In general, most people have the ultimate goal of being happy and successful. Now, that goal of happiness and success comes in different forms for different people but at the end of the day, people just want to live a life of complete happiness that’s free from stress and worries. To live that life sounds wonderful, right? Of course it does! People would pay good money to live that life but unfortunately, it’s not humanly possible to live a life without fear, stress, and anxiety… it’s going to come about at some point in our lives. The key thing here is how we handle these life instances.
On a daily basis, we stress and get anxiety over things like relationships, health, finances, and careers. We spend more time focusing on the negative aspects happening in our lives more than the positives, and that’s where we go wrong. What does it take for us to stop wallowing in the negative and go out and embrace our positives despite our negatives? We’re going to look at some considerations to live your dream and find the keys that can unlock your true happiness.
Key 1: Being Grateful
Being grateful isn’t a “thing” you experience only around Thanksgiving time… it is a lifestyle and a choice that you have to make in your life, through the good times and the bad times. Gratefulness is a choice you make in all aspects of your life, whether it be with your family, being able to put food on the table, and in your career.
Being grateful and success are one and the same… you really can’t have one without the other in a sense. What do you think comes after happiness or success? Gratefulness! Take achieving success in a career as a medical student, for example. A medical student graduated from college and was having a hard time finding a job in internal medicine… well, it just so happened that a friend of his told him about a website that matches doctors to their practice. After visiting the website, the medical student found a job in his practice! imagine how grateful he was to his friend for that word of advice.
That was just an example but there are several things that we should be grateful for in life and instead of actually existing in a grateful state of mind, we tend to exist in the negative state of “lack” and “not having.” The sooner we can truly become grateful for the things we have and not focus on what we lack, the sooner we can achieve one of those keys to unlock our true happiness.
Key 2: Living in the Present
A big part of unlocking happiness is to live in the present. There’s a lot of people that can’t move forward in their lives because they’re still hanging on to things in their past… doing this can actually be very unhealthy if you let it consume you, and a lot of people do. You have to stop letting the past interfere with your present or else you will never be happy.
So how does living in the present bring about happiness? Well, living in the present actually has traits very similar to being grateful. Living in the present allows you to have an appreciation for everything you’re experiencing in any given present moment in your life. Now, that’s not saying that life is always “peachy” but at least in the moments when bad times come, living in the present allows you to see the problems for what they are in that moment and be able to acknowledge them. It also allows you to be grateful that those problems or a situation weren’t worse than what they were.
Key 3: A Focus on Your Overall Wellbeing, Physically and Mentally
Focusing on your overall wellbeing doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to hit the gym every day or go see a psychologist twice a month. If you do that, that’s perfectly fine but focusing on your overall wellbeing essentially means to be aware of it and take necessary steps to improve it.
Now, those steps to improve your overall health might include a gym membership or going to see a psychologist but the key here is even acknowledging it. A lot of people are in denial about their overall wellbeing. It doesn’t even have to be anything major either. It can be something as simple as a friend that unknowingly talks down to you but you won’t say anything about it.
In your mind you let it slide because either you don’t like confrontation or you chalk it up to that’s just how they are but when they’re like that towards you, it takes a huge toll on your health. It can actually turn into a bad habit if you let it. The European Journal of Social Psychology states that it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days for a habit to form with up to 66 days for it to actually become a habit.
When you know that someone or something is keeping you from happiness and is affecting your overall wellbeing, you have to address it if you want any chance at achieving happiness and success in life.