Six Keys to Happiness and 24 Hours of Happy

You have mostly certainly heard it and perhaps seen it.  The song from the movie Despicable Me 2 called Happy.

The song from Pharrell Williams became enormously popular.  The video went viral on the Internet and there is actually a 24 hour music video web site called 24hoursofhappy.com.  Go there and watch at any time of day or night.  The site automatically detects your local time and cues up and plays a video of someone dancing and lip syncing to the song.  Different person and different surroundings depending on the time of day.  It’s a neat little diversion.

When I ask people what they really want in life or in business, I hear a lot of the standard replies. “I’d like a better career”, “I’d like to make more money” (hear that one a lot), a better car, a better house, sometimes it’s even “if only I could find the person of my dreams”.

We have a tendency to assign our happiness out to other things and other people as if someone else or something else is responsible for our happiness.

Even when we know, or think we know, what we really need to be happy we let other things get in the way.  We live in a world of instant gratification and so we sometimes take what’s right in front of us instead of what we really want or need to find our happiness.

Zig Ziglar said it best,

We have to take responsibility for our happiness.  We need to take the necessary actions to achieve that happiness.

• Take Responsibility for Your Happiness – Don’t try to delegate your happiness out to someone or something else. You and you alone are the determinant for your happiness.
• Set the Right Priorities to Move Towards Happiness – We let things of the day interfere but when we understand what our priorities are, then that helps us make the decisions to stay on target and moving in the right direction.  It creates focus.
• Be Positive in Your Daily Outlook – Things happen every day that can be potentially negative.  The positive thinker tries to find the good or benefit in every situation.  It’s not sticking your head in the sand, it is simply refusing to anguish over what we don’t have and work with what we do have to create the best possible scenario.
• Make Gratitude a Daily Practice – There is both research and anecdotal data suggesting again and again that a regular dose of gratitude leads to a happier life.  In the face of all that, we often fail to show gratitude for what we have, instead focusing on what we don’t have.  Each day, for thirty days, write down at least one thing for which you are grateful.  It must be a different thing each day.  That will build the habit of gratitude thinking.
• Nurture Relationships – Happiness is built when we are in relationship with other people.  Not one of us on the earth is built to be a hermit!  We are made for relationships.  That does not necessarily mean romantic relationships, but valuable friendships and even acquaintances that build us up and care for us.
• Be in the Moment – Focus on the now.  When we look back at what was or spend too much time hoping tomorrow is better, we fail to appreciate or fully leverage the moment we have right now.  Wherever you are, be there with your heart, mind, and soul.