Are you guilty of waiting to be happy instead of realising you can be happy…right here…right now?
Do you ever think, I’ll be happy when the weather gets warmer? Or, you will be happy when you retire or you win the lotto? Always wishing for something to change in your life before you can be happy.
Why is it we have to have things organized in a particular way before we can be happy? Why does the weather have to be just perfect? Why do you have to have a certain amount in the bank?
I wonder, whether needing to be happy – WHEN, is just a turn of phrase or means something a lot more significant?
Why can’t we just be happy for no reason?
Interestingly, in best-selling author Marci Shirnoff’s book of the same name; “Happy for No Reason;” she affirms her belief that we all can easily and systematically raise our everyday level of happiness. She quotes statistics that reinforce the premise of her book that happy people are more fulfilled, relaxed and peaceful. They live longer and earn more money.
So just why is it so difficult for us to be happy for no reason?
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Many statistics have been touted as to the number of negative thoughts the average person has each day. Sources quote figures as high as 70-80%. One of the first books on the subject was written by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale in 1952. “The Power of Positive Thinking” reports the average person generates 25 – 50,000 thoughts per day. Do the sums. That means the average person has a negative thought about every 41 seconds. Which in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, the problem occurs when we believe them.
Sadly, most people do as they dwell in the past, or worry about the future. They obsess about mistakes they have made, battling guilt, always looking for a different better outcome.
Author and Sales Coach, Tom Hopkins declared “Being miserable is a habit; being happy is a habit, and the choice is yours.”
What habit are you choosing?
To be happy for no reason:
- Disregard the all or nothing thinking.
I mean the type of thinking that doesn’t allow for a grey area or middle ground. The type of thinking that distorts the truth and magnifies stressors making problems seem bigger in reality.
- Change where you place your focus.
A recipe for unhappiness is to gloss over the positive events in your life and hold a magnifying glass to the negative. You may have ten things go right but you only notice the one that has gone wrong. How often do you only notice the red lights that hold you up and miss the green lights that provide free flow? How often do you cling to a negative viewpoint by disqualifying solutions with a “Yeah but…” response?
- Delete the “should” statements.
We set ourselves up for failure by thinking this way as should promotes self-imposed expectations leading to feelings of unhappiness.
Ask the average person and they will say they strive to find and keep happiness. You know those feelings of joy, warmth, and contentment. Interestingly, studies have shown that happiness has little to do with what we have but rather our outlook in life.
So, to be happy for no reason, be optimistic and thankful for the little things that make life easier for each day.
Be yourself, embrace your personality, your mistakes, and importantly you. Become comfortable in your own skin.
And this one is the easiest, SMILE, whether you are happy or not. Smiling reinforces happiness.
Groucho Marx was renowned for his positive outlook, quoted…
“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
Will you choose to be happy for no reason?
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