Recharge Your Mind

How To Increase Happiness

Photo Credit: Moomettesgram

Happiness, probably has as many definitions as there are people in the world. Everybody has a very well defined individual perspective on what makes them happy and what makes them sad. Hence, this post is not about how to be happy, but rather, how to increase or prolong those moments of joy when you get them in your life.

There are some very simple things that we can do to make this happen:

1. Split Your Happiness:

I know this sounds very weird so let me explain it with an example.
I love the joy and happiness my wife feels when I give her a present and seeing her happy makes me really happy too. Also, 9 out of 10 times I can tell that she is going to love the gift and we are going to have a good time. This certainty of getting some joyful moments made me think that if I give her 2 or 3 small gifts on different days, instead of giving her 1 big gift, wouldn’t that make us happy more frequently?

So, if my budget to get her a birthday present is $100, I go for 3-4 gifts of $20-$30 each instead of spending the whole amount on one single gift. I give her 1 of the gifts on the occasion and wait for a few days before surprising her with another gift. She absolutely loves it!
A lot of us are following the same principle unconsciously when we save a portion of our favorite candy bar “so we can eat it later”, or read a very good book slowly “so we can enjoy it for some more time”. We can always make a conscious effort to do this whenever possible and be happy more frequently.

2. Capture and Relive:

Capturing the moments by making a video, taking pictures or even just writing it down, allows you to relive those moments of happiness. This is precisely why everyone loves to look at old pictures and videos and remember the good times again and again. Of-course, you cannot get the same level of excitement that you had on your wedding day juts by watching your wedding video, but you can definitely recall how you felt and cherish.
Plus, a lot of good times only come once in our life; like your kid’s first words or their first birthday party. These are probably the most common examples of people capturing the joyful moments of their life so they can come back to them later. We are so fortunate that in today’s age, technology allows us to do this very easily.

Some pursue happiness, others create it.

However, sometimes we don’t even need technology to assist us in this. For example, every now and then when I talk to one of my close friends, we recall a very adventurous trip we made almost 8 years ago. We did that trip only once but we have probably enjoyed it a dozen times just by going over the fun things that happened and laughing at them. A lot of people do capture the moments, but miss out by never going back to them.

3. Share it with the world:

A very clichéd yet true saying about happiness is

Happiness multiplies and sorrow diminishes by sharing.

I am not saying we should start screaming to the world that we are happy, rather, we should show it in our attitude and conversations. If you have a good news and you share it with one of your collegues, they will be happy for you too and that will reassure you of the love people have for you, making you even more joyful. On the other hand, if you make a habit of not sharing your happiness, people would stop including you in their joyous moments as well.

4. Don’t worry about the future:

Everybody loves weekends so they can get sometime to relax and enjoy, but a lot of people spend their sundays just worrying about the upcoming week. Similarly, people spend a good chunk of their vacations worrying that they will be over soon; not realizing that they are ruining their present by worrying about the future.
We often complain about the lack of happiness in our life, but when we get it, we waste it by worrying that it will go away. The key is to live in the present and cherish each and every moment that we can get. We get enough time to worry about things and we should not waste our good times doing that.

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.  ~William Feather

5. Do something creative:

If you are in a good mood, chances are you’ll be much more creative and productive than usual. Doing something creative would allow you to be more happy because of two reasons:

• Whatever you do, singing, painting, gaming e.t.c. will get related to happiness in your mind. Later,  when you have a down time, your mind would suggest going back to that creative activity because it will think “I was happy when I was doing that activty.”
• You have a greater chance of creating something amazing and once you are able to do that, it will make you joyous and proud even when you are having a bad day.