Happiness Guide

The 9 Components of Happiness

What could be the secret components that make up happiness? In the last months, noticing and feeling severe unhappiness and being at a loss why, I set myself apart with the components of happiness and contentedness. What are the ingredients of happiness? I wondered what it needs in order to live a happier and more balanced life. Now, these are my personal components that make up my personal happiness, but maybe it inspired you to find yours. Happiness is of course above all a state of mind and relies mostly of our interpretation of events. But though it is a state you actively choose, it can be influenced by certain factors I will list below. So this is my recipe to happiness:

1) Acceptance of self

2) Stay with yourself

3) Pursue meaningful goals and do meaningful work

4) Make any sort of progress

5) Use your talents and keep a passion project

6) Build strong relationships

7) Being loved and give love

8) Help others

9) Be grateful

1) Stay with yourself

Imagine there is no social media. You get up in the morning and are confronted with your own life, your tasks for the day and your goals for the upcoming time. There is no checking facebook and feeling bad about yourself for all the things you are not doing, there is just you and your life alone. And isn’t it feeling great? You and your life are enough. Notice this feeling and remember it, even though Facebook and Instagram sneak into your daily life all the time. Social comparison motivates you to try new things and push a little further, but mostly be aware of its negative side effects. Stay with yourself, keep your eyes on your path and keep following your goals!

2) Acceptance of self

Self love is self acceptance. Having pointed out the difficulty of staying with yourself in the times of comparison fostering platforms such as facebook and instagram, the most important virtue to practice is to accept yourself with all your achievements and all your flaws.

One evening (at my worst) my boyfriend pointed out how I constantly talk negatively about all I am – how stupid, how unfit, how unsuccessful… (yeah, in comparison to Elon Musk, any VS-Angel and Beyoncé). Ever since I realized this unforgiving way I am with myself, I noticed that it would be impossible to be happier in the future, as long as I don’t love myself for me and appreciate all I am. Stop hating the body and mind you were born with, but turn it into the best and most powerful YOU!

3) Pursue meaningful goals and do meaningful work

In order to be happy we need a task in our life, that makes us happy. In order to find a balance and contentedness, you might notice that not every type of work, that will keep you occupied and pay the bills, will make you happy. You don’t have to want to be part of something bigger, or change the world but mostly we thrive off of doing work that has a positive impact in any way. So if you feel unhappy with your job, maybe it is because it’s lacking a more meaningful purpose?

4) Make any sort of progress

Let’s be honest: Feeling stuck makes us feel unaccomplished. It is a challenge, but to further evolve and flourish in life and to further shape and develop our interests, personality and career is part of what makes us happy and content. We love positive and beneficial change that helps us grow. May that be a new language that you want to learn, moving somewhere new, a new hobby to take up, ticking off some goals of yours, gathering work-experience or changing your job – growth makes us happy and keeps us curious.

5) Use your talents and keep a passion project

Do you have a talent? To put any of your talents in action will work wonders for your feelings of self worth and confidence. So if you know of something that you are doing great in, find a way to incorporate it in your weekly life. Repetition helps you internalizing your talent, making space for you to let go of self doubt and prove to yourself: this is what I can do and I am good at it. To see yourself succeeding in something you are good at, will give your self confidence an enormous boost!

6) Build strong relationships

What also contributes to feeling happy is feeling safe. That is why having a few strong relationships in your life to fall back on when you are feeling weak is an important part of your happiness. When I was younger I naively used to think of success and wealth, when I thought of me being happy, but it truly comes down to the bare essentials – the people you can rely on and feel save with.

7) Being loved and give love

When are loved, we feel accepted and valued. When we love, we are giving this gift to others, which makes us feel good and useful. It is not only part of our human needs to feel loved, but it’s also a power we have to make others happy by showing them our appreciation and thus create harmony. Giving and feeling love creates a deep happiness within, that nothing can compare too. It doesn’t matter if it is returned or not, it will all reflect back on your own inner peace, believe me.

8) Help others

This is a big factor many of us might not implement enough in our busy lives. Being so caught up in thinking about our mental and physical wellbeing, we lose sight of the fact that helping others and caring for others is a big part of what makes us human and at peace with ourselves. Shift the focus from you onto your friends, partner and family sometimes and ask yourself: What could make them happy? With what could I help them with? Helping others will also reflect back onto your own inner peace.

