The 3 Mindsets You Need To Be Happy

When I was younger I had a blood disorder that affected my serotonin levels and caused me to be depressed.

At seven years old I would watch cartoons and break out into tears. I felt like I was losing the battle against my emotions.

I thought a lot about what it means to be happy, and how I could be happier despite this chemical imbalance.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever really won this battle of emotions. I still have ups and downs, good days and bad days.

But I’ve realized that when it comes to being happy, the circumstances don’t matter that much. It’s all about your perspective and your mindsets.

So here are the 3 mindsets that we need to be happy.

1) Our Present Does NOT Dictate Our Future

No matter where we are, how we feel, or what we are doing—that doesn’t decide what will happen in our future.

When everything is going wrong in our lives, we’ll have a hard time imagining a hopeful future.

And you aren’t the only person that gets trapped in this feeling of doom and gloom. Impact bias is the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states.

When we are depressed we can only assume that we will be depressed forever. We are twenty feet deep in a hole with only a shovel—we feel we can only go further down.

But if we have this mindset instilled within us, we’ll be able to get out eventually.

2) The Past Is A Story, The Future Is An Imagination

If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
But, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu

We spend a lot of time regretting the past, or worrying about the future. But we don’t realize that these things are not exactly what they seem.

Humans are naturally pretty terrible at remember the past. Every time we recall a past memory we are actually remembering the last time we remembered it. In this process we alter the memory.

After years and years, the past is just a collection of completely inaccurate stories we tell ourselves. Some of us tell happy stories, some tell sad stories, but they are all stories.

Don’t base your emotions on the past.

The rest of the time we spend worrying about the future.

We stress about deadlines, awkward conversations, whether we will find love, get the job, and even whether or not we will be happy.

Think about that. We ruin our happiness in the present because we are worrying about whether or not we will be happy in the future.

Humans are bad at correctly recalling the past, and we are also terrible at predicting the future. Every doomsday scenario that plays out in our heads fail to come to pass.

The solution is to not regret the past, but move on, and not worry about the future, but live in the moment.

3) We Don’t NEED A Reason To Be Happy

This is the most important mindset for happiness. If you need a reason to be happy, your happiness can always be taken away.

Happiness is something we should try to cultivate within us. We need to learn to be happy for the sake of being happy.

Material possessions, promotions, friends, relationships, respect—these are all great and should make us happy, but we should never rely on them to be happy.

If we learn to be happy for no reason at all, we’ll be able to keep our happiness no matter what happens around us.

And that’s what we all want right, to be happy?

Four Pillars To A Fulfilling Life P.1

Living a fulfilling life can be a difficult task. Everyone has a different idea of what a fulfilling life consists of.

For me, the ‘rules’ are simple. I like simplification.

When understanding how to live a fulfilling life, I ask myself, “What is the easiest method that I can implement to benefit others and myself?”

I’ve discovered many ‘rules’ to living a fulfilling life. They are broken down into four major categories – Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual – and they can be easily implemented with minimal effort.

Each of these four are major pillars (struts) holding up the building (your body and mind). Strong building blocks create an unshakeable fortress.

Physical

The physical pillar solely consists of your physical body. People attend school full-time to understand how the body works and how to achieve optimal health.

But as important as school may be, the information is very simple. Being healthy is a simple idea. You don’t need to school to understand how to be healthy.

The common sense approach tells us to treat our bodies with respect.

The process is simple – eat properly, sleep effectively, and move regularly.

Eating a diet of sugar and salt damages our fortress. Eat plenty of greens and drink ample water. Your body needs these things to function optimally.

People claim they can function on 5 hours of sleep, but minimal sleep eventually sneaks up on your body. Your days fly by, as you gloss over them in a sleepy haze. Your fortress needs at least 8 hours to function properly.

People that complain they have low energy or are generally unmotivated usually have desk jobs. A little daily exercise each day alleviates both those problems. You don’t need the gym to be active. Play some sports or go for a walk around your neighbourhood. Your body is not meant to be sedentary for long stretches of time.

When you disrespect your body, sometimes you will feel the effects immediately, like feeling lethargic after too much sugar. Sometimes the effects creep up on you, like progressively getting agitated because of little sleep.

