A Plan to Be Happier in 2017
In our culture the pursuit of money, possessions, and social status is often equated with creating happiness. If you could only make X income, live in the right neighborhood, hang out with the right people and be thin and beautiful, THEN you would be happy. The problem is, chasing after things that are external can leave you very unsatisfied, especially once you attain them.
Real happiness is less about the external things you accumulate in life and is instead about the quality of your relationships with your friends and family, and most of all with yourself. Happiness really is an inside job.
How do you know if you are happy? Well, happy people report that they feel good about their life. Check out Jessica’s affirmation here. Watch Jessica's Daily Affirmation here. Wouldn’t it be great to wake up in the morning and be like Jessica?
A client of mine recommended a TED Talk by Shawn Achor who teaches positive psychology at Harvard. According to Dr. Achor, 90% of our happiness is due to how our brain processes the world. He recommends a 21 day program to teach your brain to look for positive things, making you happier. Being happy is actually good for your brain. When you are happy your brain releases a hormone called dopamine. The release of this hormone enables your brain to learn faster and think more creatively. You exude positive energy so people want to be around you. We have had it backwards: thinking that being successful will make us happy. In fact, if we focus on being happy, we attract success, because our brains work better and people want to work with us.
Shawn Achor’s 21 Day Program
- Journal three new things that you are grateful for everyday.
- Get daily exercise.
- Mediation or other mindful practice daily. This doesn’t have to be super time consuming as research shows that just 10 minutes a day of meditation produces big payoffs for your brain. If ten minutes feels like too much, commit to one minute.
- Perform a daily, random act of kindness. Reach out to someone every day and let that person know something that you appreciate about them. Making others feel good is also good for us.
Wishing a very happy 2017!