Your Way To Happiness Action Plan

Cheerfulness:
Laughter can renew your spirit, heal your body, and awaken your proverbial inner child. As we get older, few of us laugh as much or as hard as we did as kids. When's the last time you let yourself have a real belly laugh? Research indicates that the average adult gets by on only 15 smiles or laughs a day. Children, on the other hand, laugh or smile an average of 400 times a day. As adults, we have some catching up to do. A lot more laughter is in order.

At first, it may be hard to let yourself give in to fits of laughter; you may not quite remember how. But with practice, you'll likely be able to recapture at least some of your childish mirth. If you do achieve riotous laughter, congratulations! You're doing your health a big favor, not to mention your well-being. You'll also probably feel a lot happier to boot. Try these tips for increasing the laughter in your life.


Find humor in everyday situations. There is almost always something funny happening.


When you get upset about something, try laughing out loud. Sometimes you can gain perspective on a negative situation by laughing it off. It's rarely as bad as you think it is.


Dare yourself to laugh for 10 seconds without a break once every hour. If you can do that, you will already be laughing more than most adults do!


Try remembering funny things from your past. Amuse yourself throughout the day by conjuring up funny things that have happened to you in the past or imagining new ones. Allow yourself to laugh out loud. Who cares if people see you cracking yourself up? You're just thinking of something funny.


Make funny friends. It's good to spend time with people who keep you laughing.


Join a laugh club. Laugh clubs started catching on in India about six years ago; now they are international. People all over the world are meeting on a regular basis to promote laughter. See if you can find a club in your area.


Gratitude:
People who reflect on the things they are grateful for — whether in journal writing, quiet contemplation, or sharing with others — are shown to have a greater overall sense of well-being than those who don't. Try this five-day journal exercise to begin your daily habit of being grateful:
Find a blank book or writing tablet that you can use to create your gratitude journal.


Each day, write down how and why you are grateful for the things listed below. Think about ways you can begin to more fully appreciate each.
Day 1: Health. For example, "I am thankful for my health because it enables me to do active things that I enjoy, like bicycling to work on nice days. I can appreciate my health more by trying to eat right and by exercising more often."


Day 2: Family. For example, "I am thankful for my mother because she always stands by me when I have a problem. I can appreciate my mother more by calling just to say hello more often and letting her know how much I value her."


Day 3: Friends. For example, "I am thankful that I have a small, tight-knit group of friends because they make my leisure time much more enjoyable. They also support me in tough times by making me laugh. I can appreciate my friends more by throwing a dinner party to thank them for being such great company."


Day 4: Work. For example, "I am thankful that I have such a great job because I truly enjoy what I do for a living. I can appreciate my job more by continuing to give it my best effort."


Day 5: Home. For example. "I am thankful for my apartment because it is a very comfortable, enjoyable place to work, play, and relax. I can appreciate my home more by keeping it cleaner."


You may choose to find even more things to be grateful for and record them in your journal. Try looking at smaller things. For example, "I am grateful that my husband made me breakfast this morning because it got my day off to a great start. I can appreciate him more by letting him know how much it helped me this morning." The more you write in your journal, the more conscious you will be of the small things — and the big things — that make your life great.


For bonus points, try following through on some of the things that you can do to show your appreciation. Thank people more. Appreciate your life more. You might be surprised how good it makes you feel.

Personal Growth:
Although a commitment to personal growth comes naturally to some, others need to work a little harder to make space in their lives for change. Establishing and achieving goals is hard work and often takes great effort, even if you have a strong motivation to do so. Try taking the following steps to help make yourself more receptive to personal growth and change.


Take care of yourself. Eating well, exercising, and getting enough sleep are important to your day-to-day well-being. If your health begins to suffer, you probably won't have enough physical or emotional energy to devote to your personal growth efforts.


Keep your eye on the ball. Do your best to stay focused and determined, even when life presents you with obstacles. If you do lose focus, acknowledge why it happened and vow to get back on track. Beating yourself up for minor setbacks will harm you more than it will help.


Integrate change into your lifestyle. Think of personal growth as part of a lifelong improvement process. If you see it as more than a short-term fix, you'll probably remain much more motivated.


Have fun. The more you can enjoy the journey of personal growth, the more positive change will tend to flow toward you.


Celebrate your victories. The best rewards often don't come after making a change but are in the positive change itself. Give yourself credit for making these positive steps happen. You deserve it.

Relationships:
Social interaction is a basic human need, and its benefits are numerous. No matter how independent you feel you are, humans actually require a certain amount of social interaction in order to thrive. The amount and variety of social interaction each person needs to be at their peak happiness levels will vary. Regardless of what you find your specific needs to be, below you'll find three ideas to help you tend and grow your connections with others.
Give priority to your closest relationships. Make a list of the two to five people you regard as your closest confidants. When you have a choice to make between spending time with these close friends that you've listed or hanging out with someone else, choose those close friends first. Also, try keeping in touch with all of your close friends on a more regular basis. Show each one of them that you value the connection the two of you share.


