How do you become happy? Happiness is one of the most important goals in everyone's life, yet we find it surprisingly difficult to find our personal happiness. To be happy, it helps to know what you need to be happy, what happiness actually is and how each person can find it for themselves.

What is happiness?

Happiness is a fleeting state. For decades, philosophers, theologians and psychologists have been trying to define the state of happiness. In the 1990s, a whole new branch of psychology was developed for this purpose: positive psychology.

Happiness is more than just a good mood, happiness is a state of well-being that encompasses a good life, a life with meaning and deep satisfaction.

When a person is truly happy, it has a positive effect on their health. Feelings of well-being and contentment influence cardiovascular health, reduce inflammation and balance blood pressure.

Finding happiness is a worldwide pursuit. People from all over the world consider contentment more important than other desirable personal outcomes, such as getting rich and going to heaven. So, how does one become happy?

How does one become happy?

Happiness does not mean dancing from one joy to the next. In fact, the path to complete contentment includes hard times. Man by nature takes everything positive for granted, only when the positive is taken away from him does he learn to appreciate it.

Money is not directly responsible for happiness, but it does free us from the worries about the basics of life, such as food and clothing.
In addition to providing for our basic needs, heredity, life circumstances and social life are responsible for the feeling of happiness. At least they can be, because the most important thing is the inner attitude towards these very circumstances and the expression of our feelings.

Research shows that a large part of satisfaction is within each person's own control. Regularly indulging in small pleasures, engaging in challenging activities, setting and achieving goals, maintaining close social ties and finding meaning beyond oneself all increase life satisfaction.

What is Positive Psychology?

Positive psychology examines what gives meaning and purpose to human life; how human beings can flourish beyond the survival instinct.

Traditionally, psychology has focused on dysfunction (people with mental illness or other problems) and its treatment. In contrast, positive psychology is a field that studies how normal people can become happier and more fulfilled.

However, positive psychology works hand in hand with abnormal psychology. Positive psychology is based on three maxims:

The good in life is as real as the bad
The good in life is more than the absence of problems
A good life requires its own explanation and is more than a theory of disorder

In positive psychology, the focus is on deeper meaning, not just fleeting satisfaction and warm feelings. Martin Seligman, often considered the godfather of positive psychology, has described three paths to happiness: the Pleasant Life (Hollywood's view of happiness), the Good Life (focusing on personal strengths) and the Meaningful Life (focused on a higher purpose).

Being a happy person is largely a matter of genetics, Seligman explains. What we should strive for is flourishing, not mere pleasure. Studies suggest that pursuing a good and meaningful life predicts higher life satisfaction overall.

Relationships with other people

Love and friendship are deep emotions, and they are part of finding personal happiness. There are many types of love, but most people seek expression in a romantic relationship with a compatible partner. For many, romantic relationships are the most meaningful aspect of life, promising deep fulfilment. The need for human connection seems innate, but the ability to form healthy, loving relationships must be learned.

There is much evidence to suggest that the ability to develop a stable relationship begins in infancy, in a child's earliest experiences with an attachment figure. Such relationships are not fated, but they do seem to establish deeply rooted patterns of relating to others. Failed relationships occur for many reasons, and the failure of a relationship is often a source of psychological anguish. Most people have to work consciously to learn the skills needed to keep relationships going and flourishing.

The formula for happiness

The key to a happy life

Overcome yourself, overcome your "inner pig dog". We all know the feeling of having to do things that are unpleasant but that we really shouldn't put off. It's so much easier to put off unloved tasks until later, but in many cases it's precisely the putting off that costs time and effort in the long run. Read on to find out how you can trick yourself into doing a chore.

Imagine coming home after a long day at work, eating dinner and then wanting nothing more than to plop down on the couch and relax. Let the mess in the kitchen wait until tomorrow! But wait: here's how you can change your attitude.

If you are tempted to give in to your inner bastard, put yourself in your tomorrow self. Imagine waking up in the morning and coming into the untidy kitchen with last night's dishes. How much more satisfied will you be in the morning when everything is done? Then you will be so proud of yourself that you have managed to tidy up despite your tiredness.

The trick to an unpleasant duty is to always do something good for your future self. The future self is something that should be very close to your heart and you should not saddle it with more work and frustration. Take every opportunity to please your future self!

Even if you don't feel like it at the moment, lean into the you of tomorrow to act more responsibly today.

So the next time you're deciding whether to go for a run or watch a movie, think about your future self and how good you always feel after a run.
And if you put off a time-consuming project until tomorrow, think about how much more stressful it will be tomorrow when you have all the more to do.

