What’s your recipe for happiness?

Happiness is such a subjective thing and my recipe for happiness may not be your recipe for happiness.

Research however, has revealed two things are certain; firstly positive emotions are a key ingredient to happiness and secondly a  strong feeling of well-being is vital as well.

BUT do you need a mix of both ingredients or can one stand alone on itself.

In this week’s video blog I ponder this question and share with you my ideal recipe for happiness.

It may help you to uncover what really makes you happy.

You may even decide to try out a new recipe for your happiness!

How did you go? Have you got your recipe for happiness spot on or do you need to change it and add some different ingredients?

Transcript

Hello Happy Arters I thought it was time to make a video blog this week so here I am!

Todays pondering is one that constantly runs around in my head. Can you be happy just relying on intermittent bursts of positive emotions or do you need to cultivate a deeper sense of life satisfaction to be truly happy?

Let me give you an example. I know some people who really don’t enjoy their day job so they are quite unhappy or even just feel neutral from Monday to Friday yet what keeps them going and provides them with happiness is the looking forward to their annual leave, going on holidays, going out with friends on the weekend, or renovating their house or going out to dinner. These are all moments in time that provide intermittent bursts of positive emotions and when you string all of these moments in time together the sum of the equation equals happiness.

I on the other hand am not satisfied with just being happy outside of office hours. I want more out of my life and because of this I am constantly striving to fill in those gaps with more of what I know will make me truly happy and this doesn’t just consist of momentary bursts of joy, it’s something more deep seeded than that. It’s something that gives me meaning and purpose, a sense of achievement or the contributing to something that is greater than myself. I need more than just moments of positive emotions to provide me with sustainable happiness.

I know that happiness is such a subjective thing and what makes me happy may be very different to what makes you happy. So there is no right or wrong to either of those examples they are just different.

What’s really important is that you have an awareness of what makes you happy or what could make you happier. If you fall into the first scenario but you have a niggling feeling there is still something missing in your life it maybe worthwhile doing a little bit of soul searching and asking yourself these questions.

• Do you have some meaning and purpose in your life?
• Do you know your gifts and do you use them every day?
• Do you work on cultivating great relationships?
• Are you socially connected? and
• Do you help others on a regular and consistent basis?

All of these things will help you to live a life that is good, meaningful and worthwhile and research has shown when you are living this sort of life your happiness will increase.

The other day I was walking home from work along the river and I kept seeing fish leaping out of the water. Every time they leapt my heart jumped with joy and I would stop and stare in wonderment at the river trying to picture what was happening underneath the surface to make the fish fly out of the water. I saw this vast current of the water steadily flowing underneath and I had a vision of what happiness was all about. It was the intermittent leaps of joy that gave you a heighten burst of happiness supported by a strong current of flowing underneath that gave you that deeper and richer sense of well-being.

To me that is the perfect recipe for happiness, moments of positive emotions coupled with a strong foundation of well-being cultivated through meaning and purpose, achievement, social connectedness and contributing to the greater good.

So what’s your recipe for happiness? Are you content with the fish leaping out of the water or do you need to work on building a strong current of well-being that will see you flourish even more.

Have a great week, colour the world with your happiness and I will be back in touch real soon.