7 ways to be happy

Attention: These 7 ways to be happy will seem wishy washy at first glance. Take a minute to really think (maybe even journal) which of the 7 you are lacking in. Then set yourself a practical goal of making progress in those areas.

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Mindfulness

Mindfulness is gained through meditation. Think of meditation as the gym workout like the squats and mindfulness as the gains, the juicy glutes. The more you meditate, the more mindful you become.

Many people have tried to meditate but it just didn't work for them. To that I always ask them the same question:

What would you say to the fat guy who goes to the gym 3 times and then says it didn't work for him?

Meditation is exactly like lifting weights. You have to be consistent to see results. And the moment you see results, you're hooked for life.

So here's the mentality: Just show up to practice. Just show up to the meditation session everyday for a few minutes at the exact same time and try your best. Expect nothing from it. The seemingly unlimited benefits will appear sooner than you think.

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Gratitude

Gratitude is a skill that we can level up through various ways. My favourite is gratitude journaling. You simply note down a few things/people/memories that you're grateful for, everyday.

1. I'm grateful for the internet as it's allowed us to share our knowledge
2. I'm grateful for my gaming pc
3. I'm grateful for my friend for joining me in a gymnastic rings session 3 days ago

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Optimism

Optimism is just like positive thinking. Many men view positive thinking as feminine. It's not. Having negative, limiting beliefs is holding you back in all parts of life. If there's one major handicap I come across when I speak to young men, it's their lack of optimism.

The book: The Magic of Thinking by David J Schwartz is an absolute goldmine for developing optimism.

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Relationships

I often say that relationships are the most fulfilling part of life. Fix things with your parents man, you'll never get this time back. Someone may have wronged you in the past, and we hold onto that because forgiving them feels like we are enabling their behaviour. That's not true. Forgiveness is entirely selfish. Forgiveness is for your own development. If someone has hurt you, you must forgive them as soon as possible if you wish to continue your self improvement. There's two ways you can do this:

1. Actually contact the person and tell them you forgive them
2. Write a letter forgiving them and then just set the letter aside, you don't even need to send it to them to get the benefit!

Getting more relationships should be one of your goals in self improvement. I wrote a post titled "Make friends by being the initiator" which was well received by you guys. You can find it by clicking on my profile. TL:DR Have fun stuff planned, invite people to that fun stuff. You'll be providing value and people will like you more.

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Physical Health

Physical health can be broken down into 4 parts: Exercise, diet, sleep, sunlight.

Humans are meant to move everyday. We are adventurers, long distance runners. It's no doubt that a human who spends all day sitting in front of his desk is likely to feel unhappy. Think about our ancestors and then think how weird it is that most of us live such sedimentary lives. This includes all my lifting bros. Just lifting weights for 1 hour is not enough activity. That's fantastic for muscle growth but we derive so much benefit from cardio.

An easy and fun way to increase your cardio is to get consistent in a morning walk. Make it a habit to burst out of bed, brush your teeth and head straight out the house. Listen to an audiobook and gain some knowledge at the same time too.

Diet could be a whole post on it's own. TL:DR Try your best to eat unprocessed foods that you have to cook yourself. Eating junk food just because you can control your weight (due to calories in calories out) is not the most optimal way to go about your nutrition. Eat for nutrition, not pleasure.

Not many people sleep long enough. We're all dumbasses, we say we want 8 hours of sleep, right? Then why do we only allocate 8 hours to bed time? Hours in bed is not the same as hours of sleep. I urge you to track your sleep to verify this. If you want to wake up at 6am and so you go to bed at 10pm, you're likely getting less than 6.5 hours of sleep.

Almost everyone is deficient in vitamin D. Going on that morning walk will help with that.

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Flow

Getting into a flow state is magical. Hours pass and you don't even realise it. 'Time flies when you're having fun'

Imagine doing 2 hours of work and it only feeling like you were working for 20 minutes. That would be awesome.

We enter a flow state when the perceived reward and challenge of the activity we are about to do is just at the sweet spot where it's high enough for us to be motivated but not too high otherwise it'll cause some anxiety.

You are more likely to enter a flow state if you meditate consistently.

Take a moment right now, what activity often get's you into flow? In what activity do you often lose track of time and feel like you are very competent at it?

In the best case scenario we would love to be in a flow state for a few hours everyday. Try to create your schedule to induce that.

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Purpose

There's a reason why all self-actualized men preach finding your purpose. So how do you actually go about finding your purpose?

Think... with no distractions.

This is going to be strange for the younger generation. If you want to find your purpose you need to do some deep thinking, just like the philosophers used to do. That means you literally sit there with no screen in front of you. Just a pen and paper to note down ideas.

Ideally your purpose should be self transcending. That means something that is more than you, bigger than you. For example most peoples purposes in someway is to help others. That's a fantastic purpose as it will increase your motivation on the difficult days where you don't feel up for the tasks. You'll remember that you have people relying on your efforts. My purpose is to help young men with their self improvement. What's yours?

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I made a full 30 minute video teaching an additional few ways to be happy. In the description of the video are links to free educational resources to aid your learning. Click the link to watch now:

https://youtu.be/-ysV5bmAGS4