Although International Happiness Day is celebrated on March 20, any day can be one of positive thinking and joy. And each day does not need to be one filled with breath-taking fireworks. In fact, International Day of Happiness, was organised by the United Nations as a reminder that happiness is a fundamental human goal.
When Yale Professor Laurie Santos began teaching “Psychology and the Good Life” a few years ago, the Yale Daily News, February 4, 2018, noted that a total of 1,147 students were enrolled making it the most popular course in Yale’s history.
However, when she told that class that she was running an experiment and would give all of her students D’s to see if a bad grade would affect their happiness, it created a stir from students to families to faculty and deans. Her goal was to help students realize that there are paths to happiness that do not involve grades — such as learning and growth.
As we think about this, here are 10 ideas from Action for Happiness. Each idea has links on their website with detailed information. In brief:
- Do things for others: Caring about others is fundamental to our happiness.
- Connect with People: Relationships are the most important overall contributor to happiness.
- Take care of your body: Our body and our mind are connected. Being active makes us happier as well as being good for our physical health.
- Live life mindfully: Ever felt there must be more to life? Well good news, there is! And it’s right here in front of us. We just need to stop and take notice.
- Keep learning new things: Learning affects our well-being in lots of positive ways. It exposes us to new ideas and helps us stay curious and engaged.
- Have goals to look forward to: Feeling good about the future is important for our happiness. We all need goals to motivate us and these need to be challenging enough to excite us, but also achievable.
- Find ways to bounce back: We often cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose our own attitude to what happens.
- Look for what’s good: Positive emotions — like joy, gratitude, contentment, inspiration, and pride — are not just great at the time. Recent research shows that regularly experiencing them creates an ‘upward spiral’, helping to build our resources.
- Be comfortable with who you are: Learning to accept ourselves, warts and all, and being kinder to ourselves when things go wrong, increases our enjoyment of life, our resilience and our well-being. It also helps us accept others as they are.
- Be part of something bigger: People who have meaning and purpose in their lives are happier, feel more in control and get more out of what they do.
These 10 Keys to Happier Living framework were jointly developed by Vanessa King and the Action for Happiness team in 2010. They pointed out that these are “based on an extensive review of the latest research evidence relating to psychological/mental well-being.”
Copyright 2018 Rita Watson