Regardless of the outcome, your body tells you when it needs something. When something is lacking, it fights for it. Sometimes we have to let our bodies win, and eat better, sleep efficiently, and move frequently.

Mental

The mental pillar solely consists of your brain function. Everything you consume – knowledge, information, and news – affects our mental capabilities.

This pillar can also be simplified quite easily. Each day aim to learn something new or build on an existing skill/hobby.

As part of this pillar, I aim to read every single day. Even a few pages makes a difference in the way I feel.

“Poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries.” – Jim Rohn.

What if you don’t like reading? Watch YouTube videos or listen to podcasts and audiobooks. One of my favourite YouTube channels is CrashCourse. The creators provide an overview using cute graphics from a variety of interesting topics.

Lastly, make it a goal to consume less news each day. The news rarely reports anything positive or uplifting. You don’t need the added negativity in your life.

I was going to move to the ‘emotional’ pillar next, but this article is already too long. Instead, I’ll cover the last two pillars next week.

While waiting, aim to improve each of these pillars – physical and mental – by 1% before next week. 1% is doable, right?

Just for this week, eat one extra vegetable per day, sleep an extra 15 minutes, and go for a short walk around your neighbourhood.

Just for this week, learn something that you’ve always wanted to learn, or read a book, listen to an audiobook on your commute, or simply just avoid the news.

These minor improvements compile and eventually you’ve improved significantly over the course of a few weeks.

Be sure to check back next week for the rest of this article.

When every aspect of our lives is clearly defined and progressing, life is easier. When living a fulfilling life, the unintended side effects are happiness and abundance.

Until next time, my beautiful readers,

Be bold, be free, and love on.

Your Happiness Must Come From Within You

If your happiness comes from anywhere but inside yourself, then it can be taken away.

I’m not saying that you should never allow happiness to come from the things and people around you, what I am saying instead is that you should try to develop a baseline happiness that emanates from inside yourself.

That way when things go wrong in life—and they will, very often—you can take it in stride, learn from it, and become better because of it. 

The goal is to raise our baseline happiness as high as possible, until it is relentless no matter what outside factors may be weighing at our feet.

Everyone Wants To Be Happy

This is a goal that many people never reach, mostly because they try to obtain happiness through money, power, respect, and material objects.

They don’t realize that all of these things can be taken away, and basing the foundation of your happiness on these things instead of yourself, is akin to building a castle on sand.

Even basing your happiness on the love of another person can be dangerous, and unfair to them.

So what can we do to build up a baseline happiness that will remain intact through the trails of life?

Here are my three tips to cultivate a strong foundation and baseline to your happiness.

Only Spend Time On Things You Care About

The theme of today’s society seems to be sacrifice.

You go to a school you don’t care about to work on projects you don’t care about to get a job you don’t care about. All the while you are sacrificing your happiness.

You might spend time with people you don’t care about, read things you don’t care about (AKA: fear-driven news) and go to events you don’t enjoy.

All of this is chipping away at your foundation of happiness and slowly lowering your baseline.

One of the best ways to cultivate a relentless happiness that will stand up to whatever life throws at you is to spend as much of your time as possible with the people you love, doing the things you love.

Treat Your Body With Respect

Whenever I’m in a bad mood I don’t look to the situations in my life for an explanation, I immediately ask myself if I have been treating my body with respect lately.

It has been proven that their are very strong links between sleep, physical/mental diet, exercise and your moods.

If you don’t ever move your body and get your endorphins going, and if you never get enough sleep and constantly take in junk food and junk mental content, you are going to have a hard time keeping good spirits.

I’ve come to learn that the way you treat your body affects your happiness more than almost any outside situation could.

If you eat a little better, sleep a little more, move your body a bit and watch the thoughts you allow into your mental space, your base level of happiness will jump by leaps and bounds.

Share The Positivity

The best way to cultivate something within yourself is to inspire it within someone else.

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
-Buddha

When you consistently help others uplift their moods, it will have long lasting effects on your natural level of happiness.

This is why people can lower their stress levels simply by petting a cat. It feels good to make someone or something else feel good.

