My Overly Simple Rules for a Happy Life
By: Josef Cruz
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Lifestyle, Self, Happiness

My Overly Simple Rules for a Happy Life

These tips will make you smile and enjoy life a little more.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Many people want to be happy in life — actually, let me restate that — everyone wants to be happy in life. The truth of the matter is that we often set off on the wrong foot to achieve this happiness. And because we set off on the wrong foot, we make it almost impossible to get that happy feeling that we want.

Unlimited money nor lying on a beach forever will make you happy.

Starting with the wrong foot is falsely believing that something will make you happy when it never will. Many people, including myself in the past, believe that having money, being able to quit your 9–5, laying on the beach all day, owning a mansion with butlers to wait on you all day long, or owning a fleet of Porches are things that can put an eternal smile on your face.

When we think these things will make us happy, we lose sight of reality and set ourselves up to play a game we will never win. If you believe that possessions and money will make you happy, then two things are likely to happen:

You never achieve happiness because you never manage to attain these things.

You somehow manage to get the things, but then you realize that the dream is empty once you’ve achieved them.

I bet you’ve heard the phrase ‘money won’t bring you happiness,’ I definitely heard it and chose to ignore it. I’d also see some people who have nothing, yet they are happy in life. Perhaps you’ve even seen the situation yourself?

So, I have created these rules in my life. They will inspire you to create a few for yourself.

1. Get your health in check

Getting healthy is all about feeling good about yourself, both physically and mentally. When you exercise and eat properly, your body starts to work more effectively and efficiently as you start treating your body with care.

On the mental side, becoming more health-conscious has an amazing effect on your self-esteem. When you decide to get your health in check, it signals to yourself that you value who you are — it’s self-appreciation — this is the same as validating your own self and who you are. When you begin to work on your health, you’ll feel loved inside, and then you’ll give more love. Living a healthy life is extremely important.

2. Recognize the existence of the law of attraction

When I first heard about the Law of Attraction, I thought it was one of these ‘woo hoo,’ wacky laws for the mentally insane. To cut it short, the Law of Attraction has nothing to do with attracting the opposite sex (although it could technically). Still, rather it states that whatever you think about with belief consistently, you will attract into our life.

If we want to be fulfilled in life, you need to think about positive things and think about them to believe that you will attract these things into your life. Doing daily visualizations and making a vision board can be crucial parts of experiencing a happy life.

3. Knowing that there is no such thing as failure

The people who are the happiest in life are most often the ones who have achieved what they first set out to do since they were young.

We know that Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player ever for some of us basketball fans. We believe that it’s due to luck and being born talented that he can achieve his dreams. We miss successful people because they never accepted that the term ‘failure’ should stop them.

Here’s what Michael Jordan had to say;

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Michael Jordan

The happiest people achieve their dreams and live the life they want, and they get there via persistence and trying again after a failure.

If you were to ask any successful person who is happy if there is such a thing as failure — I promise you that they will say ‘no.’

4. Constant growth

We can only be doing one of two things; either we are growing or dying. The latter sounds extremely depressing, I know, but if you look at this sensibly, there is no such thing as stagnant or in a state of inertia.

To experience contentment, we need to align ourselves with this principle and notice the joy we get from seeing us grow and evolve into the people we want to become.

The practical advice here is rather than spending countless hours watching the latest reality television show. We should be taking the time to develop ourselves desirably.

When we get on the path of improving ourselves, we reflect on the change. You’ll feel a great sense of fulfillment in your life. We should all strive toward never-ending improvement.

5. Balanced life

Life doesn’t have to be all about work and more work. I used to have a mindset that I would work my ass off for years so that I could retire early and rich. I actually used to lock myself away from society and try to come up with some scheme or scam that would earn me a windfall of cash and bust me out of my job. Under this mentality, for years, I got nowhere.

You may always hear how it takes hard work to succeed, and this sure is true, but it’s not to be taken too literally. Sure we need to work hard to get what we want, but we must also pay attention to our other wants because this increases our overall contentment.

When we’re in a place of contentment, our decisions and actions are made from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. This, in turn, generates much better decisions which lift us quickly to a better life.

6. Maintaining good relationships

Maintaining a good relationship with the people around you is a huge part of what constitutes a happy life.

A person who has mastered the ability to build healthy relationships with the greatest variety of people will prosper in life. Life is all about enjoying the communal spirit and learning from others.

One of the core feelings we subconsciously strive for is acceptance. We all want to be accepted in some way by the people we surround ourselves with. By maintaining healthy relationships, we are being accepted repeatedly, and if we can continue to win friends, we experience this feeling throughout life.

7. Create maximum value

Approaching life with a mindset of value maximization will only lead to one outcome: the feeling of immense fulfillment in life.

When you create value in the lives of others in as many situations as you can, through the laws of reciprocity, you’ll automatically get this value returning to you in whatever form you desire. This could be wealth, success, love, or eternal fulfillment.

The feeling of fulfillment through creating value stems from the feeling of giving and making a contribution to somebody else’s life. It is perhaps one of the best feelings once you begin to start doing it in as many situations as you can.

It takes time to get up to the point where you can give value to somebody else’s life and not expect anything back. I can say that I am still trying to work at mastering this skill and will continue to do so for a long time. But what I know is that a great place to start is, to begin with, gratitude. Learning to be grateful for what you have now is a masterful step in learning how to be happy in life.

When you wake up, make an effort to think about the things that you are grateful for. Focus on what you have rather than what you don’t have.

There you have it, 7 principles that you can start to learn and apply right now to begin living a happier life.