This little trick can really help you to look further ahead and ensure your success and wellbeing for tomorrow. So what can you do right now that will benefit you considerably tomorrow? Your future self will thank you.

Overcome yourself, here is your way to success

1. admit to yourself that you are not motivated. Maybe write down how you feel and what you think when you can't bring yourself to do a job.

2. don't run away from it. It is more emotionally exhausting to feel discouraged after undone work than to deal with the momentary frustration of the task.

Don't blame yourself if you put things off from time to time. Instead, become aware of your habits and gently persuade yourself to do a task sooner rather than later.

4. try to understand your learning or working style better. What makes your work easier? We all tend to have pleasant experiences and it is natural that we tend to avoid uncomfortable, boring tasks and duties. So try to make your experience as interesting as possible.

Don't question your abilities. Don't compare yourself to others and don't hide your light under a bushel.

Imagine how you start. Start working, even if it's only 20 minutes. Don't be afraid of moving slowly, just beware of standing still!

Focus on the task at hand. Prioritise the most important tasks and avoid multi-tasking.

Share any difficulties and/or intentions with others. This can help you to engage with the process and identify the important tasks. Communication / externalisation can help you to commit to immediate goals, and you can also learn other points of view and tips.

Take a time-bound approach to planning your tasks. Ask yourself: "How much can I achieve in the next 2 hours?" instead of 'Can I do all the tasks? This way you will not be easily overwhelmed by the size of the task.

Remember that every task can be a challenge. It is not easy and can even be unpleasant, but the sense of achievement comes when you reach the goal. This is a feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction. Focus on the result and not on the struggle!

How to overcome laziness?

Do you have a mental low? Everyone knows emotional swings of the mind. When energy and self-confidence hit rock bottom, it's often hard to pull yourself back up. Here are a few practical suggestions to quickly improve your mood when you are in a mental hole.

Mental low? This is how you get out of it

Do something good for yourself and pamper yourself

Often, you put the needs of your fellow human beings and your household and work tasks first and forget yourself in the process. Surely there are a number of things in the back of your mind that you have been planning to do for a long time, but which have always been put on the back burner by other tasks.
Get a positive mood boost and prioritise a long-held desire for once. Maybe it's just a pair of new shoes you've been wanting to treat yourself to or a visit to the hairdresser. Sometimes it helps to sit down with a cup of coffee and a book for half an hour or to relax in a full bath.
Find out what lifts your spirits and just indulge yourself.

Get in touch with a friend or acquaintance you haven't spoken to for a long time.

Especially when it comes to responding to personal emails or text messages, weeks can often go by without you "getting around to it". Just sit down at your computer or pick up your mobile phone and check in with the people you care about. A friend will appreciate the effort to hear from you and understand that you are busy.
Don't feel guilty about not getting in touch for a long time, just get in touch now. It feels really good to get a message from friends.

Fix something in the household that has been broken for a long time

The flat quickly fills up with things that are damaged or simply need a bit of care, but that you never have time for. It can be as simple as a light bulb that you haven't replaced in weeks. By dealing with a problem, even a small one, you suddenly feel in control of things again and your mood will lift and your emotional low will improve. By repairing a physical item you are helping to improve your feelings.

Finish a project you have started

If you start something and never finish it, your efforts are largely wasted. If you have many unfinished projects, they can demoralise you. Conversely, you feel all the prouder when you finally finish a long-lost project. So find one, preferably one that takes no more than half an hour to complete, because losing motivation in between will make your mood worse.

Take care of a task that gets worse if you ignore it

If you are busy, you probably have tasks that, if ignored, will cause stress in the near future. For example, when did you last check the water or oil in your car? Or you put off answering an important but unpleasant letter? Pick a few of these tasks and make sure they get done. Afterwards you will immediately feel better. The best way to combat a mental low is to keep busy. You just have to manage to motivate yourself.

More ways to combat a mental low

Take a step back and reflect on yourself. Whenever you feel depressed, try to stop, reflect and get to the bottom of my feelings.

2. turn to someone. You don't have to suppress your feelings for fear of being judged if you talk about them. But reaching out to a loving, understanding person is one of the best things you can do.

Listen to music. Music can heal, put you in a better mood, make you feel less alone or take you on a mental journey.

Cuddle or play with pets. Spending time with a loving pet can instantly make your heart and soul feel better. Animals sense your emotional low and are there for you.

