Is Your Lifestyle Supporting Your Happiness?

Happiness is a long game.  So many of us (yes, me included) focus outward or into the future when we look for happiness.  We believe that if we just _____, we will be happy.  But happiness isn’t meant to be a future-paced thing.  We are meant to enjoy the journey.  And so, today, I want to talk about living a happiness lifestyle, and how even small changes can have a big impact.

As with all things, life is a work in progress.  I was inspired to write this post because I have been struggling lately, feeling tired and stressed and overwhelmed, none of which makes me happy.  I want to assure you that it is a journey and every tough moment is also an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and come back stronger.  But I also want to encourage you to evaluate, to make changes where you see fit, and try things as we sort through what works for us and helps us live that best life that we love. 

The worst we can do is try, right…

Happiness is Both Physical and Mental

We often think of happiness as a state of mind, but it’s also a physical state.  When we are happy, our body works better, is stronger, we feel less pain, and tasks seem easier.  Many years ago now (we won’t say how many), I trained for and ran marathons.  If you’re a runner, you know that every run has its gosh-I-really-want-to-quit moment.  If you focus on the feeling of tiredness, soreness, running-is-terribleness, guess what, you body will grind to a halt and your legs will feel too tired to move.  But if you find and focus on a positive aspect, the whole experience becomes much easier.

Our mental affects our physical.  But it also works the opposite way.

Our physical state also affects our mental state.  We know this: when we get tired, we get cranky.  When we get hungry, we get cranky.  Actually, there’s a lot that can make us cranky…. I digress.

So many of us live tired, we live in stagnation sitting at desks all day, we eat too little or too much.  I’ve talked before about how I worry that the ‘hustle’ mentality is hurting us more in the long term than it is helping.  So, I ask, is our physical lifestyle supporting our happiness?

Happiness is really that Feeling of Having Enough and Enjoying what is There

The more I deep dive into trying to understand deep happiness, the more I recognize it as a feeling of contentment, of ease, of being enough.  It is not the flashes of joy and excitement we feel when we achieve a big goal or experience a life altering event.  And so, this is another point to the idea that happiness is found in the here and now, and not at some ambiguous future date or hinging on some future achievement.

A happiness lifestyle is not about trying to hit those emotional peaks on a more frequent basis, nor about trying to find ways to continually create or prolong the joy of achievement.  It is about taking pleasure, little pleasures, in all the small things around us.

This is the wheelhouse of Gratitude, often touted as one of the most powerful mindfulness tools in existence, and that’s because Gratitude is all about being aware of the good things around us and feeling grateful for their presence.  When we take time to look at all the little good things, our life feels much more full, we start to narrow in on that target feeling of Enough, of being satisfied, of being deeply happy.

Small Changes Can Have a Big Impact

Happiness isn’t about the big moments, it’s about the little moments and the everyday things.  It is a lifestyle.  And it is surprisingly easy to bring more happiness into our lives.

Brendon Burchard talks about how a little portable speaker changed his life because he was suddenly able to bring his workout music with him all over the house while he showered and made breakfast, etc.  It’s a simple thing, but it boosted his enjoyment of the little moments in his life.

Recently, I started setting aside half an hour a day to read a book I enjoy without any other strings attached.  At first, it seemed like a lot to give up half an hour of otherwise productive time in the middle of the day, but that little break makes the rest of my day seem so much more relaxed.  And you know what, I feel a lot happier, and I’ve been more productive than before, because I feel like I have time.  Go figure.

What Small Lifestyle Changes Can you Make Today, to Impact Your Happiness Today?

So let me flip this onto you now: Is your lifestyle supporting your happiness?  What small things can you do or change so that you are enjoying life a little more?  What physical things can you change to improve your mental life?

I’d love to hear from you to know what little lifestyle adjustments you made, and how you feel for making those changes.

2-3 Love, my friends!

Cover Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels