hey this is Leo for actualised org and
we are going to talk about how to feel
happy alright there's going to be a
practical quick self-help segment where
I tell you in about eight or ten points
what you really need to know to get
sustainable happiness in your life and
here's the challenge is that most of us
do not really understand what it takes
to be happy not on a deep level most of
us are out there chasing the wrong
counterintuitive concept so let's get
into it I'm going to give you some key
points by doing a lot of research I've
discovered these points I think you're
going to really like them alright so
number one is gratitude studies have
actually been done on this and gratitude
is really great technique for creating
sustainable happiness and the most
practical way to practice gratitude is
to actually have a gratitude journal and
spend five minutes every morning doing
this consistently every morning just for
shutting down the five or ten things
that you are grateful for in your life
and this could be something that you're
grateful for that happened two years ago
like your parents or your college
education or something you are grateful
for just that happened to you today or
the other day small things so it can be
big things and small things because
here's the thing is that human beings
have this tendency called hedonic
adaptation which means that it's hard
for us to become happy because any
external change in our life like let's
say you find a thousand dollars tomorrow
in your car right just randomly showed
up a thousand dollars well you're going
to feel thrilled in the moment but then
after a while a week from from there a
month from there put in that point
you're not really going to feel that
happiness anymore because you've kind of
adapted to that difference human beings
are really good at adapting to either
positive changes in circumstances or
even negative ones so there's been many
studies out on this from water from with
lottery winners to paraplegics and
they've actually done studies and they
compared happiness levels between people
that have won millions of dollars for
free and people that have become
crippled and they've compared and what
they've discovered is that after about a
returns to about where it was so
gratitude is a great great way to turn
this tide it's thinking about the things
that you are really appreciative of
being more appreciative of all the good
things in your life and Happiness is
really kind of a mind game you want to
start shipping your focus from all the
negative things that you're thinking
about to all the positive things that
are in your life right are you grateful
how often do you think about that are
you grateful for the city that you're in
are you grateful for the family that you
were raised in are you grateful for the
friends you have are you grateful for
the fact that you can pay your bills are
you grateful for the fact that you have
food are you grateful for the fact that
you have your boyfriend or girlfriend
what are you grateful for take stock of
those things if you've never done this
exercise you'll discover some amazing
things we actually sit down and do it
and force your mind to go back and think
about this stuff consciously and
articulated so it's a really good
strategy okay the next one is optimism
be more optimistic and here this is not
an abstract concept there's actually a
practical way to be more optimistic by
optimism what I found one of the best
exercises to do is to do a little bit of
journaling again you can do a five and
exercise in the morning is sit down and
ask yourself what am i doing in the next
year that I can be excited about what am
i doing over the next week that I can
get excited about what am i doing over
the next five years that I can get
excited about so it can happen on the
micro scale from what are you doing
today it's what are you doing in a week
- the macro scale of what are you doing
in five years what are you doing in ten
expectation for your future when you
feel good about your future you're going
to get engaged you're going to feel
happy and you can do this in the morning
with your journal or you can do it when
you're in the shower or throughout your
day when you're sitting sitting in
traffic or standing in a line waiting
for your starbucks Frappuccino you know
just think about what are you excited
about and as you're doing that you're
actually going to be setting some goals
- because setting goals session a point
lower down a list I'm going to get to in
a second so building that level of
optimism is a great way to feel happier
the next point stop overthinking so many
always always always thinking some of us
but if you tend to be the kind of person
whose mind is always spinning always
running you got to really watch out for
that sometimes you're going to over
analyze situations way too much you can
get too much in your head and you're not
going to be connected with your body
you're not going to be in the present
moment you're going to be either
worrying about the past or you're going
to be worrying about the future and
happiness is all about being in the
present so you got to calm your mind
down you got to stop that because
chances are if you're thinking about
something and you're thinking a lot
you're not thinking about it in a
positive way chances are you're thinking
about in a negative way you're having
these automatic negative thoughts and
you're having just these storms of
negative thoughts and negative debates
and arguments in your mind and this that
does not make you fulfilled you've got
to cut that out and good ways to cut
that out is through various techniques
from journaling to visualizations to
doing therapy to doing meditation so
there's many different ways you can try
okay the next point is eliminate
addictions I find that addictions really
rob you of any chance of happiness in
life because what an addiction does and
I'll define addiction in a second
because it's a larger definition than
then you would initially think but
addictions are like band-aids over with
the unhappiness in life so it's like a
quick little patch that covers up the
unhappiness in your life with a little
hit of pleasure but it's not a
sustainable type of happiness and
ultimately it leaves you feeling very
so by addictions I mean things like
obvious forms of addiction like drugs
and alcohol and smoking but then other
more subtle forms of addictions
addictions like television compulsive
you've got sex you've got you've got
you've got addictions to negative
thinking you've got addictions to the
internet so these things these are like
compulsive behaviors that you're doing
they are destroying your life and if you
have an addiction then you know
that up-and-down like guilt cycle that
rollercoaster that you're on it's not
ultimately fulfilling it's not pleasant
at all even though that food for example
which I forgot to mention food is a huge
huge point of addiction and one that I
personally had to get over is when
you're addicted to food for example what
happens is that you've got a negative
day at work and then you come back home
from work and you just want to splurge
on some food because that food gives you
a head of pleasure to mask the crappy
day they had at work and so even though
it masks it it doesn't really give you
happiness so what you want to do is you
got to unhook yourself from these
addictions and to do that you need to do
some work first of all identify what
your addictions are be honest about them
and then start to wean yourself off of
them and the best way I found to get
yourself an addiction is first of all
create a very strong and reason for why
you're doing that and for me the reason
would be that I don't want to have any
