Discover Your Path to Happiness
Studies have identified many strategies for increasing positivity, yet there is no one true path to happiness. Research shows that different individuals benefit from different strategies. So in order to increase your happiness you need to figure out what works for you.
For me, exercise is one of the most important strategies for maintaining a positive focus. When I don’t have a chance to get to the gym my mood starts to sink. I try very hard to make time for exercise for me and for the people around me! But I have friends who truly hate to exercise. So while finding some way to stay fit is important, I’m sure that daily trips to the gym would not increase their happiness.
Another one of the happiness strategies that works best for me is to remind myself to have an attitude of gratitude. My cue is when I feel myself wanting to complain about something. I try to stop and deliberately look for something for which I can be grateful.
The other day one of the kids needed something for school. The first thought that popped into my mind was, “What a pain! When am I going to find time to run to the store?” But I stopped and reminded myself how lucky I am to be a mom and to have wonderful kids who are responsible enough to tell me ahead of time when they need something. And how blessed we are that we can afford to buy what we need. And isn’t it great that I have a flexible job so I can work in a trip to the store? Doing this really helps me to reframe situations so that I experience more positive emotions.
What happiness strategies work best for you? Nurturing relationships? Practicing acts of kindness? Using your strengths? Getting enough sleep? Pursuing your goals? Meditating? Figuring it out will get you on the path to happiness.
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“What a pain!” – ahahah, that makes me laugh, simply by thinking that I would probably use a quite less polite expression!
As for ‘happiness strategies’, I combine several methods.
When it comes to small fusses, sometimes I think something on the line of “If only these were the big troubles, life would be so simple… I wish it was the case!”
For slightly serious nuisances, another method is framing life in bubbles.
If my life is a big bathtub, I consider it to be full of soap bubbles, big and small. And when something goes completely wrong, I try to raise the perspective of my analysis one step higher; so to realize that, even though that one bubble might be completely black and wasted, it is still one small, tiny bubble within a multitude of big and shiny ones!
In case of more serious concerns – such as changing city or country, or the loss of a job or of a beloved person, the strategy is quite different.
This kind of big happenings will bring me to tears, most probably while alone.
When this happens, I look up to the sky and think how many beautiful, precious moments I have passed during that experience that is not possible anymore – and I laugh while crying, going over those sequence of happy moments, also thinking which good lessons it has taught me.
And I happen to think that if I had such beautiful and instructive instants, and if I am able to appreciate them, then I will work so to have more and more of them, and I start to wonder which sort of wonderful times are waiting ahead.
All of this while crying and laughing at the same time.
Actually, I really can’t think of an occasion in the last few years where crying was pure sadness. Of course sadness was also there, nevertheless it was always a quite insightful, happy, and semi-blissed moment.
I love your bubble analogy! Thanks for sharing, Francesco!