Throw a party. Invite everyone you know or would like to know better and encourage your friends to bring guests that you don't know. This way, you'll have the opportunity to expand your network of friends and acquaintances easily and quickly. This tactic can work even better if you invite a slightly smaller core group of people for a monthly get together. Festivities could take the form of a potluck dinner, a book club, a movie night, or even a bowling party.


Help others. Your support network also provides you with the opportunity to support others when they need it. Giving help to a friend makes you feel needed, brings you closer to your friend, and generally makes you feel better about yourself.


Optimism:

Research has proven that optimists are happier and more successful than their pessimist counterparts are. The primary difference between optimists and pessimists is the way these two types of people view setbacks. An optimist will ordinarily see setbacks as temporary while the pessimist will tend to see them as permanent.

Also, optimists claim less personal responsibility for setbacks than pessimists do. The primary reason that optimists are happier and more successful than pessimists appears to be that optimists are more likely to act, and even take risks, to do something about a setback. Because optimists see setbacks as temporary, they believe that situations are changeable and to some degree within their control.

Pessimists, on the other hand, believe that they're stuck with things being the way they are until the situation changes on its own. Although pessimists can sometimes see reality more accurately than optimists, their passive attitudes are more apt to lead to depression and away from happiness. To become more optimistic, you must change your thought patterns to include more positive thinking. Here are the two major secrets to optimism.


When something negative happens in your life, tell yourself that "this too shall pass." When you believe that a negative change is temporary, you'll be much more motivated to take action to move things in a more positive direction. Take stock of all the things not affected by the negative change. Acknowledge everything in your life that has remained positive. Making these mental notes can help you see that all is not ruined. In addition, remember that events rarely have a single cause. It's usually a combination of factors. Try to minimize the amount of blame you attribute to yourself when bad things happen.


When something positive happens in your life, believe that it is going to last. When you feel that a positive change is permanent, you rid yourself of unnecessary worry and let yourself truly benefit from every new, happy change that you experience. So instead of worrying, focus your attention on all of the things in your life that have been improved by the positive change. Allow yourself to bask in the glow of good fortune. Also consider anything you did that may have helped this change to happen. Feel good about all the ways big and small that you're contributing to your own happiness.

Commitment:

Research has revealed that the secret to contentment doesn't come from wealth or health or any other sort of abundance. The utter absence of money or physical well-being affects contentment, but any level beyond basic subsistence levels of health, wealth, and so on has no effect on contentment at all. The main lesson in this fact is that contentment springs from being happy with what you have and believing that, all in all, life is good. Consider this research finding while doing the following exercise.
On a piece of paper, begin the following sentence: "I would be happier if...."


Let yourself be petty. Write down everything that comes to mind when completing this sentence. Maybe you will write, "I had more money," "I were more attractive," "I were smarter," "I had more friends," or similar statements.


Now look at each of the things on your list. For each, ask yourself the following questions:
How could your situation be worse than it is?
What about this area can you be content about (even in a small way)?
Is keeping your feeling of discontent worth a small measure of your happiness? If not, cross it off your list and resolve to be content with what you have in that area.
If you have crossed off everything on your list, congratulations on your new contentment! Now you just need to remember to honor the decisions you made in this exercise. You can stop here.


If there is at least one item on your list after you finish crossing things off, close your eyes and imagine yourself having what you believe you lack. How much more content do you think you would feel? Now try imagining yourself unable to get what you think you lack. How much less content do you think you would be?


Your chances of ever being content — even if you obtain what you think is missing — are lower if you cannot find contentment with the present moment and the present situation. This is because it is easy to slip into a pattern of putting off contentment because you feel you need something more. This way of thinking will keep contentment just slightly out of reach for your whole life.


Self Confidence:

The way you feel about yourself doesn't just have a huge effect on your confidence level. It also impacts the way you treat yourself, the way you treat others, and the kinds of life choices you make. Know that you can greatly improve the quality of your life through the power of your mind alone. To do so you need to honestly assess how you feel about yourself and take steps to change your self-concept for the better. The good news is that you don't have to be born with confidence; you can learn to be more confident. For starters, try to figure out what is negatively affecting your confidence and why.


List your top five negative criticisms of yourself. (Leave a few blank lines below each criticism.)


Review your criticisms for gross generalizations. Omit words such as always, never, and totally. If you can't omit them, change them to words like sometimes and somewhat.


Try to make the criticisms more specific. Come up with examples that illustrate why you believe in your criticism. If you can't come up with anything, take note of that and use it as ammunition against your negative self-talk in the future.


For each criticism ask yourself:
What about your negative criticism is true?
What is untrue?
What could this negative criticism be doing to serve you? In many cases, our negative criticisms of ourselves are there to warn us against danger, to keep us from making mistakes, or to guard against failure.
Finally, be honest with yourself about your weakness. Accept that you are flawed, but realize that you are probably not as bad as you were originally making yourself out to be.