monkeys on my back and I want to live a
really powerful type of life and I can't
do that when I have addictions but then
the other reason and health might be a
very important reason to a lot of these
addictions create bad health such as
smoking and food but the other the other
reason that you want to get rid of the
addiction is so that you've got this
happiness right this fulfillment that
comes when you're not addicted to
anything it's amazing and the other
point that I wanted to make about how to
wean yourself off addictions is create
something positive to replace the
addiction don't just stop overeating
don't just stop smoking replace that
with the positive habit so maybe now
sort of smoking you do a little bit of
maybe now instead of overeating you do a
little bit of writing replace it with
something positive all right the next
relationships because humans even the
most introverted of us are very social
creatures are a deep and fulfilling
source of happiness in fact in cultures
that are not very materially successful
but that have rich family connections
and rich social connections people are
very very happy so happiness levels in
certain countries that you would think
poverty-stricken are actually very high
because they have a more interconnected
society people are more plugged
in especially in the West in America we
tend to be disconnected we tend to have
relationships rather those more personal
face-to-face relationships so the key
here is not quantity but quality develop
a few maybe five at most really deep
focus on those invest time and energy to
we're just tend to make you overwhelmed
and distracted and don't really
contribute much in terms of happiness to
next is the point of savoring life's
joys so this is a really interesting one
it I found this one to be really
powerful for me is that I'm always so
rushed and all of us are so frantic and
we're living this 24 this twenty
four-hour-a-day life but we're living it
as though we are on a 27 hour cycle
right so we're always frantic and
frazzled and running around and doing
things like a chicken with its head cut
off and so in doing that we forget to
slow down and savor the good things that
are already part of our lives and these
are usually mundane things for me for
example is just enjoying a meal a lot of
times I'm so busy I'll just scoff down a
meal I won't enjoy it but when I'm
following this principle of savory
life's joys all remember and I'll say
you know what I'm just going to calm
down give myself five minutes to really
enjoy this nice nice meal I cooked for
myself and when I do that I feel good
it's happiness and then if I remember to
do that every day and I have two or
three meals a day that's two or three
moments in my life very consistently
that I'm feeling much much happier and
this goes apply you know this concept
applies not just to meals but it applies
to all the people in your life that you
love applies to your family to your
spouse boyfriend/girlfriend this applies
to nature appreciate nature a little bit
more when you're on your drive to work
in the morning appreciate the sunset
when you're on your drive from work back
home appreciate I mean the Sun Rise when
you're coming coming to work from from
home and then the sunset when you're
coming from from work to home so
appreciate that appreciate nature
appreciate all the little things
appreciate that all the marbles that we
have in our life and just like
labor that savor that enjoy it don't
next is meditation meditation is a
really effective technique if you
develop a habit of it every day I like
to meditate for at least 20 minutes
every morning if you develop that habit
then you're going to calm your mind
you're going to quiet those automatic
negative thoughts you're going to become
peaceful you can stop worrying about the
stop worrying about the future and
you're going to come pretty calm and
centered and grounded and that's going
to spill over beyond your those 20
minutes of meditation into your whole
day and will improve your whole life so
meditation is a very awesome habit to
develop it I have other videos about
exactly how to do that the next point is
flow flow is the state of being in the
moment in the zone being fully engaged
and fully focused so absorbed in an
activity that you're not thinking about
self-conscious anymore this type of
state is entered into usually when
you're doing something that is fairly
challenging but that also matches your
skill level so if your skill level is
high and the thing you're doing is
challenging then you're able to put your
creative energy into it and you're able
to reach a state of total absorption so
this might happen when you're playing a
musical instrument this might happen
when you're playing a sport or this
when you're really pushing yourself at
the gym it might happen when you're at
work when you're working on a project
that you're really passionate about
maybe it happens when you're writing
maybe it happens when you're out there
giving a speech or a presentation right
you're totally in the zone and you want
to create more of these flow state
experiences how do you do that two
points one is stop multitasking give
yourself time to focus eliminate
distractions give yourself at least one
or two hours chunks of time of one or
two hours where you can just totally be
absorbed in something because every time
you're interrupted you lose your state
of flow so you want to be able to focus
without interruptions and second is
develop proficiency and stuff they have
something in your life that you're
trying to master have a technical
expertise that you're developing because
as you develop technical expertise it
becomes easier to get into flow
if you try and you've never played the
guitar and you try to go play the guitar
right now you're not going to be in flow
because you don't know how to play it or
have enough expertise once you get
really good at playing the guitar in a
couple of years then you can really
enjoy you're going to enter a flow state
when you're playing even a complicated
song because you've got the skill level
to match so make sure there's something
that you're mastering in your life and
lastly the point is going to be goals
and life purpose have some goals in your
life set some big and ambitious goals
the human organism the human mind is a
goal seeking machine really we are
designed to seek goals whether it's at
work whether it's in a relationship
whether it's a big goal that's going to
only be accomplished a year down the
road or a little goal that's going to
accomplish tomorrow we are goal-oriented
creatures so have goals that you're
constantly setting and revising for
yourself and then even more importantly
have a life purpose have something that
your life is about that's outside
yourself that you're having some sort of
impact in this is probably gonna be
related to your career have a career
that you're really passionate about and
that you are doing something positive
with something that's really meaningful
to you ask yourself what is the most
meaningful thing in life and then make
sure that your career is aligned with
that when you have that in place you're
alright I'm gonna be signing off go
ahead leave me your comments I'd love to
hear from you guys and please like this
and share this and of course if you like
these ideas and you want more about how
to feel happy because I really just
glossed over all these points and
they're many more points to feeling
check out actualised org where I really
cover the topic of happiness and success
and human fulfillment and how to master
your emotions and the psychology of all
this stuff so you get this handled once
and for all in your life alright so
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