9) Be grateful

Now this is a big one. In a society of constant comparison and the pressure of self improvement, we forget to cherish what we already have. What living situation we are blessed with, having a home, food and a job. Having caring parents or friends, financial security and a dream that is achievable. A large part of the world has maybe one of all of these things, while I am sure you can add many many more to those I wrote down, if you think about it. Stop becoming and start being. Being happy with the person you already are and all you have. It will uncomplicate your life and bring a whole new untouchable layer of contentedness.

How this has helped me

So, whenever I feel unhappy or unbalanced, I check back on my little recipe of happiness and go through all of these points. Mostly, when I am having a bad day, I find one of the components lacking and to be the source of my unhappiness. And this is also how I know what to work on again. I deeply hope you can take away your own recipe of happiness from here. Kisses x

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Featured Post Happiness Guide Self Development Uncategorized

My 6 Keys to Being Content

Before I started this journey of finding back to happiness, anxieties and a bad mood would hit me every day right before I opened my eyes in the morning. I was almost dreading waking up before falling asleep, because I would feel so heavy and getting up was even harder. I felt dissatisfied with my life, with what I was doing and how I was living it. If you just endure this state of living, nothing will change. You will keep waking up and feeling like this, I promise. Noticing it is the first step, deciding against it the second. Acting on it, the most important! Here I listed what helped me the most changing my life around and starting to practice the art of being content.

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Find what it is in life that matters most to you and follow it

How well do you know yourself? Your current self. Do you know exactly, what’s important to you? What your values and aspirations are. If so, are you following them and are you working towards your goal? We evolve daily, influenced by the content we consume, the people we spend time with and the thoughts we create. Sometimes it is good to check back, if your goals and what makes you happy have changed, in order to change the course of your ship and align with your vision.

Stop comparing, stay with you

This is big. And I cannot repeat it enough. It is scientifically proven that we compare ourselves to the people around us to evaluate our abilities, happiness and success. This is how we shape the picture of ourself, by checking back with others, and this is why it is so damn hard to stop. But like any bad habit, it can be changed with a lot of self discipline. No matter what other people are doing or having in their lives comparison to you, your path is unique, your journey to this point of your life is unique and can never be compared. Stay with you, stay within your frame and stop the negative comparing. In some cases, making comparisons can motivate us to do better (it is called upward comparison) which is fantastic. But mostly, it affects us negatively. So practice staying with yourself and your life and all you have achieved for yourself.

Count your blessings

We are living in a social media moderated society of self-optimizers. We are taught not to be happy with what we have, but to want more. If you are only concentrating on what is missing in your life, how can you ever be happy or content? I am all for living the best version of your life, but meanwhile stay conscious of what you already have. Instead of checking what you are lacking, become aware what you are blessed with!! What are you grateful for in your life? What current situation, what people and achievements? Get back to *you*.

Nourish a heart project

I noticed that having a side-project, that has you working with your passions and talents, is extremely rewarding and helps fostering your self-confidence. Creating something ourselves – may it be a bookshelf, a painting or a business idea – to play with our potential and definition of self is also part of what makes us content. Getting in a state of “flow” by putting our talents to action and creating something to be proud of.

Only surround yourself with people that make you happy

This one is quite simple really. Have you ever met up with someone, that you don’t feel comfortable with. That might trigger negative feelings towards yourself and what you do? Sometimes I found myself trying again and again to get something positive out of these toxic relationships, when they’d just drain me. The first time I cut someone like that out of my life, I ended it like a relationship. Openly and honestly thanked her for the meaningful time we shared, but that we grew apart and that our relationship will find an end here. Guys, it was so relieving. You can choose the people you spend your precious time with, so choose wisely!

Actively work on your attitude

Now this might be the 6th post about building contentedness that you are reading this week, but you are still not feeling any better? It is because you truly need to manifest what you are reading. Scanning over it and hoping your life and attitude is going to change is not going to happen – trust me, I have been there. Take every advice and adjust it to you and your life. Let it become your daily mantra and actively work on changing your attitude, in order to get back to happy.

Guys, feeling content is power. Being content builds a strong base for anything you want to do. And I feel in our modern world, being content has become the truest life goal. If I die being truly content with my life, I have achieved all I can ask for. Remember that it is a process and requires some work of your own. So let’s practice our contentedness daily and work towards a happier mindset and lighter being.

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