Optimistic people live longer. Happy people are more successful and productive. Happiness isn’t a mystery, it is a lifestyle choice. How can you choose more happiness in your life? Create more everyday happiness with these tips on the podcast.
You weren’t born to be happy or unhappy. You weren’t born to be so-so or “meh”. Your choices, your habits, and your environment make a big difference in your happiness. You can choose to focus on gratitude, love, kindness, and forgiveness, which boost your happiness from within no matter what is going on outside. You can practice simple habits like creating a powerful morning routine or ritual. Starting from the ringtone of your alarm, then looking at how you move your body, then shaping your thoughts with a journaling and meditation process. Managing your environment throughout the day contributes a lot to your happiness as well. You can increase your daily happiness. If you want to up your happiness level right now, check out the podcast episode.
Ten quick happiness boosters:
- Get up and dance (I love 80’s rock).
- Plank for 30 seconds.
- Send a thank-you note.
- Do something thoughtful for a friend or neighbor.
- Watch a comedy that makes you laugh. Old episodes of Frasier work for me and my daughter too.
- Hold a cat or dog.
- Go outside. Take a walk. Plant something.
- Watch videos of bear cubs.
- Listen to a pump-up inspiring audio or video on TedTalk or YouTube (or my podcast).
- Change something. Anything. Big or small.
Please note that depression is a medical condition. Please make sure to seek medical help if you think you are depressed. If you are in a crisis, please call 1-800-273-8255 in the U.S.
“The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.”
Carrie Jones
Podcast Show Notes
0:03 Intro
We are going to talk about how to be happier, how to find your happiness and how to be happier in your business and your life. So how can we do that? Why is happiness important? Did you know that happy people live longer? If you are more optimistic, and you are happier, you tend to live 10 to 15%, longer than other people. Happier, people tend to be more productive, and more successful. If you did not want to be happy, just for the state of being happy, you now have some other compelling reasons on why you might want to be happier. But this happiness thing can sometimes feel elusive.
1:23 Note: Speak to a Doctor
If you are feeling like you are depressed, be sure to talk to a doctor. But if we look at that mild feeling of just being down or even stressed and upset, and maybe even a little bit overwhelmed, you have a lot of control over this state of mind. And it starts with choosing, it starts with choosing to be happy that you are wanting to make this choice for a happiness lifestyle, instead of just blowing with the wind and accepting whatever mood you happen to wake up in. When you have an empowered perspective on happiness, it is a lot easier to be happy.
2:36 Choosing a Happiness Lifestyle
There are some easy things that you can do to increase your happiness I know that when I made the decision in my life, that I could have a joyful life, a life filled with joy, because I decided to. it was an epiphany. For me, it was a pivotal moment. Let’s look at some of the things that go along with that choice to have a happiness lifestyle. You can choose it just like you wake up in the morning and choose the outfit that you are going to put on. Look at choice in that way.
3:30 Shape Your Mood
Instead of leaving your mood up to chance, when you wake up in the morning, you can shape it. Mood is up and down. Overall happiness can be steadier and more stable. You might think well, okay, Sheri, you just sound like you are this blissed-out happy, joy-filled person all the time. I have not always been and in my teenage years, my younger brother took his own life, he committed suicide. And that set me on a quest to wonder how to be happier.
5:00 More Than Just Okay
I also thought at that time that if I could just get back to Okay, that would be good enough for me. And then I got to the point where I thought, why am I looking at just okay? Why couldn’t I just be filled with joy and happiness and have positive expectation again? Dealing with the tragic death of my brother did not have to cast this cloud over me for my whole life.
6:17 Set Mighty Goal
One of the biggest happiness boosters is to set a mighty, mighty goal for yourself. What is a mighty goal? This is a goal that stretches you. It should be a goal that has some pizzazz to it, that when you think about it, you get a little bit excited. The next one is to be around happy, optimistic people. You might not be able to choose your co-workers or choose your family. But when you do have the option to choose, make a great decision and choose to be around people who are uplifting and positive.
