How to be happier every day - connect with your happiness

Happiness is a very evasive thing! In order to find it, live it and define it, you should also join our various workshops to understand how you can walk through the journey of happiness. Our latest workshop (led by Susan Meymand) was about finding peace within ourselves and living it happily. However, WWC are not the only ones who try to crack and explore it. Everyone is talking about it and manifesting the same things about “what it means to be happy”.

All the fantastic slogans that I truly have embraced into my life and hang them on my fridge (and as reminders on my phone) are absolutely inspiring. I’m sure you have your own favourite slogans. You've read them and know how to recite them and already know how they end when you start reading or hearing them.

It is true that memorising empowering phrases is a great way to train our mind, so we can tell the right story that will make our lives better. Our mind is basically a magnificent machine that works on autopilot. We have been living long enough, hence our brain has a very complex wiring system and has learned to wire itself in certain systems of thoughts and beliefs. This system influences the way we think and behave. These links / wires can be very limiting, and can be challenging to change and break the connection to these beliefs. Yet, greasing this system with some new phrases that empower the brain and making it look and feel more glory is fantastic. It’s like taking yourself to the hairdresser to change your hair and do a different hairstyle? or a different colour? At first you feel different and it takes you awhile to look yourself in the mirror and recognise yourself. After a while though, you reconnect and then love it, hate it or change it, right?

Knowing happy phrases and memorising them is brilliant, however, I felt that I needed to know the HOW.

How do I start with making myself happier? Is it enough just to remember them? What do I need to do? How do I turn these empowering quotes into my reality? I really needed something new and a little more practical. To be honest, sometimes, all I want is for things to happen overnight and immediately, as in right now and at that exact.minute! and the worst is that I want a BIGGER impact. Most of the time, let’s face it; it doesn’t happen, and the disappointment and frustration actually result in me feeling more discouraged and unhappy.

So, it took me a few years to research and look for new leads. I read, listened, attended, tried, tasted methods, talked about it and eventually came up with a few basic ideas that have changed my life. I am not the creator of these concepts, but I took what worked for me and thought I’d share them with you. If they have changed my life, they can certainly change yours!

We all know that a change in our feelings and thoughts start with our habits. The more positive and beneficial our behaviour and habits, the more our life is better, happier, and fulfilled. I know that turning behaviour into habits requires practice and consistency – just like our physical body muscles. If you go to the gym, the mass muscle grows. It will take you a few weeks before you notice a difference and it will take you 13 sessions to start feeling that it is part of your life. So, the vital thing to remember before you read this guide is that it takes time. We are not our instagram account or Facebook or other social media accounts that we have; we can't change how we look or do things; in a click of a button and the help of a few filters...

How do I know? Not only because I’ve read about it, but because I started going to the gym myself a few years ago and started noticing the difference in my body after a couple of months. But wait! This is not an attempt to convince you to go to the gym (goodness gracious!). It is about improving your life and giving you some tips on how to become happier. Talking about the gym was just an illustration to show that if you want to be happier, you need to move your brain muscles and practice… practice what? Just a few elements – 5 of which I am sharing here with you…Ready?

The first element is quite simple!

(a) Wake up earlier than you usually do.

I know! I know! It is painful, but once you have created it as part of your routine, you will have a completely new perspective on how fluid the term ‘time’ is. Time is something that we never have enough of, we have too much of and we just don’t know how quick or slow it can go. Time is a matter of perception. I won’t quote Einstein who had a whole theory on time (but just generally say that it moves relatively according to your movement). Time as we perceive it, exists only in our mind. When you wake up earlier in the morning, you have more hours in your day and your mind is fresher after a good night's sleep. Think about it this way; what happens to you and your brain after 8 hours of work? Your energy was spreading and absorbing the movement and information around you and you returned home and you felt absolutely shattered, Right? Yet, when you wake up earlier, your mind is clear and fresh and it gives you the potential to think clearer, to get your head ready for the day, you are calmer and most importantly, well… you have more time to enjoy your morning coffee.

When I started to understand the benefit of waking up earlier, I started it slowly; Every day I set the alarm 15 minutes earlier than the day before. After x time of doing this, it worked! Today I wake up at 5:30 every day and not only that I am proud of myself for achieving it (I was really a teddy bear sleeper)! I am much more content now that I managed to achieve more things and at a better level. It is also giving me more patience and energy to wake up my children in the morning as I have had the time to sort out my head.

(b) Take the time

once you have managed to set your body and you wake up earlier, you have a gift - more time. What do you do with all that time? Well… you take your time!!! Early mornings are the time to take your time and be in the moment. Listen to the world around you and make sure your breathing is in line with the tranquillity and quiet around you. If you meditate, it would be a wonderful time to practice it and if that was one of your goals this year, it would be a great time to follow one of the meditation / Pilates / mindfulness apps (and there are plenty out there that would help you achieve that.) Some research has suggested that being mindful and practicing meditation also increases our immune system and that alone is worth starting considering it.

