13 Ways to Increase Your Happiness

Increase Your Happiness

Being happy isn't as hard as it sometimes appears.  In this article, I will cover a dozen things that will be sure to increase your sense of happiness and make your life more fulfilling.

Social relationships are essential for our happiness. Interaction with other people provides each of us an important outlet for our feelings, emotions, opinions etc.  It also provides us a method of feeling validated when people agree with us or side with us in our personal beliefs.  We need social interaction to keep our self esteem levels high and to make us feel socially accepted and validated.

Practicing gratitude is a very basic, yet very effective tool to increasing happiness.  Expressing gratitude works in the moment to increase your happiness real time.  As you go through your day notice small things that you are grateful for.  Pick them out and acknowledge them.  I have an app on my phone called ‘My Gratitude Journal’.  Three times a day it will pop up and then allow me to list the things I am grateful for.  Using this app has opened my eyes to just how much I have to be grateful for in my life.  Take the time to start practicing gratitude every day.  Expressing gratitude also demonstrates to the universe that you are thankful for what you have now and opens the door to more abundance in your life.

Turn off the news. The news in my opinion is just government control through the media specifically designed as another method to keep the general population’s individual and collective vibration as low as possible.  Watching the news may “keep you up on what is happening”, but you can get much better and more accurate information by just keying in to certain RSS feeds that will keep you even more informed and not show you consistently depressing stories that lower your vibration and reduce your energy and happiness levels.

Go to church occasionally.  Or your local temple, or whatever house of worship you believe in.  Being part of a spiritual group with its social elements, singing, prayers and meditations encourages inner peace and serenity.  I leave church feeling better every time I attend.

If you don’t already know, learn how to manage your time well. I know from life long experience that when you constantly allow things to back up and complete everything at the last minute it allows more stress and fear into your life.  When I stay organized and do not procrastinate I feel much better about myself and my self esteem soars.

Laugh vigorously every day.  Laughter is scientifically proven to increase our happiness.  If you are feeling down, laughter is the best medicine.  Sometimes taking a self deprecating attitude with your friends or peers will encourage more laughter.  I know it does for me.

 

Communicate your feelings, affections, friendship and passion to the people in your life.  When you express your feelings and do not allow them to bottle up inside of you it is very freeing.  Your relationships will prosper and your emotional balance will be greatly improved.

Tied in with the last tip, try not to keep pent up anger or frustrations, this will lead to an increasing case of distemper that will eventually end up in you doing something you will regret by hurting someone or yourself.  It can also lead to health problems such as high blood pressure, heart problems, stroke and a number of other negative situations. Find a healthy outlet for your anger such as exercise or meditation.

 

Hard work leads to a great sense of personal contentment.  It strengthens in us our sense of personal value and our self esteem and pride that we can get the job done.  If possible, find ways to enjoy hard work by doing productive things that bring value to your or others lives.  Chop firewood for your family or a neighbor.  Mow the lawn’s of single mothers or the elderly.  There are many ways you can provide value to yourself and others and increase your happiness and sense of self worth.

Learn something every day.  Learning is a joyful exercise. Learning broadens our horizons and can open up whole new worlds that we were not conscious of previously.   

Get cardio exercise as often as you can.  Run, jog, walk, play basketball, swim or do any other active thing.  Our body was designed with the idea that we would be consistently active.  Do yourself a favor and exercise consistently.  It not only gives you the endorphin rush and keeps your body in shape and all the millions of positive things that it does for you, really, sometimes it helps you feel more alive.

Do your best to avoid exposure to negative elements that create stress and lower your vibration such as loud noises, traffic jams, toxins and hazardous places.

Meditate daily.  Meditation has been one of the most important methods that I have used to improve the quality of my life since I began my quest a few years ago.  Meditation helps to quiet the mind.  It lowers your blood pressure, it helps slow the aging of the brain and of the body.  There are a million benefits that I could list that would occur for you if you began meditating just fifteen minutes a day.  Put on headphones and go to Youtube and find a meditation with the right guided voice for you, or the right music in the background.  Sit back and just allow yourself to quiet your mind and get in touch with the inner you.  It is beyond worth the time and effort you have to spend to do it.

These are some simple yet effective methods that you can introduce into your daily routine to help raise your vibration and happiness level.  You may already utilize some of them.  If that is the case then that is tremendous.  If you find just one thing on this list that you can implement in your life and it helps you in any way to increase your happiness then it was worth writing this article.

Here are a couple of positive affirmations for you:

"I increase my vibration every time I smile"

"I am open to receiving wealth in all forms"

"I am grateful for all of the abundance in my life"

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Give a Little Love, Get a Little Love in Return

Embrace Love in Your Life. Express Love to Others and You Will Receive Love in Return.

Good evening, and thank you for checking in here on my original and first blog that I ever created.  Maintaining this blog, (albeit very haphazardly and hit or miss over this last year) developed in me the courage to put my viewpoints and beliefs out in the public, world-wide forum that we know as the internet.  I try to post heartfelt and credible information that you can count on to at least help point searchers in a successful direction.  

I will be posting hopefully every day until the last week of November and then I will be absent for a period of a couple months.  I have made my other sites dormant already but if you are up for it check back here at the end of February.  I am sticking with a mainly personal development focus but I have a passion for internet marketing as well so I can't keep that topic from coming out when I have something that I believe in to discuss or have solid grasp on a certain subject.  My aim is always to help educate and offer real life solutions to problems if I believe I have them.  

Anyway, with that behind us, today's post is very simple and straight forward.  If you are currently having a hard or stressful day, then it is mandatory for you to watch this video.  If your day is going along just fine, then I believe you will still want to watch this video.  This video is all I have left to say today.  As you watch you will quickly grasp the fundamental message of the video.  I hope it makes you smile inside (and outside) as it did for me.

Thanks again for stopping by.  I hope you can come back soon.  I am in the process of creating an ebook or kindle book that I am striving to complete before I leave.  When it is finished I will have it as a giveaway on this site for a short period so wish me luck that I may finish in the next week or so.  Have a great day, take care of yourself today.

Here are a couple of positive affirmations for you:

"I am a positive magnet for wealth and success."

"I garner respect from everyone that I meet."

"It is my intention to earn an extra $10,000 in three months or less.  I accept this or something better."

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Acquire Strength Through Personal Development

Here is an article I found that really summarizes in a lot of ways the different fundamental principles I am trying to express through this blog.  It is pretty deep and somewhat heavy to read but if you have a minute I encourage you to read it.

It is the natural right of every human being to be happy to escape all the miseries of life. Happiness is the normal condition, as natural as the landscapes and the seasons. It is unnatural to suffer and it is only because of our ignorance that we do suffer. Happiness is the product of wisdom. To attain perfect wisdom, to comprehend fully the purpose of life, to realize completely the relationship of human beings to each other, is to put an end to all suffering, to escape every ill and evil that afflicts us. Perfect wisdom is un-shadowed joy.

Why do we suffer in life? Because in the scheme of nature we are being forced forward in evolution and we lack the spiritual illumination that alone can light the way and enable us to move safely among the obstacles that lie before us. Usually we do not even see or suspect the presence of trouble until it suddenly leaps upon us like a concealed tiger. One day our family circle is complete and happy. A week later death has come and gone and joy is replaced with agony. Today we have a friend. Tomorrow he will be an enemy and we do not know why. A little while ago we had wealth and all material luxuries. There was a sudden change and now we have only poverty and misery and yet we seek in vain for a reason why this should be. There was a time when we had health and strength; but they have both departed and no trace of a reason appears. Aside from these greater tragedies of life innumerable things of lesser consequence continually bring to us little miseries and minor heartaches. We most earnestly desire to avoid them but we never see them until they strike us, until in the darkness of our ignorance we blunder upon them. The thing we lack is the spiritual illumination that will enable us to look far and wide, finding the hidden causes of human suffering and revealing the method by which they may be avoided; and if we can but reach illumination the evolutionary journey can be made both comfortably and swiftly. It is as though we must pass through a long, dark room filled with furniture promiscuously scattered about. In the darkness our progress would be slow and painful and our bruises many. But if we could press a button that would turn on the electric light we could then make the same journey quickly and with perfect safety and comfort.

The old method of education was to store the mind with as many facts, or supposed facts, as could be accumulated and to give a certain exterior polish to the personality. The theory was that when a man was born he was a completed human being and that all that could be done for him was to load him up with information that would be used with more or less skill, according to the native ability he happened to be born with. The theosophical idea is that the physical man, and all that constitutes his life in the physical world, is but a very partial expression of the self; that in the ego of each there is practically unlimited power and wisdom; that these may be brought through into expression in the physical world as the physical body and its invisible counterparts, which together constitute the complex vehicle of the ego's manifestation, are evolved and adapted to the purpose; and that in exact proportion that conscious effort is given to such self-development will spiritual illumination be achieved and wisdom attained. Thus the light that leads to happiness is kindled from within and the evolutionary journey that all are making may be robbed of its suffering.

Why does death bring misery? Chiefly because it separates us from those we love. The only other reason why death brings grief or fear is  because we do not understand it and comprehend the part it plays in human evolution.  But the moment our ignorance gives way to comprehension such fear vanishes and a serene happiness takes its place.

