Ever hear “You are what you eat.”? Well, apply that to your stay happy thinking. You are what you think. When you are only thinking about work or getting your kids to the next event you can easily become overwhelmed and lose track of your happiness. Here are 5 easy things you can do to help you stay happy.
1. Helping Others
This is a good one. Everyone will benefit. Helping others will not only make you feel happy but the person you are helping will feel seen and loved. This one is super easy. You could just simply open a door for someone, send an unexpected surprise like flowers or pay for the persons’ food behind you in line at your local fast food place. You could even go as far as taking a sick friend a meal or mowing the yard for someone who could use the help. The key here is to be on the lookout for a need and making the decision to do something to fulfill it. Oh the feel good.
2. Adopt a puppy!
So have you ever been walking down the street and see someone walking a dog and find yourself smiling? You may even blurt out, look a puppy dog! That feeling is what you are going for here. Spending time with animals calms you if you don’t have a puppy of your own volunteer at an animal shelter. This is one of the reasons you will see a therapy dog in a hospital or a nursing home. You may even consider getting a puppy for yourself. Can you imagine coming home to someone that is thrilled to see you! Finding a new dog is like finding your heart again. We used the Preferable Pups Puppy Finder to find our baby Goldendoodle.
3. Experience Over Possessions
Okay, we all can feel the need to have the latest and greatest. Whether it’s the newest iPhone or that killer pair of shoes we can fall in the trap of having stuff albeit very cool stuff but stuff none the less. The constant keeping up with everyone and everything can be exhausting and create a sense of failure when we can’t. Experience, on the other hand, can make us feel great. Yes, a fantastic vacation to some distant unfamiliar land can be just the thing you need. Frankly, it just doesn’t have to be that fantastical. Go to a ball game with some friends and soak up the whole experience. Everything from the smells in the air, the cheers of the crowd and your friends smiling faces. You could also just simply go to the park and sit on the bench people watching. Everything can be an experience if you go into with that stay happy expectation. Experiences are things you can look back on that will make you happy over and over again.
4. Stay Happy Place
Find your stay happy place. It could be sitting in your favorite chair with a great book or being outside in the evening watching the moon rise. Your happy place is special, it’s a place you can go to clear your mind. It doesn’t matter when you enjoy your happy place or where your happy place is, just make sure you find yourself there at least once a week. You’ll be happier for it.
5. Grateful Journal
This one may seem silly and too simple but believe it or not it works. All you need to get started is a pen and some paper. At the end of the day take just a few seconds to write down 5 things you are grateful for. You can even add why you are grateful for them. A good way to start is with things like your family and friends. Once you start looking for things to be grateful for your daily mindset will change. Soon you will see all kinds of things to be grateful for. The sunrise, seeing the moon peeking through the clouds or even the fact that the house plant is still alive.