(c) Write your gratitude.

When you first wake up, take a notebook and start writing down all the things you are grateful for. It’s called writing your gratitude. I, and many others from the positive psychology field, also recommend doing it before you go to sleep as it raises your endorphins and eases your sleep. It is a well-known method in mindfulness. If you want to know more about it, follow us and join our writing session on how to improve your life by gratitude writing. In the session, we focus on “pleasure” activities and “must” activities that you should try. Returning to the endorphins, they ease your sleep and will do the same in the morning.. This is something that will allow you to start your day in a powerful way and usually makes everything around us much easier to deal with.

(d) Physical activity

is another thing you should aim to do when you wake up earlier in the morning. This is not about moving your bowels (even though spending enough time in the morning in the toilet and clearing your bowl is also something that is recommended doing by some experts; ex Giulia Enders), I mean a very light physical activity like stretching or even dancing. It is not a secret, and we all know that physical activity is healthy and beneficial; so try to incorporate it within your lifestyle and in the morning as well. Movement produces, and increases, the level of dopamine and endorphin which give our brain the dosage it needs to stay focused and be more active and help us be more productive and efficient. Personally, I prefer stretching and incorporating my breathing with it. It works like magic for me. It’s important to try various activities until you find one that works for you.

(e) Smile.

Yes. I did write ‘smile’ as a full sentence. It’s not a mistake. You probably think to yourself, “it’s too simple to be true”, right? My reply to you is that “it’s too simple, but it is absolutely true!” Besides, who said that it must be complicated?

Researchers have shown that once you smile, your brain releases dopamine and serotonin which are responsible for making us feel happier and less stressed. When you smile, even if it is a forced smile, it tricks your brain to release these natural brain drugs that boost your happiness level. Not only will make you feel happier, but it also boosts your immune system. It is well known that depression weakens your immune system. While happiness on the other hand, has been shown to boost our body’s resistance. And shall I tell you another thing? It makes other people feel better too when you smile at them. And when you make someone else feel better, you feel better yourself! Isn’t that incredible? I told you it was simple! We don’t always need to complicate things!

I realise that when you wake up at 5am, the only person you can smile at is your reflection in the mirror or your cat, but you should still do that and also, use your smile during the day. Smiling is something that we should use more often! You don’t believe me? then I ask you to smile. Yes, do it right now as you read! com'on, no one is watching... (and if the do, they would smile back...) I know you felt the difference...

I know you were expecting only 5 steps, but I really wanted to add another one. Consider this as a bonus element… This element is...

(F) A friend.

One of the top measure indexes of happiness is relationships. When you have at least one person in your life that you can relate to, or talk to, it immediately, and dramatically, increases your happiness level. According to the 2020 world happiness report* shows that close social, personal support and social trust plays a great role in our happiness. (just for the figures… The United Kingdom ranks 13 in the happiness scale (out of 153), the first top 3 are Finland, Denmark, and Switzerland.)

When you look at it this way, when you have a social blanket, when you know that you have someone to turn to and when you know that you are not alone, you feel much happier. Yet, especially in the latest Covid-19 time, and the reality that we live in, it is not always the case. It doesn’t always make it easy for us to create social interaction.

It's’ not always easy to create and maintain social connection, still, I would strongly argue that it is possible!

I have seen it happen and I know it can turn your life upside down.

The women who have connected through our club have found a mutual ground to connect with. They have found hope, similarity, and a safe place to call community. If you look around the workshops that we have created for you, you will realise that some resonate with you more than others. In these ones, I guarantee that you will find the space you need. Additionally, you should look around you and find what environment suits you the most. If you like to paint, go to art galleries and museum tours (virtually as well). If you like to cook, go for a cookery class and if you are not sure then find a social community. WWC will give you the basic and fundamental support that you need to find people with the same basic interests. This could lead to a great friendship. All you have to do is try something different.

It’s not about daring; it is about having friends and community you can feel secure and happier in. And isn’t this what it’s all about?

When you look at happiness inside these really tiny changes as waking up early, taking your time, doing some physical activity, writing your gratitude, smiling and having a conversation with a friend, you really have to admit that finding happiness is not that difficult or unachievable. Don’t forget that it may take time to see a full transformation, but it will come. All you have to do is to adopt at least a half of the 6 options that were given to you. If you would like to learn some additional elements, I invite you to join our workshops to discover more. There is one coming soon that you probably won’t want to miss. After all, it’s all about your happiness and it’s all about you!

LET’S TALK! Please let me know what you are doing differently and what of my happiness habits you will implement in your life.

@Keren Menashe

* https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/