Whether you wish you could fall in love, make more money, have a better body, or travel the world, we’re all looking for the same thing in life: happiness.
While true happiness may look different for each person, it’s still everybody’s common life goal. To be happy means you’ve succeeded in exactly the way you’ve always wanted to.
Most of us view complete happiness as a long-term goal that we’re constantly striving to achieve. With that mindset, we’re always staying motivated…right?
Well, according to happiness researcher Shawn Achor, we would all be a lot better off if we simply changed the way we view real happiness right now.
Achor recently appeared on OWN’s “Super Soul Sunday” and revealed to Oprah what he believes to be the secret to true happiness.
According to Achor, there are two very easy ways to actually make yourself happier right now—not later in life when you think you’ve achieved all the goals you’ve set for yourself.
- Change Your Perspective: This isn’t some kind of vague suggestion that you should try to see the world differently as a whole. It doesn’t really work that way. Instead, Achor suggests shifting your perspective on every little thing that might bring you down now. "Recognize that this moment, the fact that you got to watch this conversation on happiness, is a privilege," Achor told Oprah. "It's an opportunity that many people in the world didn't get." What he’s really suggesting is developing a sense of gratitude for everything in your life—even for things you don’t think you have to be grateful for. "If there's somebody in your life who didn't get to hear that happiness could be a choice, we need to actually be living models for that for other people," Achor said.
- Perform Random Acts of Kindness: According to Achor, performing random good deeds for strangers gives us a sense of empowerment. By helping somebody we don’t know at all—and expecting absolutely nothing in return—we start to feel like we really can change the world around us. Oftentimes, we’re unhappy because we feel useless, like nothing we do really matters. "It's a happiness multiplier," Achor said. "Not only does it make you happy and make those people happy, but as soon as you start talking about it—even thinking back to some of those random acts of kindness—we immediately start to smile."
What do you think of Achor's advice? Tell us in the comments!
Photo Copyright © 2009 Benjamin J. DeLong/Flickr
