Also, massively important when it comes to getting to know your own happiness is being aware of the risks of pursuing others’ goals. From being children, all too often we’re frequently aware of our parent’s academic goals for us, and future career aspirations. As we pass to adulthood, these might become our partner or boss’s aspirations. The fact is, if they’re not your goals and dreams, you’re wasting your time. Everyone needs to find what they want to be doing in the long term. Without this clarity and drive, you will never hit the goals you really want to. Sure, those people around you have your best interests at heart, but the fact is, if you’re not behind the goal two hundred percent, you’re probably not going to hit it. Worse, you might end up wasting years of your life pursuing the wrong things. Pay attention to what really matters to you.
Making Your Happiness into an Attainable Goal
Everyone should have their own happiness at the centre of their approach to life. That’s not to say they should be self-involved or hedonistic, but happiness should always be at the centre of your thinking when it comes to yourself. Even if you need to spend a few years working a job you don’t love or put off going back to school to raise a family, its important to keep at least some aspects of your happiness somewhere at the core of your approach. Nurture dreams, spend a couple hours a week on a side-hustle, maintain your hobbies and skills. Don’t let things wither and fade in the background, even if making the happen feels like a bit of a chore.
Turning your ideas of happiness into a real attainable goal isn’t as difficult an idea as it sounds to be honest. You just need to be self-aware and ready to make some changes. Take some risks if need be. The fact is happiness depends on you stepping away from your comfort zone and pursuing the things that really matter to you. You can’t move laterally towards happiness without taking some big leaps in there. You need to be prepared to make the big changes.
The first steps when it comes to making your happiness into an attainable and actionable goal is simply paying attention to yourself. If you have a real sense of self-awareness about you, you truly know what you’re about and what you enjoy, as well as what holds you back, you can start thinking about what makes sense as a new direction for you. What will allow you to achieve a place of productive, happy consistency? Obviously, there’s never going to be one single consistent, cookie cutter answer to this question. It’s highly personal, and requires to absolutely pay scrutiny to yourself, learn about yourself and start making those necessary changes. There are many things in life that obscure things, self-destructive, time-wasting behaviours that pull us away from real goals and work, and these are the things you’ve got to take a proper look at.
Happiness Should Never Be the Primary Goal
Sounds like a contradiction, right? I spend paragraph after paragraph talking about the importance of self-awareness and pursuing your happiness, only to turn around and say that happiness shouldn’t be a primary goal? How can that be? The fact is happiness isn’t a goal. It’s a state we find ourselves in while pursuing the right goal. You can’t just put yourself into a state of happiness, it requires you be in the right mindset in general. That means pursuing things that are meaningful to you. Real passions and ideas that go somewhere, this is key. The primary goal is starting your construction company or raising a family. It’s not being happy, that comes along the way.
Five Tips to Help Your Happiness Grow
When it comes to embracing change and making some lasting differences in your life, there’s many things that you can be doing to help start off the changes that you want to be making. They don’t have to be big, earth-shattering things. They can be as simple as remembering to brush your teeth and deciding not to go out for a drink. It can be that easy.
Self-Care – Whether we’re talking exercise, personal hygiene, remembering to eat, it doesn’t matter. Too many people neglect looking after themselves and find themselves restricted and held back by their lack of self-care. Without an attitude of looking after yourself, you can’t expect to truly grow and thrive. Simply building this routine can be hugely beneficial, giving you a starting point each day.
Removing Toxic Behaviours and People – We all do toxic, unproductive things, and we all have people in our lives who hold us back. The key isn’t to be all gung-ho about it, launching in by going straight-edge and cutting dozens of people out. That’s bound to fail. It’s to simple be a little more aware of which behaviours hold you back, what you can cut down on and which people to keep an eye on and maybe hold at arm’s length. It doesn’t need to be much more than that.
Self-Awareness and Meditation – Developing a real sense of self-awareness is key, and one of the best ways to do that is through meditation. Just spending ten to twenty minutes sat daily, meditating on yourself and yet on nothing will help you really relax and see the forest for the trees.
Gratitude – Gratitude is all about learning to be happy with what you already have, whether that’s things, your job or your friends and loved ones. Learning to be a more grateful person is always going to be hugely beneficial for all things in life.
Journaling – Lastly, I’m going to mention journaling. Journaling is hugely useful just because it helps you record your progress, ideas, and refinements as they arrive. It gives you a sense of control, direction, and documentation, all of which are hugely helpful.
