How To Be Happy - Part 1: A Simple Way To Increase Happiness

A little while ago I shared with you one simple way to increase your happiness in my blog post How To Be Happy - Part 1. Tomorrow I am going to share How To Be Happy - Part 2 so just to refresh your memory or in case you didn't see it the first time, here it is again. 

How To Be Happy - Part 1: A Simple Way To Increase Happiness

Looking out for positive things that you observe or that happen to you during your day can help improve your outlook and, over time, your level of happiness.

One of the most successful techniques to come out of the Positive Psychology movement (Seligman) is the task of keeping a daily journal where you write down three positive things that have happened during your day. It doesn’t need a lot of journaling if that’s not your thing. It’s simple, list three things that have made you feel happy.

Why does this work? Well, if we know we have to write something in the evening, we keep our eyes open during the day and therefore are more likely to notice and pay a little bit more attention to positive events. Quite simply, noticing something positive and noting how it makes us feel happy makes our brain increase serotonin. If we do this regularly, over time we increase our happiness.

I have tweaked it a little bit and have divided this daily task into two sections; things that we just observe and things that we made happen.   It only takes a couple of minutes to write down three examples of each.

Write down three positive things that you noticed today.

“I saw the daffodils were poking through the soil next to my garage and it made me smile that Spring is finally on its way”.

“My son came through the door and gave me a big hug hello”.

“I looked at a cartoon on Facebook and thought it was so funny I laughed out loud”.

When we are feeling down we tend to just focus on the negative and ignore the positive. Part of therapy is to widen your focus to include things that went well and that you enjoyed, not just what irritated you. The act of noticing and paying attention to the experience makes the brain take more notice and therefore feel more pleasure. This is the opposite of being on automatic pilot as you go through your day.

Jot down three things that went well for you today. Why did it happen, what role did you play?

“I began the morning in a relaxed way by lying in bed cuddling with my kitty cat – because I set the alarm to go off ten minutes earlier than I needed to get up I still had plenty of time to get ready”.

“I felt very connected to my child because I put down my phone and really listened to how his day at school had gone”.

“I had a lot of work to get done but I made myself take a break and take my friend up on her offer of going for a walk. Afterwards I felt more refreshed and was able to be more productive”.

Just as we tend to ignore the positive and notice the bad things that have happened, we also tend to ignore the positive influence we have over things and events. I think it is so important to recognize not only what was good, but how you came to make it happen so you can hopefully repeat it in the future.

The same with negative things – if you have the attitude that things just happen rather than recognizing what you did or didn’t do to effect the outcome – it makes events feel out of your control and we humans are happiest when we feel some sense of control.

I see clients in my Northbrook office or for your convenience, via telephone or internet sessions