“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
—The Dalai Lama
One of the pages in the Best Life Navigator, under the Fundamentals Section, is “My Joy & Happiness List”. I put it in there when I created the system because I found that most people aren’t that clear on what makes them happy. Are you?
I’m guessing that you know some of the things that bring a smile to your face and create feelings of contentment and joy. But have you ever started to list all of the things that contribute to—or consistently generate—your happiness?
We all want to be happy. And there’s ample research that shows that the happier people are, the more happiness they seem to attract. So it makes sense to try and generate as much happiness as we can.
By building a list (and keeping it handy) of the events, experiences, activities and thinking that causes us to feel happy, we can proactively and more consistently create or recreate the experience of joy and happiness. We can focus our goals on things that reflect our values and the things that make us happy.
I have several dozen things on my Joy & Happiness List. I must admit that I’ve not updated it in a while, so I will. Only a handful of the items involve things. Almost all are activities that I can create rather easily. And very few require money.
Some might think having and building this kind of list is selfish, but I don’t think so. In fact, many of the activities on my list (and probably yours) involve doing things for others. Doing good things is a good thing.
I encourage you to give some thought, make some notes, and maybe do some journaling about what makes you happy. You deserve to be happy—everyone does. But I don’t think many people are strategic about creating their joy and happiness. And that leaves a lot up to chance.
Also, notice when you feel happy. Enjoy it and be grateful for it. And see if you can identify the circumstances so you can recreate them in the future.
Our best life requires some design and intention. Otherwise we live by default.
To your happiness . . .
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