ARTICLE TAKEAWAYS
Happy people pay attention to the everyday experiences that give them pleasure and purpose, then organize their lives so that they are doing more of those things.
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DO A HAPPINESS AUDIT
- Take one day a week/a month and tune in to what you are doing, who you are doing it with and how it makes you feel
- Tune into how much worry, stress, anger, joy or contentment do you experience on a given day?
- Some changes are bigger in scale: scrutinize your relationship and realize that you are unhappy, it might seem overwhelming to think about leaving your partner.
- TIP: be gentle with yourself and not rush into major life changes.
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DESIGN YOUR LIFE FOR HAPPINESS
- Even when we know that certain activities make us happy, our ingrained habits sabotage our efforts to do them.
- We might realize that taking an afternoon walk lifts our mood, but because we’re so used to working at our desk all day, it takes effort to pull ourselves away.
- We need to deliberately make it very easy to do the things that make us happy because if it’s hard our brain will want to reject it.
- TIP: if you love spending time with a certain friend, you could set up a standing weekly or monthly date with that person, so it isn’t a hassle to keep scheduling time to meet.
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