When you help others find their way to happiness where ever you can, you learn new paths and perspectives that will aid you in your own journey towards happiness.

Writing and researching for these articles has taught me so much that I never would have otherwise learned about happiness, but it’s the responses I get when I’ve helped someone else that make me happiest.

If I can help a couple people every once and a while then I know that I have something to feel good about.

So don’t spend your time doing things you don’t care about, treat your body with respect, and then share whatever happiness you can.

You’ll create a baseline of happiness for yourself that will withstand any outside circumstances.

And isn’t that what we all want, just to be happy?

The Reason YOU Are Unfulfilled At Work AND Home

Not many people are happy with their jobs.

The jobs I’ve worked in the past usually make it on the “Top ten worst jobs” lists.

I’ve worked filling stock at a discount grocery store, bussing tables at restaurants, and the holy grail of all terrible jobs: Door to door and telemarketing sales.

Even though this seems like a recipe for a depressing life, I’ve always enjoyed my work and derived great meaning from it.

Most people work jobs that don’t fulfill them, then at home they laze around until the next shift—which isn’t very fulfilling either.

So why are we leading lives that have left us so unfulfilled?

We’ve Completely Separated Work And Play.

We’re not having any fun at work, and we’re not seeking any challenge at home.

One thing I’ve learned throughout my study of happiness is that finding meaning or purpose in your daily activities is an absolutely necessary ingredient for a long lasting sense of fulfillment.

If you don’t derive meaning from your work, and your free time is devoid of any effort or challenge, then you may be on your way to a crisis.

Finding Meaning At Crappy Jobs.

I’ve always enjoyed myself at work because I didn’t see my job as meaningless. I tried to somehow fit my work into the bigger picture or gain whatever meaning I could from those menial tasks.

When I was doing door to door I worked with a lot of miserable people. They only saw the negatives.

“It’s so hot out and we’ve been walking for hours!”
“There is too much pressure, if I don’t get commission my cheques are so small!”
“We have to work every Saturday and I never go out anymore!”

Don’t get me wrong, those points are valid. The job sucked sometimes.

But I chose to focus on something different. I would focus on my interactions with the people I was talking to. Every time someone opened a door I saw it as an opportunity to share a connection with someone new.

We joked, we laughed, we complimented each other, we even ended up talking about life over tea.

You would seriously be surprised how many people invited me into their homes and shared a real connection with me once I stopped focusing on the negatives, and started to find the meaning in my work.

Crafting Your Job To Cultivate Fulfillment.

Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski has done a lot of research into figuring out how people derive meaning from their work. She found that you can become happier with your job whether you are a CEO, a sales rep, or even a janitor at a hospital through what she calls “job crafting.”

In one study she observed a group of hospital cleaners who found their jobs boring and meaningless, and another that found their work to be engaging and fulfilling.

The second group would ‘craft’ their job in creative ways. They would engage more with nurses, patients and doctors, taking it upon themselves to uplift the mood of the people around them.

In general, the second group crafted a perception of their job that saw themselves as an indispensable cog in a well oiled machine. They weren’t just cleaning garbage, they were helping their hospitals run smoothly and contributing to a cause that saved lives.

In this mindset, these hospital janitors could find more fulfillment in their jobs than some of the doctors who might just be looking for a paycheque.

But finding fulfillment at work is only one half of the problem. We have to find fulfillment at home as well.

All Play And No Work Makes Jack An Unfulfilled Boy.

After a long day at work it is understandable that we want to relax, but it is possible to relax too much.

When we separate work from play, avoiding all effort and challenge in our free time, we are robbing ourselves of a fulfilling personal life.

In the book “Happier” by Tal Ben Shahar, Ph.D. he examines many interesting studies that look into the relationship between challenge, happiness and fulfillment.

One study in particular run by Donald Hebb jumped out at me.

In 1930 six hundred students between the ages of six and fifteen were told that they no longer needed to do any school work. If they misbehaved, their punishment was more recess. If they behaved, their reward was more schoolwork.

Hebb quickly discovered that “In these circumstances, all of the pupils discovered within a day or two that, within limits, they preferred work to no work (and incidentally learned more arithmetic and so forth than in previous years).”