Why do we have enemies from whose words or acts we suffer? Because in our limited physical consciousness we do not perceive the unity of all life and realize that our wrong thinking and doing must react upon us through other people a situation from which there is no possible escape except through ceasing to think evil and then patiently awaiting the time when the causes we have already generated are fully exhausted. When spiritual illumination comes, and we no longer stumble in the night of ignorance, the last enemy will disappear and we shall make no more forever.

Why do people suffer from poverty and disease? Only because of our blundering ignorance that makes their existence possible for us, and because we do not comprehend their meaning and their lessons, nor know the attitude to assume toward them. Had we but the wisdom to understand why they come to people, why they are necessary factors in their evolution, they would trouble us no longer. When nature's lesson is fully learned these mute teachers will vanish.

And so it is with all forms of suffering we experience. They are at once reactions from our ignorant blunderings and instructors that point out the better way. When we have comprehended the lessons they teach they are no longer necessary and disappear. It is not by the outward  acquirement of facts that men become wise and great. It is by developing the soul from within until it illuminates the brain with that flood of light called genius.

Here are a couple of positive affirmations for you:

"I draw abundance to myself today and every day."

"Healthy living ideas flow to me easily."

"My life is filled with love, fun and friendship." 

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9 Steps to a More Abundant Life

Many of us are bogged down by our lives.  We are stressed, short of time, tired, or running our lives on a treadmill every day.  We know that this is not the correct way to live.  We do not know how to free ourselves to live more fully and more abundantly. There are simple things we can do that don’t take time or money.  These things merely take a change of attitude. Here are 9 of them:

1. Become totally honest financially.  Know each month how much money you need to a lot towards all of your responsibilities before you partition off your disposable income.  This will become extremely rewarding when you become able to meet all of your bills on time every month and your credit begins improving.

2. Don’t clutter up your life or your living space by constantly acquiring the next best thing.  It is better to not fill your life up with the things you don’t really want. Ask yourself if you want each thing before you acquire it. The goal is not to have an abundant amount of material objects.  Rather, the goal is to live your life abundantly by seeking out the objects and experiences that truly resonate within you.

3. Tithing is often associated with religion, but it is also possible to tithe in a non-religious context. This appears to be a fundamental aspect of practicing abundant living.  Every time you freely give money away to someone with a greater need, you are implying that you are confident that you will receive more money, and that you do not suffer from any lack. There is a lot of power behind showing your confidence in abundance. The traditional amount to tithe is 10% of your income. I’ve recommended this to several different people.  It seems that the most common response is that once they began doing this, more abundance showed up in their lives. I do my best to tithe 10%. I’ve seen that the more I give, the more I get back, and the happier and more abundantly I live.

4. Be grateful for what you already possess. Focus on the good that is already in your life. It is very easy to be drawn into the trap of constantly dwelling on what we don’t have.  When this occurs, be mindful of it and change your thought pattern.  Focus on the many friends and family members in your life.  Begin spending some time each day, even if it is only for a few minutes, thinking about the good things in your life.  In the morning when you wake up, start each day thinking of 5 things that you are grateful for, and express these things out loud (this will make you more apt to remember them).

5. Resentment, jealousy, envy and self-pity interfere with the free-flow of abundance. When you are jealous or envious of someone, or of someone else’s possessions, it implies to the universe that you believe that the things that person possesses are not also available for you to possess. If you find it difficult to let go of these feelings, Bach flower remedies may help. Try the remedy ‘willow’ to counteract resentment and self-pity, or try ‘holly’ for envy, jealousy and greed.

 

Forgive those that may have wronged you.

6. Forgiving those that have wronged you is a part of living life abundantly. Keeping a hold of your anger, however justifiable it may seem, keeps you stuck in the past.  You are then unable to progress forward into a better future. If it is difficult to let go of your negative feelings, try writing a letter expressing all of your anger, hurt or envy. Write until you have listed all of your feelings, and then burn the letter.  This will release you of the negative energy holding you back.

7. Open yourself up to receiving from other people. Many people find it difficult, but being able to receive is healthy. You may need to practice receiving. Think of the pleasure you receive from giving. When other people give to you, this is their opportunity to feel that pleasure.  By not receiving generously, you are denying other people the pleasure of giving.  This creates a negative energy balance and prohibits abundances’ flow.

8. Come to the realization that, in general, good luck plays a very small role in people’s lives.  When you put your faith in good luck, then you open up the possibility of bad luck occurring as well.  People who put their faith in good luck often spend their lives waiting for good things to happen to them. People who don’t believe in luck tend to go out and make good things happen for themselves.  Be proactive and make your own good luck.

