If we could only put our finger on the critical steps for achieving sustained happiness, wouldn’t that be one of your greatest life achievements?
it’s not that we would want to be happy 100% of the time, but for most of us it would be great to unlock the characterstics that would increase the amount of happiness in our lives.
By increasing happiness we improve our health, energy levels, relationships, productivity while lowering the impact of negative stress on our lives.
We can all relate to times when we have experienced true happiness, joy, a feeling of complete inner warmth – a time when we are assured that the best of us comes out.
After struggling with this question we researched many studies, investigated the many self-improvement discussion forums and surveyed our many subscribers over at Peak Personal Development and came up with this powerful list of 11 critical success factors of achieving more happiness in your life.
Have we missed any? Let’s hear your methods or comments by submitting a comment response below.
Here we go:
- Know your fundamental values and beliefs. It all starts by knowing your personal beliefs. Understanding the combination of values and beliefs that you have within you is a mandatory step toward achieving greater joy and happiness in your life. You can use methods such as Yoga and Meditation to look inward discovering the values and beliefs that must guide your lifeplan.
- Action oriented. Nothing saps your happiness and joy faster than avoiding action – otherwise known as procrastination. There are many reasons you may not take action: fear, laziness, indecision, frustration are just a few of the common reasons. You MUST work through these defenses – continue to grow, build confidence and live in line with your values and purpose to experience more happiness.
- Successful people understand the power of leverage. You can leverage positive energy by forming a good environment of friends. You can leverage time by making sure you are focused on the things that matter to you most. There is not an endless supply in anyything in life, so leverage is crucial to increasing your happiness.
- Set goals in line with your values and beliefs. Too many of us either do not set goals at all or set them in response to someone else’s plan or desire. What are your financial goals? How about your relationship and family goals? What do you want to achieve in the giving department (your time, money objective, projects, knowledge, etc…)
- Be thankful for what you have not regretful for what you don’t have. Thankful doesn’t mean you don’t strive to be better, do better or have better, it simply means be thankful for where you are and look forward to doing even better.
- Understand the power of curiosity and learning. Engage your brain, always be interested in learning more. Feed off of the energy of learning new things, opening your mind to new ways of seeing the world and always work on yourself.
- Pay attention to your health. Do NOT take your health for granted, rather know that you can have a positive impact on your health today, tomorrow and 20-years from now (time moves quicker than you think!). Pay attention to your body – it will tell you when things are out of whack.
- Learn how to clearly explain yourself and influence others. I don’t mean this in a negative way by getting people to do what they don’t want to do, but in a positive way so that you can accomplish great things in life. People are looking for role models, positive influences and will offer you an incredible ability to accomplish great things in life if you understand how to get across to the masses.
- Have BIG ideas. Don’t settle for today’s reality, but seek to define your own future reality. Though BIG ideas may seem more challenging to implement, in reality the considerable influence and attention caused by a BIG idea can make it much more likely to come about – if you are going to dream, then dream BIG.
- Take time for yourself. I know people in life that have great abilities to help people – but they burn out because they don’t realize that taking time for themselves allows them to server those around them better in the end.
- Listen to those who want to help or need help, don’t listen to those that put you down. As you become happier and more successful in life, more people will try and stop you as a result of jelousy – so learn to keep moving forward ignoring those that seek to stop you for selfish reasons.
We learned a great deal ourselves by compiling this list and conducting our research – but we also know that this list is not complete, so help us to expand our list of the critical factors for achieving more happiness in your life.
Jeff
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