When I was younger, I always thought that happiness is something that someone or something else gives me. I remember being happy when my parents bought me a new phone, when I got to hang out with my friends at the arcade wasting all our pocket money, when it's the school holidays, when I get to play all I want... Sure I was happy. But as I grew up, I came to realise that I need to stop depending on and/or expect others to make myself happy.
I'm sure many of you have heard of the quote "happiness is in your hands", well, it's true! So today, I will be sharing with you 5 tips on how you can control your own emotions and be a happier person. :)
1. Get rid of all things
negative and
toxic.
This means thoughts, and even people.
Having negative thoughts is human nature, but surprise! It can be controlled. A year ago, I remember having panic attacks because of how much I hated going to work. Personally, I'd consider myself to be a pretty active person and I love keeping myself busy. Doing absolutely nothing is deemed to be a complete waste of time which I, am not a fan of. However, having a desk job completely drained my energy, my time, and my passion to do the things I love and I soon found myself in a slump. These thoughts about wasting my life and not being able to live my life the way I wanted to soon snowballed into more negative thoughts and that was when I started to have panic attacks. I found that this usually happens during the stressful period of work (eg. audit period) and so this year, I decided to fight away my negative thoughts with positive ones. How? Simply be in control of your own thoughts. Whenever you find yourself having negative thoughts, stop, and tell yourself to start thinking positive. For my case, I'd simply tell myself to calm down and think about how I have been working for the past 2 years and how everything managed to work out fine. How I have nice colleagues, and an environment that I am already comfortable in. I noticed that this really helped my train of thoughts turn towards the positive side and it significantly reduced the chances of myself panicking over my job. In my opinion, positive thinking is a great habit to cultivate as can be applied to literally everything. Eg. Complaining about the hot weather while you're heading out to have lunch? Turn those thoughts around and think about how lucky you are that it's not raining so you don't have to carry an umbrella and your shoes will not be soaked!
Negative people are everywhere and sometimes you just got to get rid of them. For the longest time ever, I have never thought about removing people in my life, until I realise how much impact negative and toxic people can have on my own life. So who are these negative people? Well, in layman terms, negative people are basically people we know, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc who spread negativity. People who cannot be happy for you, people who are jealous of your achievements, people who put you down to make themselves feel better, people who make you feel bad about yourself, people who spread hate, untrue rumours, and in general, negativity.
Reading negative posts on my feed can really affect my mood, so I decided to take the easy way out and simply remove them from my feed! So about 3 months back, I did a detox on my social media and it was seriously one of the best decisions I have ever made. At this age of time, people throw shades and give unnecessary negative comments all over the internet to "slayyyyyy" others and I don't know, to look threatening and fierce for absolutely no reason, and... I guess I'm just too old for that kind of shit? Removing these negative posts from my feed also helped me notice the kinder and much more meaningful posts that used to be drowned beneath all that negativity.
2. Focus on what's
good.
I'm not sure, but I think it's once again human nature to only focus on the bad things because whenever something good happens, we'll simply take it for granted like our lives are
supposed to be good like that. Well guess what? It's not. Life is indeed filled with ups and downs and while we ponder about the downs, it is also a must to appreciate and cherish the ups.
Something I'm guilty of is taking my family for granted. Throughout 25 years of living, it's no doubt that the people who truly love and care for me are my family, and yet, how often do I think about them? Definitely not as much as how much I think about the people who treated me badly. While I was showering one night, aka the place where you get brilliant, mind-blowing shower thoughts, this came to my mind and it just hit me. If only, if only we could shift the attention we've been giving to people who don't really care about us, to the people who showed us genuine appreciation and concern... So that was what I did. After I stepped out the shower, I promised myself to focus only on the people who loves me and it felt great. Spending more time with positive people, people who supports me, understands me, and people whom I know I can trust makes me feel loved and happy.
Putting myself out in public (aka being a Youtuber and a Blogger), negative comments are inevitable. Do they affect me? Of course they do. But I've learnt to brush them off especially when they are unconstructive and I've also learnt to shift my focus to the good and encouraging comments instead.
3.
Accept your flaws and move towards
self-improvement.
Nobody is perfect, but that doesn't mean that we should stop trying to improve ourselves. Like I've mentioned, it's important to get rid of negative people, so don't be one yourself! Take some time off to reflect on your behaviour and the things that you did from time to time, and see how you could have handled the situations better. Always choose to spread love, kindness and learn how to be happy for others and keep unnecessary comments to yourself if they are not helpful and instead, might hurt the feelings of others. In other terms, have more empathy and always put yourself in the shoes of others before you speak. Personally, I've met way too many people who just can't be happy for their friends' achievements and all I can say is, jealousy will turn you into a horrible person and it will get you no where. Jealous of someone else's achievements? Try achieving it yourself instead of wasting time blaming others for your incompetence.
It's always easy to push the blame on others to hide your inferiority and insecurities, but will that do you any good? No. Pushing the blame onto others will not magically transform you into a better person. Everyone has flaws including myself, but what's difficult is admitting your mistakes and learning how to change. Quick check, you screwed up, and your friend gave you sincere advices on how you should have acted. Do you a) admit it's your fault and heed for more advices or b) thinks your friend is being an asshole for not being a "true friend" and not supporting you in everything you do? If you've picked (a), you're improving! If you've picked (b), unfortunately, the asshole is yourself. People who genuinely cares for you, real friends, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your family, helps you become a better person. Fake friends support your stupidity so they will always be better than you. So the next time someone tries to correct you, instead of blaming the person for not being supportive and having a different opinion, thank him/her for their time and advices because not everyone is willing to spend time helping someone else.
Treat others the way you want to be treated and not the way others treat you. I'm pretty sure when we were kids this scenario has happened at least once - Kid A bullies Kid B by beating him and calling him names. Kid B then calls Kid A names and beats Kid A to defend himself. The teacher punishes both of them and asked why were they fighting. Kid B says, "it's because Kid A called me names and punched me first!". Will Kid B still be punished? Yes, and the moral behind this is because Kid B also did wrong by acting the same way as Kid A did. And the reason why I was sure that this scenario would have happened at least once in our childhood (
perhaps not to ourselves but to our classmates or friends) is because kids are prone to react the same way they are being treated.
Now that we have grown up and matured, this logic still remains the same. If someone were to treat you badly, there is no need to be mean to them. If someone were to insult you and disrespect you, there is absolutely no need to insult them back and disrespect them too. Instead, continue treating them the way you want them to treat you. It might suck if they are unappreciative, and your feelings might get hurt (
trust me... I always get told about how I'm always treating the people who are mean to me too nice and how I'm always "getting cheated" by them) but as long as you know that you're doing good, there's really nothing to feel bad about.
4. Focus on
yourself.
Take care of yourself. Whether is it your mental or physical health. Recently, I have been working out fairly often and no, I am not on a diet. Close to 2 months ago, I read an article stating the benefits of exercising and that includes the reduction of fatigue. Sick of being tired 24/7, I decided to give it a shot. During the first month, I probably felt worst as my muscles were constantly aching, but I pressed on and reminded myself not to stress over missing my workout for the week. When the second month arrived, I felt a lot more energetic and even though I still dread getting out of bed in the morning, I found myself less unfocused and tired during the day. Exercising also greatly improves mental health especially if you are dealing with high levels of stress and anxiety. I have also incorporated a healthier diet (again, I don't stress myself too much about it) and I can really see and feel my body appreciating my efforts. My skin has cleared up and my digestive system works a lot better now and being a healthier person ultimately makes me a happier person. As they say, when you feel good on the inside, it shows on the outside!
5. Never stop
taking and
giving.
"We accept the love we think we deserve", this was a phrase I came across when I read the Perks of Being a Wallflower. Personally, I disagree. When love is given to us, we should take it! But at the same time we should not forget to return what was given to us and in fact, we should make it a habit to give even more than what we received. If you're busy calculating how much love you've given your family, your other half, your friends, etc, you're basically doing good just for the sake of expecting something in return and when you don't get what you expected, there comes disappointment.
I'm still trying to work on it, but I have been trying to find ways to volunteer during my free time because happiness is contagious and what better way to gain happiness than to see others being happy because of you!
So those are my 5 tips to becoming a happier and hopefully also a better person. It has been almost 10 months since I launched this blog and I noticed the lack of lifestyle posts here. I decided to touch on the topic of happiness as these are the points I have been practicing recently and I did notice a huge change in my attitude and perspective towards the various obstacles I face in life. I found them to be really effective and helpful so I hope this will inspire and help you too! I've got more lifestyle (and travel!) posts coming up so stay tune!
Labels: lifestyle, tips
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