Pharrell Williams sings about it, the Dalai Llama wrote a book about it…but happiness is apparently one of the most elusive things in the Western world. So how does one Get Happy?
Dr. Dain Heer, author and international speaker went from setting the date for his suicide 14 years ago to being truly happy. He now travels the world sharing his simple yet effective tips to get happy and staying there!
Here are 8 Tips on How to Get Happy & Stay There:
1. Move
Simple and ridiculously effective. Scientists don’t talk about endorphins for no reason. Getting out and getting active, even if it’s the last thing you want to do, will definitely make you feel better, especially if you incorporate this into your regular lifestyle. If you’ve been sedentary for a while, start with a five-minute walk around the block and increase incrementally from there.
2. Get off Autopilot
Have you ever driven from A to B but can’t remember how you got there? Are you that ‘checked out’ in any other part of your life? If so, it might be time to wake up now, before you wake up in 20 years, confused, miserable and wondering how the hell you got stuck in that job, that relationship, in that money situation. Start checking in with your life and ask yourself ‘is this situation working for me? Where do I want to be with this 5, 10, 20 years from now?’ Getting proactive and clearer on your desires will give you more energy and greater sense of power in life.
3. Don’t Judge
Have you noticed that when you are not judging yourself or anything around you, you are a lot happier? Judgment really is a killer. It kills happiness, productivity, growth and relationships. Getting rid of it will give you a huge amount of freedom. Stop analyzing everything and seeing the world in terms of positive and negative, right and wrong or ‘‘how they should or shouldn’t be.’ This is even more important in the age of social media. Don’t rate your life on the ideals you see on the Internet or what your Facebook friends’ lives look like. Let life just be and get happy.
4. Give up Love
How can giving up love make you happy? After all, isn’t love the whole point? Didn’t the Beatles tell us that all we need is love? Here’s the catch: Love means something different to every single one of us. It is impossible to determine or agree on. In other words, you can’t get love right, ever. So stop trying. Gratitude is what really creates the level of caring and acceptance we try to get from love. The magical power of gratitude is that you can’t have gratitude and judge at the same time. If you want to kill judgment and get happy instead, get some gratitude going!
5. Give Up the Fix-it Guy Gig
The thing about being the fix-it guy or the problem-solver is that in order to solve problems, you have to have problems. How many problems have you actually invited into your life just so you can keep your ‘fix-it guy’ gig? Time to quit that job? Next time you are tempted to jump in with your superhero cape on, take a step back, and quietly ask yourself “what else is possible here?” You might realise you don’t have to solve anything, just look at things from a different point of view instead.
6. Don’t Look for Answers, Be Curious
When you are curious, life becomes an adventure, there are always new things to discover and unchartered territories to be explored. When you are looking for the right answers, you create stress, worry and pressure. For example, if you decide the only solution to money issues are either a wage increase, winning the lottery, or an inheritance, then you literally won’t see money coming into your life any other way, even if it hits you in the face! If you are curious about where money can come from, you will have your eyes, ears and mind open to money showing up in all kinds of ways that you hadn’t considered before.
7. Spend Time with Happy People
Make a list of 3 happy people you enjoy talking to and call them up when you need a boost. Seek out happy friends and don’t hang out with unhappy ones. If you have pretty much only surrounded yourself with unhappy people – get proactive! Try out new things and meet new people.
8. Just Choose It and Get Happy
Why is it that the statistics show us that so many people in third world countries are happier than those in the first world? Because it has nothing to do with what is going on around us, it’s literally a choice we individually make, moment to moment. It’s great to hold outside circumstances responsible for our level of happiness – how much money is in the bank, whether the boss is happy, whether we have the right car – but the truth is, you are the only one who can decide to be happy or unhappy in any situation. Start by practicing to be happy, even if it’s just for 10 seconds at a time. You can choose it again as many times over as you like.
About Dr. Dain Heer
Dr. Dain Heer is a best-selling author, international speaker and an admired Access Consciousness workshop facilitator. Dain is the author of nine books on the topics of embodiment, healing, money and relationships. His latest book is, ‘Being You, Changing the World’. Dain is a Doctor of Chiropractic, born and raised in California, USA. He hosts a regular radio show entitled Conversations in Consciousness. He appears regularly on Dr. Pat and Voice of America and has been a guest on hundreds of nationally syndicated radio shows. He also has appeared on several TV shows including Fox News, Good Morning Shows in New Zealand, Australia and Canada and on Gaiam TV. Learn more at www.drdainheer.com.
