21 Habits of Happy People

Someone I'm friends with on Facebook recently posted a link to this article and it was too good not to share. I tend to ignore my FB feed, but for some reason this stood out as something I just had to read. It really spoke to me and I kept nodding and saying YES! out loud when I was reading some of these items. Your happiness is up to you and you alone -- and yes, you can change it! I was going to pick a few of my favorites to share but the entire list just is that good. These 21 things are listed here with my thoughts on each one. Click the link above to read the original article.

1. Appreciate Life

This is so easy to forget. We're so lucky to be alive and well. So many people don't get that opportunity to wake up and seize the day. As my dad often says, "at least I'm not pushing daises!" Don't take your life (or anyone) for granted!

2. Choose Friends Wisely

Do you have positive, supportive, amazing friends in your life? Well, awesome! If not? It's time to take a good look around and re-evaluate who you're putting time and energy into. Friends should make you feel good about yourself and should be there for you when you need them. Don't ever forget that.

3. Be Considerate

Love one another. I say this phrase a lot these days. Everyone is different. They think different, act different, look different and do things differently. Love them anyways and accept this. Try to give off positive vibes to everyone you encounter, you never know what they might be going through.

4. Learn Continuously

Always keep pushing to learn and do more. Never become comfortable with where you are at. If I never tried new things or pushed myself, I wouldn't be where I am today. Is it scary? Absolutely! But the risk is far worth the reward.

5. Creative Problem Solving

Experiencing some kind of lull or set back in your life? Instead of complaining and not do anything about it, see it as an awesome challenge to overcome. It's not going to fix itself, only you have the power to change things in your life. No one can change that but you.

6. Do What They Love

Most people absolutely hate what they do. Why? They feel pressure or just really need the paycheck. Hate it that bad that you can't change your attitude about it? It's not worth it. Life is far too short to be that miserable all the time. Trust me, the people around you will thank me for this tip of advice.

7. Enjoy Life

See the beauty in the little things. Life is an amazing gift that often gets cut way too short. Enjoy your days while you can becuase you never know what tomorrow brings. Stop and smell the roses once in a while :)

8. Laugh

Laughing cures everything. Honestly. If I'm having a bad day all I need to do is listen to Jay's fabulous impressions to cheer me up. You might be stubborn and try not to laugh, but honestly it feels so good to just give in and laugh. The full belly kind that make you ache when you're done. Try to take life less seriously and I promise you, you'll be a lot happier.

9. Forgive

Holding a grudge will only hurt yourself. That person you're mad at? They probably don't know or don't care very much. Let. It. Go. So not worth your time. Focus your energy on other things like the great people in your life and your goals and passions. You'll get a lot farther and you'll eventually forget about that jerk.

10. Gratitude

Count your blessings. You're very lucky. Yes, you. You have things that people only dream about. Be thankful for these things, even the little things in you life. They could be gone in an instant. Make sure to take the time to tell the loved ones in your life how much they mean to you -- that never gets old.

11. Invest in Relationships

What you put into your relationships is what you will get out of them. Time is a precious thing that we all wished we had more of. Some of my biggest regrets have been not making the time for someone or something. Be there for your friends and family, you'd be lost without them.

12. Keep Their Word

Always be honest. Honesty is not always the easiest thing, but in the long run will keep you out of a lot of trouble. You may not realize it, but everyone can spot a phony a mile away. Be honest with yourself and others. You'll sleep much better at night.

13. Meditate

Take some time out of the day to be alone with your thoughts. Some people like to read, do yoga, stretch, go on a walk, take a bath or long shower, etc. I find that calming myself down and focusing on grounding myself is one of the best things I can do for myself and the people that I encounter every day. If I let the stress build up and couldn't find some sort of outlet I'd feel really bad for my husband, friends and family. Who wants to be around that?

14. Mind Their Own Business

Ah, yes. I've noticed the importance of this one more and more as I get older. When I was in high school it was easy to get swept up in the drama. Now? I just want to live my life the way I want it and don't care if people don't like it. Concentrate on YOU and YOUR life. Don’t worry about what other people are doing or saying. Don’t get caught up in the gossip. Don’t judge. Everyone has a right to live their own life the way they want to – including you.

15. Optimism

Life gets hard. No doubt. Instead of folding up into a ball and burring your head in the sand, try to find the positive in every situation. It's hard, but I promise it's there. Usually it's a life lesson (a hard one) but I bet you'll never make that mistake again. Every situation can be turned into a learning experience. Like that time I let a "friend" borrow my car and they drove it into an industrial sized mailbox. The positive in that situation? Thank god no one got hurt (well just my wallet).

16. Love Unconditionally

Accept everyone. Your friends and family may not always do things that you agree with, but love them anyways. We're all different and we all deserved to be loved and supported. It's just that simple.

17. Persistence

Life gets hard sometimes (okay maybe a lot ... and usually a lot of hard things happen around the same time) but the only thing that keeps you down is you. If you quit or never try? You lose. Don't give up on the things that matter most to you. You can't ever succeed if you don't try.

18. Be Proactive

You can't change everything -- and you have to accept that. Don't waste your time or energy on things outside of your control. Worrying about stuff will only make you crazy and take years off of your life. Embrace it, it's okay to let go.

