4 Steps To Cultivating Happiness

What Everyone Is Looking For

Through years of coaching, I’ve noticed a pattern: everyone is trying to figure out how to actually be happy. Of course, that isn’t surprising, happiness is one of our most basic human desires, but finding it is one of life’s most difficult challenges.

The Aftermath of Depression

Back in 2017, I found myself on the road to recovery from depression. 2016 had proved to be more than a rough year for me:

• My business had stopped growing, and I was struggling to find the money to meet payroll 
• My relationship had begun to break down 
• I stopped taking care of my wellbeing. As a result, I was in terrible physical condition as well always stressed out and anxious

I still remember not being able to get out of bed and just thinking to myself “if something doesn’t change soon then I’m not going to make it through another year”. 

The first step for me was making some difficult decisions. I put my business Dream Nation on hold, broke up with my girlfriend and I started to make looking after myself the priority. After a while, the stress and anxiety subsided, and the sadness lessened, but still, I wasn’t actually happy… I was just kinda empty. 

That’s when I realised: it isn’t enough to just stop the pain, I need to create a better life for myself. 

Positive Emotions 

I always say that emotions are crap masters, but are excellent guides. When we are not ruled by them, we can use them to our benefit. 

I think we innately understand the value of negative emotions. Feelings like anger, disgust and sadness will lead us to fight, run or avoid things which are harmful to us. Negative emotions narrow our focus onto things which need our attention and as result help us to survive. This was especially useful when the world was a far more dangerous place for humans to live. 

But what about the other types of emotions, and are they valuable too? 

Research has shown that positive emotions actually have the effect of changing our point of view. In other words, they help us to see things we would have otherwise missed, and they enhance our creativity. Experiencing positive emotions might just be the first step towards you, gaining a new perspective and insight which you can use to make your life better. 

A quick note before we move on: pleasure, although it is a positive emotion, actually has a similar effect to negative emotions in this context. This is because it causes our thinking and perspective to become more narrow on the object of our pleasure, which, of course, isn’t actually a bad thing. Just not what we are talking about, well at least not right now 😉 

4 Steps I Took To Cultivate Positive Emotions

Researcher Barbara Fredrickson helps to better understand happiness and positive emotions, by breaking it down into more defined feelings such as pride, joy, Inspiration and love. Improving your emotional intelligence vocabulary will go a long way to helping you become more emotionally healthy. Check out our article on “Do You Know How To Be Happy?” to learn more. 

Once you know what emotions you want to experience more of, there are 4 things you can cultivate them. 

1. Remembering What They Felt Like 

My journal became my best friend. I had been told for years that I should use one but I never really got around to it. But during this time, I would reflect on positive memories and write about them. This started to retrain my brain and my thought processes. 

2. Changing My Behaviour

Once I was able to remember what the positive emotions felt like, I began to change my behaviour to be more like how it was when I experienced the desired feelings. I started to go out more, look after myself, eat properly, exercise and work towards my passions.

3. Seeking The Right Situations 

As my behaviour changed, naturally, so did my surroundings. I found myself attending new events, meeting new people and having new experiences. The key here is to keep on putting yourself in situations where you are more likely to feel your desired emotion. 

4. Mindfulness 

Lastly, I began to take the time to reflect on how I really felt. I continued journaling, but I would also write about my feelings that day, the good, the bad and the ugly. During that time, I also created a gratitude journal on my Instagram stories. Doing this forced me to find something positive to reflect on every day, which also had a built-in element of accountability because people would complain if I missed a day! 

Completing my journey

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I had completed my journey. Not just the journey of recovering from depression but actually finding true happiness for myself through creating a life that was and still is significantly better than I had before.

Currently I’m developing a free email coaching programme to help you cultivate more happiness in your life. If you’d like to join it or even better help us during our research let me know below.