Even children—who are notoriously opposed to work and love to play—realize very quickly that they would not enjoy a life devoid of challenge.

Without challenge we don’t grow, without growth we feel stuck.

Challenging Yourself At Home.

If you’re job isn’t providing you with the growth and challenge that you need for long term happiness, you have to find it at home.

That is why I learned drums, why I study self development and write these articles.

The good thing about challenging yourself in your free time is that you get to do everything on your terms.

You can pick something that you truly enjoy, even if it is just playing video games. Just be sure that you are challenging yourself, learning, and gaining some sense of meaning and fulfillment from your activities.

Breaking down the barrier between work and play is the key to fulfillment. When you are at work, have fun with with it, share connections and find meaning. When you are at home don’t just relax all the time, challenge yourself and learn something new.

It’s a challenge in itself to break down this deep rooted barrier, but if we can accomplish this, we can lead truly fulfilling lives at work and at home.

How do you view your job to gain fulfillment?
How do you challenge yourself in your free time?
Discuss in the comments!

1 Effortless Tip That Will Change Your Life

There is one simple action that can instantly transform your life and the lives of the people around you. It has the power to invigorate, inspire, and include.

It’s something that costs nothing and but its’ intrinsic value is incomparable.

But most people forget about it. Or stop doing it. Or pick the negative alternative. I believe that many personal problems can be solved using this one simple action.

The simple technique isn’t hidden in Pandora’s box or shrouded in clouded mystery. It has always been there, available to you, waiting for the right moment to shine.

So what is it, you ask? I hope you’ve figured it out by now and doing it as you read this.

Of course! Eureka! The simple technique is a:

Smile.

I spend my weekday mornings commuting to school on the bus, surrounded by so many scowling faces. It seems like we’ve forgotten how to smile.

We’ve forgotten how to be happy. Forgotten how to feel happiness. Forgotten how to show happiness.

When we were children, we never needed a reason to smile. It was automatic, almost instinctual. Literally anything made us smile and it was suspended there. We giggled and played, which made us giggle more. It was an endless cycle.

But somewhere along the lines, we grew up. We forgot how to keep a suspended smile. And when it did rear its’ beautiful head, it quickly disappeared.

But your smile is eager! Your smile wants to be shown to the world. It craves your attention. It has profound effects on you and everyone else around you.

To Invigorate.

When someone smiles at you, you can’t help by smile back. Your response is automatic. It is genuine and it is heartfelt.

For a brief moment in time, you share something with another and you feel invigorated. You are happier, more satisfied, and more loved.

I invite you to be the person that invigorates. Be the first to make someone feel happier, satisfied and loved. Aim to invigorate someone’s life.

You’ll change their lives and, in turn, change yours.

To Inspire.

When someone smiles at you, you get this ‘aha’ moment. Suddenly everything appears clearly, more distinct.

Your body and mind are inspired to feel happier. When you are inspired, life seems easier. You’re suspended on top of the world. Nothing seems to break you.

I invite you to be the person that inspires. Be the first to make someone feel like they are on top of the world. Give someone the ability to be formidable in the face of adversity.

You’ll change their lives and, in turn, change yours.

To Include.

When someone smiles at you, inside your own body there is a mix of incredibly complex chemicals. I don’t know the science, but you share an instant connection with that person. You instantly like that person.

That connection makes you want know that person. You want that person in your circle because he/she sheds positive light. That simple smile includes you into their world and shares their love.

I invite you to be the person that includes. Be the first to make someone feel like they are part of your life. Share your positive light and love.

You’ll change their lives and, in turn, change yours.

What if I can’t smile?

Force yourself to smile. Force yourself to hum a tune. Act as if you were already happy, and that will trick your brain into being happy.

“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under more direct control of the will, we can directly regulate the feeling, which is not.” – William James, Psychologist

Now is the time to smile. If you can’t, now is the time to hum or sing or dance. It is time to forget everything and simply smile.

So I invite you now to share a simple smile with me? Share a simple smile with a loved one? With a stranger? With a co-worker?

There are countless opportunities to smile and people to direct it to. Start today. You’ll change their lives and, in turn, change yours.

Be bold, be free, and love on.