19. Self Care

You can't take care of others if you're not taking care of yourself. You need to make your health a priority in your life in order to be the best person you can. I always feel 100% better when I'm eating right, working out, getting enough sleep and water. It's crazy how quickly my mood can change when one of those things is off.

20. Self Confidence

No one can like you if you don't even like yourself. Practice a little self love and I promise your attitude about other things will change too. I used to care a lot about what other people thought until I realized that changing myself for others only led to me being more miserable instead of happy. Do things for yourself and yourself alone.

21. Take Responsibility

You are responsible for your moods, attitude, thoughts, feelings, actions and words. Mess up? Apologize and move on. Take responsibility for your life and your actions.

Be happy :)

 

Creating More Free Time

People are so busy. Everyone has so many responsibilities—between family, pets, work, bills and maintaining a home, it’s no wonder that people constantly feel stressed and overworked.

It may seem like something small, but consider how much you use social media. Whether you’re leaving your social pages up in your browser all day at work or are constantly checking your phone, all that time accumulates. Five minutes here and there can turn into big chunks of time in your day when you be using that time more productively.

So, how can you cut down?

• Track your time: The first step is actually looking at how much time you spend using social media. Track your time for a week and evaluate how much time you spend per day.
• Set limits: Just like you block out an hour to hit the gym or half an hour to eat lunch, set a time limit on how much time you spend with social media each day. If you’re really hoping to cut down, start with 30 minutes per day and lessen that number each week.
• Think about what else you could be doing—and do it: In order to provide motivation to stick to the limits you’ve set, think about all the things you could accomplish instead of spending your time on social media. Then, actually do those things. You’ll feel much better spending an hour finishing housework than you will spending that same time browsing Facebook.
• Turn off notifications: When your phone is beeping to let you know someone sent you a message or posted on your Facebook wall, it’s hard to ignore. Get rid of the alerts and email notifications and you won’t be prompted to pick up your phone every time something new happens.
• Step away: When you feel like social media is taking over your day, leave behind your laptop, tablet or phone and find another activity. Go outside for a walk, spend time with family/friends or hit the gym.
• Hide your apps: On the home screen of your phone, it makes sense to place the apps that you use most. But, if you leave those apps off your home screen they won’t be top of mind every time you look at your phone.
• Be in the moment: So many times people pause to snap a picture to share on Instagram or pause in the middle of dinner to share with their Twitter followers what they’re eating. Why? Sure, it’s great to snap pictures to be able to better hold onto memories, but often times people neglect the person or people they are with in favor of capturing a moment to share with people who aren’t there. Focus on who and what you are experiencing. Your social networks can wait.

Social media is a great way to stay connected with the people and things you care about, but it can turn into a huge time suck that distracts you from daily tasks and prevents you from doing things that are productive. And then there’s the whole notion of FOMO, or fear of missing out. People often become attached to social media because they’re afraid they are missing something great or not being included in important conversations happening online. Once you wean yourself from social media, you’ll see that FOMO is really all in your head. If a truly important conversation is happening online and you need to be included, people will get in touch with you. They might even—gasp—call you.

Do you limit your social media time? How do you do it?

Motivation: It's Never Too Late

Last year, an Oregon man who dropped out of college in 1932 finally received his degree. This man, aged 99, decided that he wasn’t too old to finish something he’d set out to do many years prior. He’s the perfect example that it’s never too late.

There are few things worse than getting older and feeling like you’re not accomplishing the things you want or were meant to do. It’s crappy to feel like you have so much you want to do, but aren’t getting anywhere. Or, maybe you feel like your window of opportunity has passed.

I have a long mental list of things I’d like to do, learn and accomplish. Recently I’ve begun to tackle that list. I purchased a nice camera and have started to read about and practice photography. I’ve made it a priority to become fluent in Spanish. I’m trying to get better with several different types of software. Even this blog and the personal blog I recently started are examples of things that have been rolling around in my mind for a while.

There are so many other things on my list—many of which you’ll hear about on this blog. But the thing I want to convey right now is that there is no time line in life. I spent quite a bit of time building my mental list of to-dos and now I’m finally starting to do them.

It’s not hard to come up with excuses to prevent yourself from doing the things you want. Maybe you’re too busy or you think you don’t have the resources to accomplish your goals. The truth is that if something is important to you, you will find a way to do it.

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There are also a few other things to remember. Maybe you’ll think I’m a pessimist for writing about these things during what’s meant to be an encouraging blog post, but I prefer to think of myself as realistic. And I think perhaps sometimes I'm pegged as pessimistic, when all I really try to do is keep a level head about things. I don’t think that most people who accomplish their goals find it to be an easy ride. People encounter all sorts of problems and set backs on their way to achieving things. In the interest of not painting unrealistic expectations:

• Most things take some amount of work, maybe a lot of work. You need to get off your butt and actually DO something. 
• You need to accept the fact that you may fail. Just because you want something and work for it doesn’t mean that you will be wildly successful at it. 
• It won’t happen overnight. Just don’t become impatient. It might take years for you to be able to say you finally did what you set out to do.

With all that being said, wouldn’t you rather try and know how things turn out rather than be afraid or put things off? In my opinion, it’s better to try and fail than spend every day wondering what your life could have been like if you only tried. And what better time than now?

Share your goals with us – we’d love to hear them and be able to offer our encouragement!