Wednesday 17 December 2008

Making Happiness a Habit

I had an excellent conversation today, I’ve recently made big life change and moved into a big house with all my family, My mum, dad, sister, brother-in-law, nephew and of course my daughter … quite an unusual step for a 38 year old western woman! Well my friend Tessa was asking me how it was going and I replied that I’m loving it as “we play lots of games and eat together most nights.”

She commented that “So many families nowadays forget that... and I think it's so important.”

The conversation continued as follows;

Gemma

It is - we've rediscovered it really because we'd forgotten it too.

Tessa

I hear you... Grant and I were talking the other day about couples (a friend is getting divorced) it is so important to not change/forget the little stuff that you love to do together, whatever it may be but it’s so easy to forget, to get carried away with daily life and routine and not take time...

Gemma

I think that’s part of the key it needs to be built into the routine - happiness needs to become a habit ...

So here are 10 Easy ways to make happiness a habit

  1. Compile At least 1 CD of happy tunes to play.
  2. Spend a little time every evening writing down what you are happy about, grateful for or have achieved that day.
  3. Exercise.
  4. Read funny or uplifting books.
  5. Set yourself a target for spending time with people that make you feel good and monitor it.
  6. Watch comedies on TV.
  7. Spend much less time with toxic people.
  8. Figure out what you really enjoy doing and do it.
  9. Do something nice for someone else, if possible, a stranger.
  10. Play really silly games and don’t forget to throw out the rules sometimes! (This brings to mind a spectacular evening with Tessa and other beloved friends where we turned Pictionary into a game of Charades … sounds easy? Not when you pick words like Jellyfish or World Wide Web to act out!!!)

There are a lot more ways to be happy and I look forward to reading your suggestions too!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really enjoying your blogs, Gemma. To add to your list, I discovered this week that sometimes happiness is as simple as just deciding to be happy. Forget about all the things that are out of your control and focus on what it is that you can do. Enjoy the moment, tomorrow is another day!