5. go for a walk. Walking always helps to clear the mind and get rid of negative energy. It is especially therapeutic to go for a walk in a picturesque place to fight your mental depression.

Drink something healthy and invigorating. Orange juice often helps to put you in a better mood and makes you feel revitalised and calm. Orange juice and other fruit juices have many health and mood-enhancing effects.

Write about how you feel and what you think when you are down. It always helps to express thoughts and feelings.

Take a day's mental holiday. Let your mind wander for a while.

9. let in some natural sunlight. Open all the blinds and curtains and let the natural sunlight flood your home, this can lift your mood.

10. Make a mental health day. Sometimes we just need a day to clear our heads and nourish our souls. Mental health can be unpredictable, so nurturing it should be a priority in your life.

What helps against depression

Overcome emotional low and feel better immediately

Everyone experiences disappointments in life, they are unfortunately just part of it. Maybe you put too much hope in a project that seemed so promising, and in the end it just didn't work out as expected - and you feel disappointed. But it is important to learn how to deal with disappointment, otherwise you will become unhappy.

What is a disappointment

Emotionally, disappointment is a form of sadness, a sense of loss, a painful gap between expectations and reality.
If you think you need something specific to experience fulfilment and satisfaction, you are paving the way for disappointment. Although disappointment is never pleasant, it gives you valuable information about your opinion of yourself, of other people and of what can make you truly happy.

If you are suffering from a disappointment, you should analyse what has led you to it. To get in-depth information, examine which of the following aspects apply to you right now.

You believe that only one particular thing can make you happy

Through the media, we are constantly exposed to certain messages. These cause us to associate happiness and contentment with, for example, a special object, appearance or a journey.

So ideas get stuck in our heads about what we need to be happy. Eventually, we convince ourselves that these are the things we desperately need. It aggravates the urge even more to see friends and acquaintances with these desired objects, thereby developing envy and an even greater urge to be on a par with them. If we do not get this object, we are inevitably disappointed.

In fact, however, satisfaction due to such objects has been shown to be very short-lived. Experiences in life where we simply enjoy the moment of life have a much more lasting effect on our overall happiness. And the great advantage is that you can enjoy the moment at any time, because it costs nothing! Focus on how you want to feel in the moment rather than pining for an item that will end up in the drawer a short time later.

You think your happiness depends on a certain person

Many people believe that only the "right" partner can make them happy. It often happens that someone meets a partner and associates all the positive attributes they want in life with this partner. This is the so-called halo effect. If it then turns out that this person is not as infallible as one expected, disappointment follows.
It is important to know for yourself how you feel in a relationship.

Focus on your actual feelings and don't project expectations onto your partner. Don't expect your partner to give you the exact emotions you have set as your goal, make sure you feel them yourself. So if you expect humour and commitment from your partner, show yourself humorous and committed. Take the opportunity to be clear about what you are looking for in a relationship, not what you expect from a partner.

You set yourself a time frame to achieve what you want to have.

Your expectations are influenced by social norms. There are unspoken rules about how long it should take to reach a certain career goal or relationship status. So you give your goals a time limit. Many people compare their personal success with that of their peers. Social media adds to this pressure. However, everyone's circumstances and background are different, so actual success cannot be generalised.

Your friend may reach a certain goal faster than you because he comes from a wealthy family or may have been more fortunate. If you put yourself under time pressure and then can't meet that deadline, you will be disappointed. Life can only be planned in advance to a limited extent. There are always unforeseen circumstances that can upset your schedule. Remember that self-imposed time limits are often arbitrary and unrealistic.

You have fixed ideas and expect exact reproduction

This expectation is often the most difficult to give up. As soon as you have a wish, possibilities form in your mind that are difficult to control. If things don't go according to plan, which is usually the case, you naturally feel disappointed. It is important to keep the possibilities open in your mind and not to commit to an expectation.
Identify the means to an end and the desired end result. Often the means to an end are different from the outcome you hope for. Be open and tolerant of unknown possibilities.

Being open to new possibilities takes practice. Sit down for a few minutes with the intention of analysing and controlling your expectations. Observe how your mind searches for reasons, plans and courses of action. Learn to recognise the expectations and then let them go.

How to cope better with disappointment

How you can deal with disappointments and grow from them

Are well-being, well-being and well-being subjective, or is it possible to measure whether someone really feels well? Society, our perception of other people in society and individual life circumstances mean that some people are not sure whether they are actually satisfied with their lives. They can't tell if they are longing for something different because other people have it and they don't, or if they actually need to change their lives to be happy. So how can you find out for yourself if you really feel good?

