“Success is to wake up each morning and consciously decide that today will be the best day of your life.”
Have you ever had one of those days where you get out of bed and something small happens that gets on your nerves? Sometimes what happens next is that you continue through your day and keep getting annoyed by more and more things until it feels like your day has been ruined. I think of that as a snowball effect where one small thing slowly gathers speed and picks up other small things until you’ve had a really crappy day. Sound familiar?
The flip side of the “bad day snowball effect” is that it can also work with good things, too. One small positive moment in your morning can have a massive impact. And the more intentional you are about noticing and appreciating the good things that happen, the more they will start jumping out to you. Pretty soon you can look back at your day and realize that it’s been full of one good thing after the next, which is a pretty amazing feeling. And then it gets even better because one good day can lead into a good week and then a good month and pretty soon you’ve had the best year of your life. This is exactly how people are able to live great lives that they love.
Want to know how to make that happen?
Good! Keep reading…
Look for the Good Stuff
Remember that scenario I just laid out for you of how a good day starts? Well, the key to making that happen is to actually notice the good things that are taking place around you. If you walk past a friendly stranger on the sidewalk and are looking at your phone, you might miss the nice smile they just gave you, which could have started your day on a great note.
In order to start that positive snowball effect going, you need to find something that will get you started. It doesn’t even have to be anything huge or life-changing. Like I said, something as simple as a friendly smile can be enough to set you on a path for an amazing day/week/life.
That may sound over-simplified or too good to be true, but the powerful effect of positive vibes is all about mindset and choosing to be happy. If you are determined to spend your day in misery, then chances are you will have bad things happen to you all day simply because you choose to look for them. And that’s not to say those bad things are your fault, but it is your choice on how you react to them. If you’d like to learn more, read my last blog post about how to Accept Your Problems, which can walk you through the letting go process.
If you are willing to try to shift your mindset towards the good things that are happening around you, there’s a good chance that you will keep finding more and more positive things to appreciate, which is guaranteed to help you feel happier.
Feel Grateful for Everything
Once you have found something good to focus your attention on, the next step is to spend time feeling grateful for it. Gratitude is probably one of the most powerful emotions that we can experience. It’s also easy to recognize and feels good, so we tend to keep turning back to it once we realize how good it makes us feel.
Feeling gratitude doesn’t have to take a lot of time or effort. It’s also not tricky or hard to figure out. In fact, it’s something that you can do in just a split second. And even though it’s simple to do and easy to figure out, it can have a massive impact on your mood and your overall outlook on life.
When we spend time feeling grateful, we are shifting our emotional energy to a more positive place. We feel lighter and happier almost instantly. It can even turn around a bad day or bring us out of a funk that we’re going through. It’s an incredible feeling and it’s something we should try to do more often.
And when I say, “feel grateful for everything”, I mean literally everything. When you practice gratitude, it’s important to focus on both the good stuff and the bad stuff. In fact, feeling grateful for the not-so-great things in your life is one of the best ways to turn things around and be happier. So the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, try to find a silver lining, such as being grateful you have a car in the first place or feeling gratitude that the person didn’t end up causing an accident.
Focus on the Positive Vibes
Now that we’ve found some good things to focus our attention on and we’ve taken the time to feel grateful for them, the next step is to focus on those positive vibes. There are a lot of ways you can do this, but one of the most powerful tools I’ve found so far is meditation.
Depending on your point of view, meditation might be something that you’ve been interested in but have never given it a shot. Or maybe it sounds to you like something only hippies do and there’s not a chance in hell you’ll ever get caught doing it. Whatever your viewpoint is, I’d encourage you to have an open mind and at least consider giving meditation a chance.
The best part about meditation is that it is super easy and doesn’t require anything other than just a few moments of your time. You don’t need a fancy cushion to sit on and you don’t need to light incense to make it work better.
All you need to do is sit in a quiet place, close your eyes, and focus on your breath. Thoughts will pop up and all you need to do is let them float away and return your focus to your breathing. That’s it! See? It doesn’t sound that hard, does it? If you’d like to learn more about meditation, check out a previous blog post I wrote about mindfulness and meditation.
Share the Love
The last thing on our list is to take the positive thoughts and feelings you’ve been cultivating and share them with the world. Chances are that if you have taken the steps I’ve outlined above then you are feeling a bit happier than before you started this work. If that’s the case, be sure to share that with the people around you!
The best thing about feeling happy is that we generally want to help others feel as good as we are feeling ourselves. That’s literally the whole reason for me writing this blog series! I have seen such massive changes in my own life that I knew I needed to share what I’ve learned to help as many people as possible feel as good as I do.
Sharing the positive vibes doesn’t have to take a lot of time and you don’t have to start talking to strangers on the street about how happy you are. All you need to do is share the love a little bit and your happiness will wear off on other people. So hold the door open for someone whose arms are full. Or share this blog with someone else who might benefit from some of these tips.
Now that you’re feeling happier, feel free to shout it from the rooftops and wear it around like a badge of honor. People love to see other people be happy and it can generally wear off on others just by being in proximity to them. So, go out into the world wearing a huge smile and see how many people you can get to smile back at you!
What’s Next?
The HAPPY Series is going full steam ahead and in two weeks I’ll be posting the next installment, which will be all about Praying for Support or having faith.
I truly hope you liked this blog post! If you did, please share it with someone else so they can start on their own journey towards being happier.
Also, if you’d like to learn more about meditation, go check out my Mindfulness 101 blog post that has a lot of great tips on how to get started. I highly recommend trying out a few guided meditations to see if they help you shift your mindset.
Click the link below to sign up for my mailing list, which will give you full access to my FREE Meditation Library.
Go check it out here:
And stay tuned for the next post in The HAPPY Series!
Until then, sending all the light & love your way,
Beth ♡
If you loved this blog and would like to read some more, check out these past blog posts:
