our comfort zone and taking on challenges we wouldn’t typically face, we can increase our happiness through the experience of something new.
Be Grateful
For a lot of us, we take everything for granted.
Again, this is another unfortunate trick of the brain, but it can make us miserable regardless.
We are living in a golden age of technology, with access to devices and information that our ancestors would never have dreamed of, and we still find the smallest things about which to complain.
Therefore, it’s imperative that we take time each day to realize just how lucky we are.
While too many of us are looking up at what we don’t have, we should be looking down to see how much worse things could be, and be grateful that we are not in such a position.
According to Seppala, just writing down five things that you are grateful for every day can help trigger feelings of happiness.
When it comes to our well-being, we have much more power over ourselves than we think. While it may be easier to let our circumstances dictate our mood, we should instead take the time and energy to create our own sense of well-being and success.
Happiness comes from within, and with happiness comes success.