Why Inner Happiness Is The New Tonic For Achieving More Certainty

Finding inner happiness is something that most people strive to achieve. Moreover, on a global level, the United Nations and millions of people celebrate International Happiness Day, on March 20th each year. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the value of happiness. Specifically, the value and overall impact it has on people’s well-being. This means it’s always a worthwhile exercise to reflect on how you honestly rate your happiness and wellbeing levels.

While most of us agree that happiness is subjective, some countries attempt to measure it. For example, in the early 1970’s, Bhutan started measuring the happiness levels of its population. Accordingly, they have a Gross National Happiness Index rather than a Gross National Product. A somewhat unique take on happiness. Furthermore, the United Arab Emirates have a Minister for Happiness, a unique role, whose job is to oversee the UAE’s plans, programs and policies to achieve a happier society. Positive steps towards increasing wellbeing and intrinsic happiness of the population.

Build Back Happier is this year’s theme

Over the last two years, with the massive uncertainty, change and chaos in the world, we have seen happiness levels fall to an all-time low. Consequently, the theme of this year’s International Happiness Day in 2022, is “Build Back Happier.”  I believe the critical point is here is to find ways to build intrinsic happiness from the inside out.

Focusing on building inner happiness is the key for creating lasting happiness. Too often, many people focus on ways to feel happier now. External sources such as food, drink, or other habit forming activities such as gaming, social media, Netflix bingeing. None of these ever lead to intrinsic or lasting happiness. Furthermore, they can lead to problematic habits and sometimes, addictions.

We are in control of our inner happiness

“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” William James

A point worth remembering is that your thoughts influence how you feel and, together, shape your attitudes, personality and identity. Moreover, creating a habit of observing your thoughts, listening curiously to those hidden whispers, is essential. Next, change any that do not serve you. This seemingly simple habit, is in fact, a difficult one to master. Furthermore, it is one I prioritise in my coaching and a topic I write extensively on.

Managing our mental thoughts and our messy heads is vital for increasing our inner happiness. Becoming aware of your thoughts, feeling and habits is the first step towards change. Mindfulness and meditation are proven ways to assist with our awareness. Moreover, when we change our stories we can improve how we feel and our inner happiness. Finally, our thoughts are a key element of a mindset for success.

Your thoughts influence how you feel and contribute to your outer and inner happiness

I have a simple, yet powerful exercise I teach my clients, which I call ‘Happy Moments’.  I ask my clients to write down a page full of their happy memories and experiences. Once they start, it becomes a truly fun exercise. These moments include, sports achievements, physical challenges, social occasions, celebrations, travel, work successes or connections with family or friends. Now, they have a log of great memories to use to increase inner happiness. Why not give it a go? Take a few minutes now to reflect back on your life and write down some of your joyful, happy, exhilarating and proud moments. Now you have a log, select one and imagine you are there right now. Be there looking through your own eyes, using all your senses at that moment. Most important, connect with the feeling. Finally, for other keys to happiness, check out this article.

Connect with the happy moment and amplify the feeling

To turn up the feeling, give it a colour, say a power word such as ‘yes,’ or simply imagine turning up the volume of the feeling. Rather like turning up the button on and old radio or television. Moreover, if you practice this every day, not only will you feel instantly better, you train your body to feel better more often. Eventually, with consistency and repetition you create a positive habit of feeling good. This shapes your attitude and outlook in life.

The reason this simple and fun technique works is that your brain uses the same neurological circuits as memory and imagination. Therefore, when you imagine you are back in a happy past experience, your brain signals your body to release chemicals that match the experience.

Moreover, when you fall back into autopilot, which we do frequently every day, you have a higher chance of falling back into a happier state. Otherwise, as your brain has a negativity bias, you may fall back into negative events or ruminate over something that didn’t work out. Worse still, berate yourself for failing or not being perfect, or worry about something that hasn’t even happened.

Take small actions and have a massive celebration to raise your inner happiness levels

Whatever is going on in your life, there is always something you can do, however small. Taking action builds confidence and helps you build a feeling of accomplishment. If you are feeling low, simply write down, on a piece of paper, a small action you can take right now. The important step is to make it so small it becomes easy. Next, take action and then tick it off on your list. It doesn’t matter if the task is picking up a pair of shoes, finishing a book, cleaning a drawer or running 10 kilometres. The simple act of acknowledging it, ticking it off and celebrating means your brain will again release chemicals that help you feel good.

Moreover, when you feel good, everything becomes better. You feel better, see more clearly and shift to an optimistic mindset. Consequently, you are more likely to keep going. Furthermore, it helps you build a sense of purpose and confidence. Importantly, this is a key step in creating a champion mindset and increasing inner happiness and wellbeing

Gratitude is a proven way to increase joyful feelings and inner happiness

“We hold the key to lasting happiness in our own hands. For it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” Brené  Brown

From a scientific perspective, gratitude is a positive emotion that serves a biological purpose. Gratitude is a deeper appreciation for someone, or something, that helps people connect to something larger than themselves. Moreover, it produces longer lasting positivity. Feelings are the language of the body, so cultivating gratitude again helps you change your internal state. Additionally, gratitude ripples out and positively influences other people.

Thanking others and yourself both increase gratitude

While science shows thanking people creates a positive impact, taking time to focus on what you are grateful for in your life is something you can do in any situation. With my clients, I often challenge them to turn the lens inwards to build a greater feeling of positivity and value towards self. Simply look at what you have done today, and appreciate yourself. Consider the good qualities you have inside of you to achieve this. Finally, feel the gratitude for your qualities that are part of you.

When you practice this every day you create a brilliant habit which helps build a higher sense of inner happiness and wellbeing. Finally, gratitude can increase more joy and gratitude can increase joy. Together they create an upward spiral where both emotions build off each other.

Gratitude also trains your mind muscle to see more good in the world which increases good feelings

Practising gratitude also trains your brain to look for more good times. The things you might otherwise miss. Again, a wonderful habit to cultivate due to the amount of time we operate from habit. Critically, creating good habits is the foundation to all success. Furthermore, it helps overcome your brain’s inherent negativity bias.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” William James

You have the ability to choose the meaning of any event in your life

Your mind is amazingly creative. This means you can choose to interpret any experience as good, bad, positive, negative, helpful, neutral or an opportunity. You create your reality from your mind. When something goes wrong, somewhere, hidden away is an equal and opposite seed of growth and opportunity. You may not see it at the time, but at least hold onto this possibility. No doubt you can recall a past experience which ultimately, gave you a positive outcome or a new opportunity?

One of my favourite quotes comes from John Gardiner

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.” John Gardner.

There are many simple things you can do to increase your levels of inner happiness and wellbeing

All of the above fit into Martin Seligman’s PERMA Model of happiness. Briefly, the PERMA stands for, Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments. Moreover, there are simple steps you can take to improve all of these areas.

Your state of wellbeing, intricately linked to your inner happiness, is so important that it is an international day. A day for you to pause, ponder on your own levels of happiness and see how you could improve them. Furthermore, perhaps today is a good day to do a random act of kindness towards another human being. Just imagine, if we all undertook a random act of kindness every day I believe we would have a cheery solution for increasing the happiness and wellbeing levels of the world.

 

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