Highway to Happiness

In many ways, happiness is probably what most people aim for in life. Happiness is in as many areas of life as possible with different areas possibly taking precedence at different times. Often, financial security would be mentioned as something that can lead to happiness, so would health and relationships, friends, travel, hobbies or interests, job satisfaction and many other things.

Clearly many of these can add to our happiness but if we concentrate all of our efforts on those things strangely we can often find happiness evades us as life becomes a constant struggle to ‘move forward’ in whatever our ambitions are. The destination is important but the journey is important too.

It seems to come back to the theme of living in the present. As we’ve noted before our thoughts in many ways create our reality. If we are always thinking about the future – even if this is in a positive way, and it can be a really effective tool that we use in visualisation, or thinking about the past then we can be robbed of the present. Let’s be honest the only thing we can be really sure about in life is the here and now, the present moment.

I’m not saying it’s easy – we all worry about the future, many of us will have regrets about the past but as we all know we can’t change the past and while we can influence the future there is a lot of life that is beyond our control. Things like redundancy, bereavement, natural disasters, health scares are all beyond our control, but what is never beyond our control is how we choose to react to them.

I’m of the belief that many situations can be changed, maybe not wholesale but a little bit, which can sometimes make a big difference. But I also acknowledge that some situations are not easy to change – things like illness of self or someone we love – living in the aftermath of a disaster or conflict. In these situations, accepting where we are, even if it’s a situation we hate or one that distresses us hugely, will often feel like there is less ‘weight’ to carry if we can find ways to accept it.

Hopefully those kinds of situations are few and far between and in most we can do things that make them a bit easier to live with. As we’ve highlighted before taking care of ourselves physically, emotionally and mentally helps us generally to be more resilient, coping with anything when we are tired or hungry is harder than when we feel well fed and well rested. So, getting those basics right will help.

Then there are a few other things that can contribute to our happiness. Things like gratitude – being grateful for what we have, showing our appreciation to friends and colleagues, lifts our spirits and has a positive impact on our health.

New experiences are also something that can help us to feel happy – they may also have the added benefits of meeting new people but the experiences themselves even if not all positive can be great for helping us feel ‘stretched’.

We must also remember that as humans we are wired for connection – we are social beings. Some of us may need more in the way of socialisation than others but we all need other people. If you want to experience greater happiness then ensure you are regularly in contact with people you like to be with, people who make you feel good.

Then there is also what we feed our mind with –in simple terms happiness will be harder to find if we fill our lives with negativity. If you watch or read things that make you feel sad or worried that won’t really help how you feel. If you spend all your days surrounded by negativity that won’t help either – so be careful what you feed your mind with, its hard to be positive if all you feed your mind with is negativity.

And that brings us neatly back to the fact that happiness remains a choice. A choice even in situations that are difficult or challenging.

Take the steps you can to be happy and it will be easier if you first determine to live in the present as much as you can.

For more about limiting beliefs and manifesting check out my book Make it Magnificent available on Amazon.