Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

Happiness & Health, the Ultimate Guide

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I’m quite sceptical of anything suggesting a route to happiness. I have often suggested techniques that might help, such as expressing gratitude on what is good in your life.

“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” J.S.Mill

happiness

And last week I discussed in Lets Celebrate that happiness can be a result of the  good experiences we accumulate. Celebrating being a great opportunity for a happy experience.

Ten Steps to Happiness

In my post How to Find Happiness I touched on the 10 things you can do that will make you happier. This list came from research within  a BBC show on happiness:-

Plant something and nurture it
Count your blessings – at least five – at the end of each day
Take time to talk – have an hour-long conversation with a loved one each week
Phone a friend whom you have not spoken to for a while and arrange to meet up
Give yourself a treat every day and take the time to really enjoy it
Have a good laugh at least once a day
Get physical – exercise for half an hour three times a week
Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once each day
Cut your TV viewing by half
Spread some kindness – do a good turn for someone every day

The Ultimate Guide to Health and Happiness

So  I believe there are things you can do to improve your likelihood of being happy.  [Read more…]

Who are you linked to?

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If I had to chose a secondary theme for this blog it would be happiness. One of my favorite posts is how to find happiness, which started as a response to someone else’s happiness project. In this I cite a project run by the BBC in 2005, Making Slough Happy, where they try to do just that – make the residents of a nondescript British town happy.

There is more information on that post and on the BBC page, but the conclusion they came to was there were ten steps to happiness:-

Plant something and nurture it
Count your blessings – at least five – at the end of each day
Take time to talk – have an hour-long conversation with a loved one each week
Phone a friend whom you have not spoken to for a while and arrange to meet up
Give yourself a treat every day and take the time to really enjoy it
Have a good laugh at least once a day
Get physical – exercise for half an hour three times a week
Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once each day
Cut your TV viewing by half
Spread some kindness – do a good turn for someone every day

One important factor seems to have been overlooked from this research. [Read more…]

How to find Happiness

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happinessI have read quite a few posts about happyness recently, as another blogger Alex Shalman has a Happiness project going on. Its taken me a while to answer his questions, which are at the end of this post.

I have read many times that if you’re aim and energies are directed to finding happiness itself, you will never find it. That to try and seek happiness directly is doomed to failure. I would very much subscribe to that view. But whilst recognizing that this is important, it doesn’t take away from the fact that as individuals and society we can do many things that will make us happier.

Some argue that Governments should do more, and focus less on economic growth and more on policies that will help the people they serve find happiness. Some Governments, such as Bhutan, have even started to do that! The fact remains that despite having greater wealth, better standards of living and possessions galore to improve our happiness, in most Western countries happiness levels have declined over the past 50 years. [Read more…]