How to feel happier right now (well, in like 5 minutes)
I’ve been feeling pretty darn stable and sometimes outright joyful lately, and it made me wonder if you’d like to know how to feel happier, too!
Here’s what’s going on with me: I’m finally getting the hang of noticing the thoughts that drag me down and quickly changing them to happier/better ones.
You’ll hear this over and over in the world of self-help and personal growth, but here it is again: You must change your thoughts in order to change your reality. And also: your attitude is your life.
This was brought to my attention again recently when I was doing a simple re-framing exercise. The purpose of this exercise was to look at my current situation a different way and start to feel positive and uplifted about it.
Let me tell you: It worked!
I don’t know what bell this exercise rang, exactly, but something went off inside my head that shifted my perspective even more. You really can take just about any situation and turn it into a positive, or at least neutral one, if you’re truly dedicated to doing so.
How to Feel Happier
Let’s say you’ve had to go through a huge amount of your savings due to an unforeseen pipe explosion under your house. Or because your dog ate a bag of paperclips. You know, something you weren’t expecting.
You can handle this one of two ways.
The first is to be completely stressed out and pissed that you had to spend your last three thousand dollars on this plumbing problem/stomach pumping incident. You can grouse to your spouse (ha!) about how your savings has dwindled to almost nothing. You can complain to your parents, your coworkers. You can tell yourself that you’ll never get ahead, and things always stand in the way of you getting what you want.
How do you think that will make you feel?
Here’s the second way you can handle it. You can be grateful you had the money in savings. You can tell your family and friends how happy you are that you were able to pay for this disaster in cash. You can tell yourself, “If I was able to save up that much money before, I can certainly do it again!”
Doesn’t that feel so much better??? That just makes me happy typing it out.
I feel that I need to argue with the inner critics in my head at this point.
What if someone has died? What if you’ve lost your house? What if a hot air balloon crashed into your uninsured car and now you have no way to get to work?
I’m not going to say that life does not have its ups and downs and that you can be happy all the time. Because that’s a crock of the smelly stuff right there.
If someone has died, you have to mourn. You have to feel those feelings. You have to process them in the way that’s right for you and maybe go to a support group or counselor.
What you don’t have to do, though, is tell yourself that you’ll never feel better, that your life has no meaning, and that you can’t go on.And losing your house would freaking suck. There are no two ways about that.
Again, you have to process what happened and take the time to assess what got you there and what you can do differently next time. But don’t fall into a mental hole telling yourself you’re useless and worthless and smell worse than a hog farm on a hot summer’s day. Just don’t. Because then you’ll find ways to prove it to yourself.
If a hot air balloon runs into your car? I personally think you’ve got a funny story that you can take all the way to the bank. Act it out on YouTube. Write a blog post about it. DO something with it. But seriously, find a more positive thing to tell yourself.
Lemme break it down for you. Here’s EXACTLY how to feel happier right now:
1. Write down what’s bothering you.
Example: My life is going nowhere. I’m never going to meet someone I truly love and I’m going to end up alone.
Get our your notebook and write down things that are going well, either specific to the thing you’re upset about or just about your life in general.
Example: I do enjoy my job, and it’s going well. I’m also really good at flossing and sticking to a budget. I’ve dated people before that felt like the right match at least for a while, so I bet there are other people who would feel like a good fit.
Write down a list of other people who have what you want/are where you want to be, whether you know them in real life or not.
Example: I may not have met the person who is right for me yet, but my Uncle was 56 before he met his wife. Also, George Clooney said he’d never get married again, and went through women like other people go through tissues, and now he’s married and has twins!
4. Write down your new, positive story. Read it to yourself every day or whenever you’re getting caught up in the old story.
Example: I have good things going for me in my life. I enjoy my job and am on my way to having a good nest egg. My dental health is excellent, and I’m sure my future partner will appreciate that. I know other people haven’t met their right person until later in life, and if they can do it, I can surely do it, too. Things are going well for me.
5. Come up with at least one action you want to take as it relates to your new story.
Example: I know I have good things going for me, so I’m finally going to suck it up and create a dating profile.
Tada! You’ve gone from your soul crushing story to one that makes you feel full of hope and optimism, boom! You’re happier right now.
And then rinse and repeat. And know that this takes practice. I finally figured out I had control over my thoughts over a decade ago and feel like I’m just now getting the hang of it. Looking back, I think I was habituated to feeling sorry for myself, so that got in the way of my ability to keep looking for the good.
What are you still doing here? Go out there and reframe your thoughts! You can learn how to feel happier!
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