Daily Happiness Habits for Creating the Life You Desire

The scientific truth that practicing happy habits leads to better health, wealth, relationships and success might just change your life. It changed mine. 

Happiness is quite an illusive concept, one that society is constantly trying to find the “secret” to – how to get more of it and how to maintain it for longer. A never-ending search for something we think can be found out there in the world, be it through people, places, money, or things. But the reality is that happiness can’t be found, it must be created from within. Right where you are.

The good news? You don’t need to find the perfect partner, have a six pack, own your dream house or earn a million dollars before you can be happy. The bad news? That easy-to-live-with idea that happiness will eventually come once you have x,y and z isn’t necessarily true. You’ll have to do some self work. You’ll have to think about the things in your life that are no longer serving you and commit to releasing them for good. You’ll have to analyze your daily habits, the words you speak often, and how you treat yourself and others...but it will pay off.

HAPPINESS IS THE PRECEDENT

This morning I was sitting on the beach reading a book called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. He began talking about the science of happiness and the amazing amount of psychological research that supports the idea that happiness doesn’t actually come from achieving or having things – but that it’s the other way around. Doing things that make you happy is actually the precedent. Having a greater state of happiness first is what leads to better health, relationships, and success down the road. According to the research, people who are happier have greater immune function, more resilient personalities, longer-lasting marriages, more professional and financial success, more active social lives, better work performance, fewer strokes and heart attacks and longer lives in general.

I already knew this, as many of us do, but we so easily fall back into the trap of believing that happiness is a destination to which we’ll arrive once we have ________ fill in the blank (a better job, a higher salary, a fulfilling relationship, more friends, a cooler place to live, a better body etc.)

As I was reading this chapter I realized that I had unknowingly used this formula of ‘happiness first’ in my own life to create all the things that have been happening for me recently. I’m living in Spain, which has been an absolute dream, I have an amazing partner, a new dog who brings me so much joy, an incredible job opportunity, a vision and concrete goals for my future, the best health of my life, the most self-love I’ve experienced in years, more confidence, and more joy. But this happiness that I’m experiencing now didn’t come as a result of all of those things… it actually came first, and all of those things were manifested in my life as a ripple effect.

CHOOSING HAPPINESS OVER EVERYTHING ELSE

One concrete moment in my life where I truly decided to do what made me happy was when I decided to move to Spain. I had studied in Spain back in the Spring of 2015, which is how I met my boyfriend, and when I left I knew that my story there wasn’t finished. I felt this deep knowing that I hadn’t learned or experienced everything I was meant to and I promised myself that somehow I’d find my way back. After a year back home in the states finishing up my degree, I decided that I wanted to move to Madrid after graduation and work as an English teacher. It made no sense for my BA in marketing and I would be earning so little that I’d be considered poverty level by the US government (and therefore would be able to hold off on paying my student loans). It wasn’t an easy decision to make, especially considering the fact that it involved disappointing my family and declining a corporate job offer in Chicago that I worked really hard to get.

At the time I wondered if I was making a big mistake. Not many people understood why I was doing what I was doing, and I didn’t have all the answers either – but something in my gut told me to go for it. I heard a voice in my head tell me that I’d always wonder ‘what if’ if I didn’t take this leap. That shiny job offer in the heart of Chicago was like the forbidden fruit. It looked so damn good from the outside but deep down I knew it was lethal. I didn’t want to work in a cubicle for 9 hours a day on projects I could care less about. I didn’t want to spend all my hard-earned money on rent, parking, and loans only to have zero life experiences to show for it. Zero days of vacation in the first 6 months, and only 6 days for the first calendar year after that. When would I visit my family? When would I have time to travel? I knew that once the excitement of the big city wore off I’d feel cheated, trapped, and remorseful waking up and going to work everyday.

I didn’t recognize it then, but what my gut was actually telling me was to choose happiness. Choose the path less taken, choose experiences, choose love, choose joy…and the rest will fall into place. And that it did.

I AM THE 'HOW' AND YOU ARE TOO

Lately I’ve been feeling incredibly grateful for everything that has manifested in my life and sometimes I look back and wonder how. How did this all come to be? Because the truth is, most of the experiences and opportunities that have come up for me weren’t planned. I couldn’t have even imagined some of them. Especially being able to have a job that I’m passionate about, that makes me excited to wake up and work, and that aligns so perfectly with my purpose. That is something that most people will never get to experience – and not because they don’t deserve it or because it’s not available to them but because their limiting beliefs will stop them from taking the proper action to create it or receive it. Reading this passage today from The Slight Edge helped me realize that the ‘how’ didn’t come from some external place, it came from me. I am the how. I created the life I’m living. I manifested all of it by starting with the choice to be happy first.

I encourage you to think about the areas in your life where you may be sacrificing your happiness. Maybe you’re in a toxic relationship but keep making excuses to stay, maybe there are certain accounts on social media that make you judge yourself or your body but you don’t unfollow, maybe you really dislike your job but are too afraid to quit, maybe you’re obsessing over your weight, scrutinizing what you eat and how often you workout, maybe you find it easier to see what’s wrong in most situations rather than what’s right. These are things that are not only not serving you, but that are actually preventing you from ever experiencing the things you desire most.

DAILY HAPPINESS HABITS

Remember that you are your 'how.' Happiness comes from your thoughts, habits and decisions about how to spend your time and use your words. You are the creator of your reality; so if you don’t like the way it looks right now, start choosing happiness first. To get started practice some of these happy habits daily: 

• Keep a gratitude journal: write down 3 things you're grateful for everyday. If you don't like physical journals or tend to forget them, just jot them down in your Notes app

• Spread positivity: give someone a compliment/tell someone they've done a good job/remind someone why they're important to you

• Meditate: the precursor to all manifestation miracles

• Train your mind to see the good: when something negative happens find the abundance of good things that remain and highlight those instead. Speak them out loud. Counteract negative comments that slip out with a positive one.

• Move your body: get outside, go for a walk, do yoga, stretch, run, play, do something even if its only for 10 minutes

• Journal for a few minutes about something positive that happened during your day - even if it's something as small as drinking an amazing cup of coffee. Try to re-experience the positive emotions that came along with it.

(You don't have to do all of them everyday, in fact that's highly unlikely for anyone to maintain long enough to actually form true habits out of them) Start with one or two, do it for 30 days and see how you feel. Add on others when you're ready. Do what you can and it will be enough.

Place yourself and your well being at the top of your priority list. Put in the work to make shift happen. Let go of fear, and open yourself up to receive all that is possible.