Happiness is not a circumstance but a skill. Here’s how to develop that skill

It’s important we spend as much of our lives happy.

But the strategy most employ to have more of it is to look for it circumstantially.

Many are under the false impression that if we change our external situation, we’ll finally enjoy more happiness.

But, because we believe that happiness is conditional, we end up with a sense that happiness is always just out of reach.

We believe we’ll finally be happy when we land that dream client.

We think that when we get that relationship with that cool person who really gets us, then we’ll be happy.

When we graduate from our studies, we’ll have reached that point that green lights our happiness. Finally.

But basing our happiness on externalities never works. We end up chasing happiness forever.

The solution I found is to view happiness not as a condition being met but as a skill to nurture.

Here’s how:

Understand that all our stress is created through the filter of our own thoughts. When we think angry thoughts, we feel anger.

Knowing that this is how we work means we can no longer point the finger at others or circumstances. That is freedom.

Develop a healthy indifference to things you can’t control. You only wind yourself up by thinking you can.

View happiness as a choice. Joy should not depend on things going just right, or working on the right job.

It first comes from making peace with whatever life throws at you. You can bring joy to whatever task that presents itself, whether it’s hoovering the floor or writing a poem. It’s a choice.

Know that nothing out there will ever make you fulfilled forever. It isn’t coming. But you can be fulfilled by seeing that there is joy available to you at every passing moment.

See that your default state is happiness. It just sometimes doesn’t seem that way because we pollute our minds with judgemental thinking.

Subtract the thinking (through acceptance and presence), and you’re instantly happy. To be a non-judgemental human is to be happy.

Spend more time connected to who you really are.

This may sound cheesy, but most of us have lost touch with our inner vibration.

We’re stuck to screens or jacked up on artificial dopamine that disconnects us from a steady hum of creativity and wisdom. Spend time in silence. Listen for your inner spark because it’s there.

Understand that you create everything. Your entire experience is self-created. Your mind creates it, and your fearful thoughts muddy that experience.

If you’re unhappy, you have created that unhappiness. If your relationship sucks, you created it just as it is. This is freeing, because it means a new creation is available to you in the very next moment.

If you enjoyed this, and you’d like an effective way to detach from unhelpful thinking so you develop a still, creative mind, you’ll love Untethered Mind course.

It's a step-by-step program that helps you break free from limited thinking and reduce stress.

Learn more about Untethered Mind here.

Later,

Alex

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