10 Tips to Brighten Each Day
Just as we can choose to be positive or negative about life, work, and others, we can also choose to be happy or sad. Withminor tweaks to habits and routines, ten little reminders can make a wonderful difference in both our “real life” and chosen career.
While making others happy is a “tip of the cap” expression of success, it’s almost impossible to make others happy if we are not happy ourselves. Until we are in a good place—aligned between head and heart—it’s presumptive to think we can coach others on happiness too.
With that goal in mind—sustained personal happiness—here are ten small changes we can make right away that can have a positive impact:
1. Wake up expecting to find what you decide to look for.
Life usually lives up or down to expectations, so make your first thought a good one. If you expect something good to come from the day, guess what? Something good will happen. If you expect a Groundhog Day, a day of pointless drudgery, guess what? You’ll have a Groundhog Day.
Successes occur in varying degrees and that’s fine. Worry less about the size and more about cherishing the good that comes from each.
2. Plan and prioritize.
The world is full of busy people—thank you, digital technology—but short on efficient, productive ones. An increasingly common source of stress is the self-perception of too much: too much to do, too much still to do even after you doing it, and too much of a workload to accomplish in a diminishing amount of time.
Rather than fuss about too much, systematically address to completion the most important thing or things—that if done today—will move you closer to your highest business and/or personal goal.
Do those first. The rest can wait. By operating in prioritized sequence, rather than haphazardly multitasking, you’ll get more done and feel a steady injection of accomplishment—which helps keep you happy.
3. Give a non-material gift to everyone you meet.
These gifts are free. They can be a smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of polite respect, or even a friendly nod. People are starved for these. Wherever you go, be a merchant of good will. Make situational kindness a proud, relentless trademark of your personal brand.
4. Deflect partisan conversations.
People who funnel their political and religious views onto Facebook or into conversations are long on opinions but void of answers. So too are the insipid rabble-rousers of talking head television and radio, who are paid to draw crowds by rattling sables and blabbering noise intended to incite.
Don’t fall for it. Don’t watch that stuff on TV, don’t listen to it on the radio, and do not engage in digital or vocal debates. Remain on the high road, above the fray. Do not get lured into negative wastes of time for which there are no “correct” answers.
These interactions are swamps of negativity. Pity the fools who engage. Do not be one of them.
5. Assume people have good intentions, not hidden agendas.
If we look for the good in others, we see the good. If we look for the bad, we can justify and cling to—however thin it may be—some hypothetical thread of bad.
Remember this: People are inherently good!
When we assume evil motives drive others’ behavior, we add a layer of negativity that need not exist; and we shut the door to understanding why someone is the way he or she is, which is always sad.
We all know people who are experts at churning and burning personal associations, forever condemning others as a jerk, evil or worse. They permanently destroy connections, which is a terribly sour way to leave.
Instead of negative assumptions, cultivate a life approach that goes the other way: assume good ones. From that point of view when a disagreement arises, we are still in an emotional place that leaves open a possibility of shared ideas and reconciliation.
As life evolves we come to value the importance of building bridges rather than burning them.
6. Eat better food slowly.
Fuel matters. If money is tight, eat less of better things, chew it longer, and savor what you’re having—rather than bulldozing more of whatever’s close, cheap, and fast. You will be shocked at the difference food quality and attentive dining makes in how you feel, both physically and emotionally.
Skeptical? Do it for one week and decide for yourself. You will never revert.
7. Avoid the hypotheticals.
A big enemy of happiness is worry, which maximizes its negativity from dwelling on things that are outside your immediate control. Do not live in a hypothetical world. Focus on what’s in front of you that you can control. Block out thoughts of what might happen.
If you or someone you care about worries too much, get your local library to buy a copy of my book “Managing the Worry Circle” (How to Improve Your Life by Worrying Less). The book explains how your mind operates and teaches easy techniques to escape an unbalanced, cluttered, stress-filled mind in favor of a comfortable, balanced, and contented place—and also provides tips on how to stay there.
The book is a great teaching and resource guide that has helped chronic worriers all around the world learn to worry less about the wrong things and manage their personal air space more happily and effectively.
8. Minimize “background” TV (especially commercial programming), commercial radio, and surfing the Internet.
Too many homes leave their TVs on as “background noise,” even if doing other things. The primary point of broadcast radio and TV is to transmit advertisements, which are scripted and shot to make you dissatisfied with your life so that buy more stuff.
Which begs the question, “Why willingly absorb targeted negativity?”
The Internet is getting far worse quickly. Where TV will throw 13 commercials at you in a half-hour network sitcom, the Internet is unregulated against advertising saturation and will bomb you with an ad every single time you try to jump to a story link. Then they will track you, displaying relentless sidebar ads for things you’ve looked at in the past. You are surrounded.
Because of its lack of regulation, skimming the Internet now is like being pestered by street vendors in a foreign land, hawking unwanted products shoved in our faces everywhere we go. We have no recourse, aside from turning the things off.
These forced ads are annoying at best, and very unhealthy for those with stressed, cluttered, and overloaded minds. The reason why is the sheer volume of cerebral intrusions we are forced to weather: over one million ads per year!
Do yourself a favor: turn stuff off. Block the garbage and protect your head.
9. Do not duck inevitable confrontations. But whenever possible, minimize or avoid things that make you sad or create negative emotional energy.
People, places, or things can trigger interactions that impact us negatively. From a happiness perspective, we are much better off dealing with confrontation than we are ducking it ad infinitum.
Manage negative influences out of your life. If you can’t manage them out, minimize access.
As the custodian of your mind, negative thoughts must be directed to Visitor Parking, not the long-term lot. They require an escort and have limited access. When their necessary interaction is complete, these negative thoughts are escorted out of the building and off the premises.
Be disciplined about this. It’s fun and satisfying to feel this policing in action.
10. Be grateful.
As you ready for bed, play the “high/low” game. Think back on the day’s highlight and be grateful for it. Then think about, but don’t dwell on, the lowlight. It is over and gone. If the lowlight is something we can learn from, we’re grateful for that. If not, we’re grateful it’s ancient history.
In summary
I hope one, two, or some combination of these tips will help you maintain a steady home of positive, grateful happiness.If so, the next time someone asks how you’re doing, beam like a lighthouse beacon and tell him or her the truth: “I’m doing great! How about you?”