9. Firmly believe that there is enough money, food, love and happiness in the world for everyone to live abundantly.  This may be the hardest one to accomplish.   It can be very hard to believe when we are constantly shown war and starvation in the newspapers and on the TV.  The majority of this strife, need and anger is caused by people who believe that they do not possess enough.  Often, these are the people that substitute money and oil in their mind for all the other abundances of life.  Every day, do something positive to help other people, and strive to work towards correcting the imbalance as best you can.  Start to live your life recognizing that there are inequalities and shortages, but know that if we work together, than it will be possible to correct these imbalances. 

Here are a couple of positive affirmations for you:

"The vibrant wellness in my body increases every day."

"I feel completely at ease and comfortable with all types of people."

"I have the power to change myself."

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A Couple Quick Self Improvement Tips

An ordered life is one of the most assured methods of self-improvement. The saying “tidy desk - tidy mind” is also certainly true but only a small part of it. It is important that you order your life in such a manner that allows you to do everything you need to do, when you need to do it. You should also be able to effectively ensure that you become happier and more content, as well as progress with your career, make new friends and anything else that you want in life.

While work is important, you should always make time to spend with your family and be sure to take a little personal time. This personal time could be an excellent opportunity to take up a physical hobby. Exercising helps to clear the mind and produce chemicals in your body that are essential for happiness and stress relief and are often lacking. Modern living involves longer working hours and less personal time. Inevitably this has led to less social interaction between friends and family.  It is important that you schedule your time to include social activities with those close to you.

Always set goals for yourself to help aid in your progress. Increasing the amount of exercise you do will only be beneficial and successful if you have a reason to do it. If you simply want to get fitter and stay healthy then set yourself an achievement goal. If you currently walk 1 mile a day, then aim to walk 5 miles a day. When you are walking 5 miles a day, consider if there is any way you can improve upon your progress.  Always move forward, never stand still.

As mentioned, time with your family and friends is essential. We are social animals by nature and so human interaction is not only natural but also healthy and pleasurable. Taking up a sport with a friend or group of friends would combine exercise with interaction and be one perfect solution. Your friends may turn out to be the extra motivation you require in the event of times when you experience low motivation.

It is up to each of us as individuals to take control of our lives and include all of the aspects that are required to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle.  When you begin to set aside more time for interaction with friends and family you will notice the great effect it has on lowering your stress and irritability levels.  

Including exercise in your routine at least three times a week will also go a long way in improving your overall health and well-being.  Exercise will also help to get your body in better shape and that is beneficial in countless ways.  In short, take some time out of your day to play with your friends and family and remember to stay active!  

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Here are a couple of positive affirmations for you:

"I experience the excitement of growth daily."

"Wealth is pouring into my life."

"I live in harmony and balance with everyone I know."

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10 Simple Tips for Living a Happier Life

Everyone strives to be happy but the mistake that everyone makes is that they think that happiness is some kind of finishing line in a race. Once you have crossed that line, you will live happily ever after. That is not true. Happiness is a choice! You can choose to make your life happy. So here are a few ways you could try today.

1. Let go of past memories.

Everyone has both sad and happy moments. So forget about your painful memories. What’s in the past, stays in the past.  Instead, focus on your good memories and move on.

2. Be optimistic.

Always try looking on the bright side of things. Look for the silver lining behind each dark cloud. For example, if you had an unfortunate accident and your car is badly dented, but on the bright side, nobody got hurt and that dent in your car can be repaired. There is always a bright side to look on so be optimistic!

3. Be close to your family

Try and maintain a close relationship with your family and friends. Our       relationships with them have a greater impact on our happiness than anything else.   Human beings are made to be social creatures. So appreciate the existing relationships that you have.

4. Try finding a job that gives you happiness.

If you are feeling stressed out in your current job and not getting the job satisfaction that you want, perhaps it’s time for a career change. Job satisfaction plays an important part in your happiness. So give your job a chance. Try having a positive attitude in your job. If that doesn’t work, it may be time for a change of jobs.

5. Make friends

You need to make friends with people who share a common interest. Find something that you are deeply passionate about. It could be a hobby or an organization you can volunteer in. There you could meet people who have the same interest and passion as you.

6. Exercise

Exercising releases endorphins. So, not only you are taking care of your body but you will automatically start to feel good about yourself.

7. Change your thinking

You have to start living life to the fullest. Don’t delay your life a second longer. Try something new everyday or pick up a new skill!

8. Don’t let the small stuff bug you.

Remember all the small petty stuff that used to bother you? Forget all about it and focus on the bigger picture. Life is too short to be worry about trivial stuff.

9. Live your life for yourself.

Stop trying to live your life up to other people’s expectations. You are your own person. So start living it for yourself!

10. Lastly, remember to love with all your heart. You have all this love to give so give your love to something and start feeling happy today!

"The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action." -- Madame de Stael

Here are a couple of positive affirmations for you:

"I know that my Higher Power accepts me just as I am."

"I am responsible for my own happiness."

"I have the right to ask for what I want/need."

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