31 Jul How Flexible Thinking Leads to Greater Happiness
Happiness is different for all of us.
And happiness is even different for all of us on different days.
So, to enjoy happiness consistently, regardless of what’s going on, flexible thinking is key …
… via Psychology Today by Carla Shuman
KEY POINTS
- We often tie our happiness to getting things we want and achieving our goals.
- But many of life’s experiences are outside our ability to control.
- Changing how we think about our circumstances and being flexible when things don’t go the way we planned can help us be happier.
Source: Jacqueline Munguía/Unsplash
Maya Angelou said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” In my opinion, this is the key to finding happiness. If we treat happiness as a state of mind rather than something that exists outside ourselves, it is possible to be happier more often.
There are many reasons that we find ourselves feeling happy. Perhaps we’ve gotten what we wanted, whether it’s a relationship that is fulfilling or a goal that we’ve been working towards. Sometimes it’s because we have purchased something that we wanted or because we’ve been given a gift. Happiness makes us feel good and, perhaps even more importantly, brings us a sense of accomplishment.
Retaining happiness, however, is harder work. While getting things we want and achieving goals are sources of happiness, they are not always in our control. We do not always get what we want, and sometimes achieving our goals is much more difficult than we anticipated. These circumstances can result in stress and negative thinking, which directly impacts our level of happiness. It is also true that sometimes we get something we want, and we realize we don’t want it as much as we thought we did. So being happy is not as simple as it seems. The common denominator in all of these situations is the way that we think about what will make us happy and how our expectations of happiness shape our emotions.
For example, we think that moving to a big city will make us happy. There are a lot of opportunities, a lot of things to do, and more people to meet. Let’s say we succeed in moving to the city, and we learn that it is harder to find an apartment than we thought, and it’s harder to meet people than we anticipated. There are a few ways to respond to this, and the way that we choose to think about our situation will affect our degree of happiness. We can vent our frustrations and lament that we made a poor decision. We can pack up our belongings and move back to where we lived before. Or we can adjust our thinking to adapt to the circumstances in front of us and figure out a path forward.
This may seem difficult, so here are some ways to break down your thought process so that you can adapt to challenging situations and achieve the happiness you desire…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE