Tips for Lasting Happiness

How to Be Happy No Matter What

By Srikumar S. Rao

Many of us believe that happiness can somehow come only by great effort, and we spend a lifetime seeking it. But unending joy is actually closer to us than our own skin, and there is nothing we have to do or get or be to experience it. All we have to do is stop driving it away. And the principal way in which we drive happiness away is "if/then" thinking--believing that IF this happens, THEN I will be happy. The truth is you have everything it takes to be happy right now.

Here are 10 tips that will help you change your thinking about happiness and open wellsprings of motivation, resilience, and joy you never knew existed.

Srikumar S. Rao, Ph.D., is the author of “Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated and Successful – No Matter What” (McGraw-Hill, 2010). Dr. Rao has taught his course on "Creativity and Personal Mastery" in many MBA programs, and is a former marketing executive. For more information and to order the book go to www.srikumarsrao.com.

Don't Label Anything That Happens as 'Bad'

Look back at your life a year or two ago. Can you recall anything that happened to you that at the time you thought was terrible? Can you see now that it was not as bad as you supposed--and may actually have turned out to be "good"? Say your boss fired you and you got a severance package you thought was bad. But the company recently went bankrupt and your former colleagues lost their jobs and got no severance--and didn’t even get reimbursed for their business expenses. You never really know if anything that happens to you is bad, but labeling it as such increases the probability that you will experience it that way. Don’t do it.

You Can Create Miracles—So Do It

Let's say you're all dressed up, it starts raining, and you don’t have an umbrella. A cab pulls up right where you are to discharge a passenger and you take it. Do you describe what happened as a "coincidence"? If so, you have blown a powerful tool for bringing all manner of good into your life. Instead, recognize that what happened was a "miracle" and celebrate it as such. You allowed it to happen. The more you celebrate such "miracles," the more they will appear in your life. Maybe you will not be able to make a specific miracle happen – such as the 4:15 train coming 10 minutes late just so you can catch it – but you will be able to live a life where a steady stream of such miracles enriches your experience.

Remember That Like Attracts Like

Do you know someone who is constantly complaining? Who finds fault with people and things all the time? Who sucks your energy and leaves you feeling drained? Do you want to hang around with him or her? Odds are that, sooner or later, you will want to move on. Now think about what kind of feelings you evoke in others. Consciously be sensitive to others and try to elevate their level of consciousness. Don’t do this by being preachy and telling them that they "should" do this or that. Do it by raising your own level of energy and recognizing what's best in others. As you become imbued with this habit, the most marvelous, upbeat people will float into your life and elevate you even further.

Being Is More Important than Doing

A man I know desperately wanted to become CEO and was ready to do what it took. Family was a distraction, and he resented the demands they placed on him. He attended his daughter’s soccer games but spent most of the time making phone calls and replying to messages on his Blackberry. He thought he was being a good father until he overheard his daughter on the phone telling a friend, "My dad doesn’t care about me – he just wants others to think he is a caring father. He sat through the whole game playing with his phone and didn’t even notice I scored a goal." Who you are being will always show through sooner or later. Remember the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: "Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying."

Change Your Focus to Serving Others

Notice when you believe you are the center of the universe. No matter what happens, you only think in terms of what impact it has on you. But living predominantly in a "me-centered" world guarantees that you will experience dejection, anxiety, boredom, and all the things that make life unhappy. By contrast, consciously think in terms of being of service to others and your life will flower.

A professor who used to bemoan the "stupidity" of the students in his class decided to change his self-centered focus. He started being grateful to them because they worked as waitresses and bartenders to pay the tuition that paid his salary that maintained his family. He began to see it as his task to get students to appreciate the beauty in his field, not theirs to provide him with intellectual stimulation. This led him to pay more attention to the design of his lectures. He won several teaching honors and was eventually offered a more rewarding position.