The four questions of well-being

Are you balanced? Balance is characterised by whether you blow up easily over small things or go about your day in a more relaxed manner. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your character; everyone is balanced when they are feeling well.

Are you active? Do you wake up in the morning with fresh energy or do you struggle through the day? A person who is active and full of energy is always looking for new and interesting projects. If you lack healthy energy and have no drive, something is wrong and you should look for the cause. 

Are you satisfied? Everyone longs for things they don't have; this is part of human nature and has nothing to do with general life satisfaction. The longing and striving for something we don't have often even gives us new vigour. Satisfaction is more about whether you like yourself the way you are or whether you urgently want to change something about yourself or your lifestyle.

Do you feel connected to other people? If you're more of a loner, that doesn't mean you don't feel comfortable. However, everyone needs other people who are close to them and to whom they feel a sense of belonging. Humans are pack animals and need social interaction in order to be happy.

The perspective on life and the perception of one's own environment

Well-being begins with your own perception of your character, your body and your environment. Well-being is the state of harmony between body, mind and mood. Although you do not always have control over your general state of health, you can contribute a lot to your health through a healthy diet and lifestyle. As far as the state of the mind is concerned, it is mostly a question of perspective. Everyone can perceive any situation in life as particularly bad or particularly good, depending on what they observe in their fellow human beings. If you are able to perceive the positive aspects of your life and do not strive for someone else's life, you can achieve inner well-being. 

In our hectic society, there are many people who cannot be content. Our lifestyle causes stress, fatigue, health problems and even physical pain. We often feel disconnected from other people or find ourselves in a meaningless routine. Worry and monotony make our lives difficult and prevent us from feeling good.

How to achieve well-being

Well-being comes from within. Everyone has their own individual way of achieving well-being. Wellbeing comes from your perception and awareness of your character. To find out what brings you well-being, listen to your inner voice that tells you what you need to be happy. 

Listen to your body and your mind and take small steps forward. Create a positive environment for yourself wherever you can achieve small successes. You can also accept support from friends.

You are often your own harshest critic, so have understanding and compassion for yourself as you do for others and enjoy your successes.

Wellbeing and feeling good are completely natural tendencies, so organise your life so that you can feel good and be happy with yourself. 

It is quite normal to take other people as a role model and to wish to have the same successes as them. But you should never long to be someone else. Be proud of who you are and what you are, the real you. If you try to be someone else, you can only become dissatisfied and you damage your self-confidence.

Accept yourself as you are and learn to like yourself. Try to be the best version of your authentic self, because you are unique and only you have this combination of feelings, preferences and talents.

Your life would be much better if you focused less on your weaknesses and flaws, or on what you don't have. Instead, find your strengths and enjoy what you have. Don't allow negative experiences to influence your future in a bad way. 

Never forget that every human being, including your role models, has weaknesses and makes mistakes. This is part of life and they should only serve to learn from them.

Discover who you really are

If you always focus on your weaknesses, you limit your possibilities. Stop putting yourself down and discover the real you. When you allow yourself to be yourself, you can release your full potential and become the person you really are and want to be. 

Don't let your fear control your life

Unfortunately, many people develop fears, self-doubt and negative opinions of themselves. Before they start something, they already see a negative outcome in their inner eye. But actually it is just as easy to imagine a success and start with a positive feeling.

Someone who always imagines the worst possible outcome assumes their own failure and will then fail. Someone who starts with an optimistic attitude is more confident and therefore more successful.

Do not be discouraged

The belief instilled by society that they are not smart enough or do not have the right attitude prevents many people from learning and inhibits their capacity to reach their true potential. 

Under life is a learning process

Babies are born with the ability to learn. Childhood is a never-ending process of learning through conscientiousness and making mistakes. When a child learns to ride a bicycle, he or she will fall down several times at first, because he or she is not born with the ability to operate a bicycle. However, falling down and making mistakes is precisely what helps the child to improve. You can't take away a child's enthusiasm by not being able to do it, because they haven't yet learned to see this as failure. They try again and again until they finally succeed.

As adults, we must try to find our way back to this childlike enthusiasm. We must not be discouraged by other people's opinions. 

Never give up

Don't give up when someone tells you you're not good enough. Learn through bad experience instead of letting it block you. If you let your mistakes stop you from trying, you create a belief in yourself that you are not good enough and should try something else. In doing so, you stunt your inner growth and can't actually get better.

