‘Science shows that happiness is a skill that can be learned and improved on.’
My mind immediately triggered questions:
“What? Wait a minute! How?
Are not some people just born to be lucky and happy?
There seems to be so many happy people around, but why am I not the one of the lucky ones?
Can I really be in control of my happiness?
What makes people happy?”
But let me explain how I started with happiness and where I heard this statement that happiness is a skill first time!
I always found the term ‘happiness‘ a vague one, and one that is overly used by many people. I tried to avoid using this word in the content I was creating and stayed away from things that claimed to offer ultimate happiness. Until one day when I saw an advertisement to become a certified happiness facilitator on social media. I usually do not explore such ads but this time my curiosity won. I read about this one because I was intrigued how someone can facilitate happiness. Usually ads I had seen so far were offering to become happy, but this one took it a step further and was not just promising my happiness but even facilitating it around. That sounded like they had discovered the key to make myself and others happy. That resonated with me well as it was very natural for me to make people happier. The ad was posted by the Museum of Happiness which had conducted a couple of years of research on the concept. That sounded rigorous and trustworthy. Moreover, I liked their intention. So I enrolled.
‘Science shows that happiness is a skill that can be learned and improved on.’ This statement from the course started something.
I used to be cynical when I saw tips and methods on how to achieve happiness, how to pursue happiness, or how to achieve ‘ultimate’ happiness. I was thinking that we as human beings have a range of emotions; we cannot be constantly happy. Life happens to all of us and these events that change our lives can easily influence our happiness. My mind continued wandering:
“Am I missing something? Should we not be happy just from being alive and from little simple things we have available in our daily life?”
All these questions came to my mind the minute I heard that happiness is a skill. I was curious. If that was true, I wanted to learn and improve the skill! I wish to teach others that happiness skill and spread more happiness around. People and the world need it. That is why I took the opportunity to become a happiness facilitator with the Museum of Happiness in the first place. It was perfect timing. Now, everything came together, and I realised that maybe this would finally be my mission – contributing to the happiness of the world.
"One of the first steps to happiness is deciding that you want to be happy
and knowing what that means." Julia Roberts
During the course, we learned what happiness means, what contributes to happiness, what different happiness models are out there, and they taught us their art and science of sustainable happiness. We have been taught that happiness is influenced: 50 % genetics, 10% external circumstances and 40% by our intentional activities. So you might say that we cannot fully control our happiness. Perhaps not, but we still can improve those 40% - we have control over it!
And that is the aim of this blog is to improve your happiness skill step by step and make your life happier! We can together help the global mental health crisis!
My tip to start with is: