What is Happiness for you?

There’s times in life where we can feel like happiness is a bit of an abstract concept. It’s out there somewhere, maybe we even think it’s only out there for everyone else, and sometimes it can feel just plain unattainable in our own lives. It can feel like there’s a lot of terms and conditions we have to fulfil first in order to get a slice of it.

When you’re in a negative mind-set especially, it can feel like happiness just isn’t on the cards at all. Negative thinking steals away the potential for happiness by blinding us to the abundance of it that’s actually already in our lives.

More often than not there’s happiness to be found all around us, but if our eyes aren’t open to it of course we won’t be able to see it. Nothing external actually needs to change, there doesn’t need to be a huge shift in our lives, we just need to look differently at our worlds and seek out the joy.

When you find that contentedness inside, it’s funny the things that actually create it. For me anyway, it’s not huge things that I need to get it. It’s just the simple little things. It might be a moment, a message, an experience, music, stories, sunshine – the list is endless and I’m always excited to add to it and surround myself with more of life’s little joys.

Life isn’t always going to be rosy and like a perfect scene out of a film, it has its ups and downs but there’s always a choice to look for ups when we’re feeling the downs and that’s where we might need a little practice.

So it’s time to do a bit of discovery and find out what makes us smile. Get curious and look for the positive in all avenues of life. Maybe in work, a coffee break can bring a little lift. Maybe it’s the beautiful sunshine out the window or going for a walk in it, or someone saying hello. Happiness bubbles up in people for so many different reasons and it can change all the time too.

When you know what makes you happy, it just makes sense to tap into those things when your ‘happy’ supply is low, it can turn the circumstances around and really helps re-energize us.

It could be helpful to look at what makes others happy and explore new ideas or places to see what could bring us bliss too. I love finding out what makes other people happy and how they incorporate those things into their lives.

There’s so much to be gained from doing the things that make us happy and immersing ourselves in our own happy places. So why not start now? :)