7:35 Create a Happiness Ritual
Next happiness booster: Create a happiness ritual. This could just be something built into you how you wake up every morning, your morning ritual. Start with a positive ringtone on your phone. Get your body moving in the morning. I do planks and dumbells. But the real key to my happiness ritual every morning is my journaling process. My journaling experience begins with a gratitude practice. And it can just be one thing you are thankful for. But I usually like to list out 10, or more things that I am grateful for. And it is not always things like my car, my house type of thing, it might be a hot cup of coffee, it might be a conversation that I had the day before. I say things that I am really feeling grateful for at the moment. Then I map out my day and look at my three big targets for the day. I write out some affirmations and I use a different process to kind of shake things up. I might write thank you for whatever my big goal is like I have it already. Or I might ask a powerful question: What would it take to do x, y, z? Or I might say, I am… (fill in the blank) like I am already doing the thing that is my goal.
11:43 Make Some Changes
Another thing that you can do to help boost your happiness is to make some changes. We do not like it when things get stale. Sometimes life is too comfortable; then, we do not want to change too much. Changing your environment, a little bit, even moving your furniture around helps. Or if you have an office, move your desk into a different place. A new way to look at things can help you be happier. You might want to change your wardrobe, you might want to change the way that you look, maybe a new hairstyle, a new color.
During the pandemic, most of us had a little extra time on our hands. And I decided I was going to tackle my closet. I converted all my hangers over to velvet hangers and I color coordinated all my clothes and I was relentless in terms of taking out anything that did not give me joy, the Marie Kondo thing. When I looked at my clothes all hanging up neatly, I realized that I had a lot of blacks, a lot of dark brown, and a lot of navy. And I liked that because I am practical, I like everything to match and be easy to put together. I decided I need some colors. I brought in some new colors into my wardrobe. And I had not even realized that I had gotten kind of boring in the clothing that I had, it was all nice, but it was kind of boring. I added some pizzazz.
And again, this is an external thing that can open a window for joy. And we say happiness is an inside job. You have heard that before. And it does come from within, outer things do not make you happy. But outer things can shake you up a little bit. And that experience of just having and doing something different gives you a different perspective, that can make you walk a little lighter and feel a little bit more joy.
14:33 Your Daily Environment Impacts You
There are studies that show how much our environment impacts us. When I am working my environment impacts me like if I am not taking enough breaks. By the end of the day, my shoulders hurt, and my eyes hurt. I feel tight and tense and it is because I did not get up and stretch. I did not move around or drink enough water during the day. And those are simple things. Stress impacts our bodies. And it makes a big impact. If you feel like you are not that happy of a person, sometimes just those environmental changes can be enough to propel you forward. But the inside things of focusing on gratitude, focusing on a mighty goal, focusing on love, loving yourself loving other people, those things are big joy bringers in your life. And then we can decide that we are going to be happy, full of inner peace and calm, no matter what is going on. We can make that choice for a happiness lifestyle.
15:54 How You Measure Success
I decided in my business that I was going to measure the success in my business by the amount of ease and joy and flow that I felt each day in my business. And that was a game-changer for me because I would ask myself this question for anything new that new product, new idea, new class new course? Does this make me feel more joy? Does this bring me joy? And if something did not bring me joy? Was there a way that I could tweak it or change it to bring me joy? And if not, did I really want to do it?
16:36 Choose Ease, Flow, and Joy
Remember, it all starts with a choice. I want to encourage you to decide to choose more happiness, choose more joy. Be deliberate in how you put together your day so you can create those moments that give you more ease flow, and joy. I wish you a ton of joy, a ton of happiness, and a ton of love.
Resources: Free gifts at sherikayehoff.com
The Sheri Kaye Hoff Show for Living Joyfully in your Biz and Life. Create More Freedom, Happiness, and Success. Sheri is a business coach, consultant, mindset mastery expert, and personal development, expert. She is a best-selling author of transformational books and a near-death survivor. She is a noted radio show guest, keynote speaker, and workshop leader. Sheri uses a coaching approach that is action-oriented, intuitive, inspiring, and energy-boosting. She lives in beautiful Colorado and is married (for over 25 years) with three children, three step-children, and four grandchildren. Sheri loves inspiring happiness, family dinners, dancing, football, golf, wine, the beach, and the mountains. You can also listen to the podcast by saying “Alexa, play the Sheri Kaye Hoff Show” This podcast is syndicated globally including your favorite podcast player and is available on youtube
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