How To Be Happy Yourself

Why Practice Happiness Habits?

The benefits may seem obvious; after all, feeling happy feels good! But the value of happiness habits goes even deeper. In Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson points out that negativity is hardwired into our brains. We are predisposed to pay more attention to bad things than good things. This negativity bias has helped us survive by making us aware of possible threats, problems, and stressors in our environment. However, if we are ruled only by our negativity, we miss opportunities for pleasure, joy, good relationships, and humor. Happiness activities help balance out the negativity bias so that we see and experience the positive aspects of life.

Experiencing and absorbing moments of happiness has long-term brain benefits. Happy experiences and thoughts can actually grow new neural circuits in your brain. These neural structures provide you with inner strengths such as resilience, gratitude, enthusiasm, and happiness. 

So try these small steps. You’ll find not only that your Happiness Quotient rises with every micro-moment of happiness, but also that making yourself happy becomes easier as you practice.

1. Commit to doing one nice thing for yourself every day.

Schwartz invites visitors to her site to sign a 31-day pledge to "do my best to do something loving for myself, however big or small." Whether you feel like signing or not, making the commitment means you'll remind yourself on a daily basis to treat yourself with loving kindness.

Keeping that commitment will bring real benefits, she says. "It motivates you to take better care of yourself, go after your dreams, and not let people treat you poorly."

2. Listen to yourself.

That is, listen to how you talk to yourself, and the internal tone of voice you use. (Mine tends to resemble my mother's in a lecturing mode.) "We often criticize ourselves in our own heads and that brings down our confidence," Schwartz says. "When you love yourself, you know you're good enough that you have to stop talking to yourself in negative terms."

3. Forgive yourself.

"Forgiveness is a big part of it," Schwartz says. "It's hard, because most of us have been getting angry at ourselves for all the things we do wrong all our lives. People get into trouble because they try so hard to be perfect and then they beat themselves up when they're not. Loving yourself means accepting that you're stuck inside your own imperfect skin."

Schwartz recommends this exercise to start forgiving yourself: "Look in the mirror and say, 'I love you and I forgive you.'"

4. Accept yourself as you are right now.

For starters, that means accepting the body that you have today. "Body image is a big stumbling block, and so is age," she says. "When you love yourself, you try to be the best person you can be in the body that you have, and that's as much as you can do."

Self-acceptance also means accepting your income and success level as they are, she says. "It's OK not to be making a certain amount by the time you get to a certain age," she says. "Entrepreneurs get a lot of criticism when people say, 'Why are you wasting your time doing that?' or 'You're not successful enough!'"

Instead, she recommends asking yourself a simple question: "Am I happy with what I'm doing?" She herself sold a successful summer recreation business when she found it was becoming too stressful. "I wound up with less income but I was happier."

5. Eliminate toxic people in your life and workplace.

This may be easier said than done, but avoid tying yourself to clients, business partners, investors, or employees who make you unhappy. It's obviously harder to take the same approach with family members, but Schwartz says there's no reason to put up with people saying or doing things that are unkind. "If people say mean things to me, I let them know if they talk to me like that I'm going to walk away or hang up the phone," she says.

6. Prioritize your health.

"I take supplements and vitamins, I exercise, and I recently cut out sugar for seven weeks as an act of self-love," Schwartz says. But be careful--don't let caring for your health turn into a reason to beat yourself up if you slip. "Yesterday, I had Twinkies," she says. "I've been wanting them ever since they temporarily stopped selling them. So I bought some and I ate them. I don't beat myself up when I have a treat."

7. Stop skipping meals.

"People say, 'I've been so busy I had no time to eat today,'" Schwartz says. "That's a very unloving thing to do. Grab something, even if it's just a salad."

Neuroscience tells us that letting your blood sugar sink sends stress signals to your brain. So if you truly can't stop and grab a meal, make sure you have healthy snacks at your desk.

8. Breathe!

Don't forget that when you're feeling stressed, overworked, or upset, simple breathing exercises can up your happiness quotient dramatically, Schwartz says. "If you do some deep breathing during the day, you can calm yourself down and not let stress get to you or make you sick."

9. Give yourself a welcoming space.

For years, Schwartz never made her bed, simply throwing the covers over it. Now she makes it every day for a simple reason: "Walking into my bedroom when my bed is made makes me smile."

Take the same approach with your workspace, she advises. Make it as orderly as you can. Neatening up your workspace and getting rid of stuff you don't need will make you feel calmer and more in control, she says. But don't limit yourself to just decluttering. "Make sure you have your environment and office space the way you like it and that it's a pleasant place for you to work," she says. "Have fresh flowers on your desk. Take it seriously."

10. Get some sunlight.

"A lot of people work in dark spaces. That's very unhealthy and unloving," Schwartz says. Try to work in a place where you have access to natural light, she advises. If that's not possible, invest in full-spectrum light bulbs. Either way, make sure to get outside for a walk as often as you can.

11. Buy premium products for yourself.

Does this sound like you? If you're bringing a bag of coffee to someone else, you pick out a luxury brand in a nice package, but if you're buying it for yourself, you pick the store brand or another inexpensive option. That's fine if you're one of these people to whom all coffees taste alike. But if you prefer the more expensive brand, you should go for it, Schwartz says.

"Very often we spend money on others but we're cheap with ourselves," she says. "The better brand is only a few dollars extra, and every time you use it you're reinforcing to yourself that you're worth more."

 Find something in your day that triggers a feeling of gratitude.

You had a good breakfast, you have a job, or you enjoyed reading the newspaper this morning. Absorb that feeling of gratitude for a few moments. Lingering on a positive experience helps embed it in your brain.

12.Working too much and in a job that you don’t love

As you might expect, it’s dangerous to work too much. In Japan, the overtime and workplace stress has become so bad that they actually have a label for the people who die because of it: karoshi, which literally means “death by overwork.”

Basically any way in which your job makes you feel stressed is bad for your health — unpredictable commutes, tension and disagreement with your boss or coworkers, feeling undervalued or unappreciated. Even working overtime increases the risk for coronary heart disease, independent of outside factors.