Imagine how little we would learn if we gave up after the first failed attempt as a child!

Don't get discouraged: Overcome your insecurity

Just do it - don't get discouraged!

Life is not always easy. Everyone has negative experiences and has to overcome problems and disappointments that are simply part of life. However, it is not necessarily the bad situations that reduce our quality of life, it is rather our thoughts and our inner attitude towards these situations that increase dissatisfaction and emotional pain.

It does you no good to hold on to negative thoughts. What has happened has happened, and if it causes you emotional stress and dissatisfaction, you should learn to let go inside. 

Learn to say goodbye to problems

In our society it has become commonplace to wallow in negative thoughts and feelings. In many cases, however, accepting your problems and letting them go will only help you to move forward.

Unfortunately, you tend to focus only on what you don't like or what you want to undo, instead of looking at what you like and what you could achieve in the future. Constant negativity becomes the norm and thus part of your personality, so it becomes harder and harder to break away from it, even if it makes you depressed.

The formula for a contented life

Stop trying to control everything. There are things that are beyond your control. If you still try to get control over a situation, you will become dissatisfied if the result is not what you want.

Enjoy what you do and stop being so dogged.

Stop resisting things you don't like and accept them instead.

Don't fight against what you don't like, but enjoy what you do enjoy.

Learn to let go inside.

Trust that everything will get better in the end.

Don't get bogged down in bad experiences, but learn from them and create new and positive experiences from them.

Let everything that makes you unhappy and doesn't help you disappear from your life and create a new and positive self-image. 

Sometimes one stands in one's own way the most in order to achieve the goal one has set for oneself. You have desires and want to achieve good results, but too often the desire to achieve a certain goal becomes an obsession; then you lose the fun of it and develop a negative attitude.

Do not put yourself under pressure

You should continue to strive for achievement and work towards personal excellence, but only as long as it is fun to get there. If you put too much pressure on yourself to perform and have too high expectations of yourself, you will only create stress, tension and frustration. Any form of negative influence will have the opposite effect and performance will drop. 

If you try too hard to achieve something, you become desperate and dogged. Doggedness prevents you from achieving your desired success and makes you even more frustrated when you don't achieve what you wanted to achieve.

Better chance of success

You can greatly improve your chances of achieving the success you seek by doing your absolute best, but taking away the importance and significance of the outcome. Do not make your life and satisfaction dependent on achieving a perfect result. Look for a balanced inner attitude where you wish to excel yourself but still enjoy what you are doing. 

Do your best, but also allow yourself the possibility of occasionally not succeeding. See failure as an opportunity to improve in the future.

Positive attitude of expectation

Much of life depends solely on your expectations, both positive and negative. If you stake all your happiness on success in a certain situation, you will crumble inside when things don't go as expected. Your thoughts and feelings not only affect how you feel afterwards, they also have a great influence on your performance. The less you depend on success, the more relaxed you can be in your pursuit of it, and the more likely you are to achieve what you wanted.

A negative attitude, where you put everything on a win and see failure as failure, makes you tense inside and tends to prevent you from performing to your full potential. 

Breathe yourself relaxed and exercise your abdominal muscles at the same time. Breathing exercises not only help you regain control and loosen up, they also help strengthen your abdominal muscles and burn belly fat at the same time.

Why is proper breathing so important

Proper breathing is important for the balance of body and mind. A balanced person has more energy to face life's challenges. Stress, anxiety and nervousness make breathing shallower and faster and increase the pulse. Shallow and rapid breathing in turn triggers the other symptoms of stress and makes it difficult to maintain or regain control of emotions and body reactions. The whole body inevitably tenses up, sends these signals to the brain, and the brain produces stress hormones.

If you take a few deep, controlled and consciously calm breaths, you will immediately revise the body's stress response so that your muscles relax again and you are returned to a natural and relaxed state. When the muscles are relaxed, the brain does not receive stress signals and therefore does not produce stress hormones.

Deep and relaxed breathing through abdominal breathing

Start by breathing deeply and slowly through your mouth. Make sure you breathe into your belly, that is, your abdominal wall, not your chest, should rise as you inhale.

Hold the air for a few seconds. Exhaling slowly, pull your belly back towards your spine and hold it there for a few seconds when you have exhaled all the air. Then repeat the exercise at least ten times. 

You should do this breathing exercise several times a day, especially when you feel stress and nervousness bubbling up. At home, you can do the exercise sitting or lying down to help you relax. On the road, just do it standing up. You will notice how the acute stress immediately falls away from you.