We’ve heard it hundreds of times. Money cannot buy happiness and social research itself has confirmed it. A year after their good fortune, the winners of the lottery are no happier than they used to be before their lucky break.
In other words, money makes little or no difference in the perception of happiness that people have. Neither does college degrees, marriage or a successful career seem to be any of the other variables that researchers have tried to relate to happiness.
Any of these factors can make people a little happier, but only temporarily. We have found that events such as receiving an excellent promotion at work or losing a relationship, invariably affect a person’s mood. But most of the effects they produce disappear in about three months, usually, after six or eight months there is no trace of the reaction provoked.
Sometimes after having taken place those events that improve or worsen our mood, the cranky are again and the cheerful is jovial as usual. And there is no doubt that there are people who are by nature acidic and others who seem to be congenitally happy, but why? What causes natural happiness or not that seems to distinguish each person?
Optimistic attitude.
There is definitely no one who can value better than yourself if you had a good year, a good day or a good time. The success or failure of your life is defined, only by your own judgments, they will be positive or negative depending in large part on whether you maintain an optimistic attitude that allows you to see and expect the best of each occasion, or a pessimistic attitude that leads you to the extreme contrary.
It is not what happens to each person that determines their happiness; it is the way in which each one reacts to that event. But being an optimist does not mean seeing gray what others see as black or considering half full a glass of water. To be optimistic is to see things from their most positive side and understand that the setbacks of life are only temporary and can be put aside with our own actions.
Trust yourself.
If you do not believe in yourself, you cannot function well, you cannot be happy in any way. The ability to do or feel anything must be accompanied by the belief that you can do it or feel that you are deserving of that satisfaction. Of course, true self-confidence is not something that emerges overnight; it is the result of a process of development that begins with the possibility of accepting yourself as you are.
Move towards the ability of self-value and with a sense of ability and security. No matter what we call self-esteem, dignity, acceptance or self-love, what we are describing here is the ability you must have to maintain positive feelings about yourself even in the most difficult times.
Realistic goals.
Happy people do not have everything they want, that is also a myth. But they do want most of the things they have and achieve. In other words, they direct the game in their favor by choosing the valuable things they want to have. Those who often say they are dissatisfied with life or unhappy have set unrealistic goals and objectives that inevitably lead to failure. They do not dream of advancing professional or improving their economic situation. They dream of achieving in a single jump to the presidency of the company or to be the richest person in the world. So make sure that the goals and goals that you draw are honest and realistic.
Flexibility and balance.
But even when they are honest and realistic, goals cannot always be achieved. There are some circumstances, accidents or events that can change our life from one day to the next, radically altering our plans. That’s why you need to be flexible and let your goals and objectives also evolve along with the circumstances of your life. If you want to be happy, update your goals every so often, depending on how your priorities and resources have changed.
Likewise, do not allow your entire world to revolve around a single goal or a single element. Your life has many facets and if you focus your attention on only one of them, you can only feel happy if you succeed in that task, overshadowing the enjoyment of anything else that you also can love.