Do you know what makes you happy?

When will you be happy?

Think about it….

Maybe you’d come up with something like – when I get a nice job, when my boyfriend stops fighting with me, when my book gets published, when…..

Okay.

Can you be happy right now?

Umm… Idk maybe…

What can make you happy right now?

A pizza!

Hahaha… I know you were thinking something similar….

Or maybe a dog

Or maybe cat

Or maybe your best friend

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Yesterday I talked to my friend and she said there is so much trouble going on right now…

I’d be so happy if this all just ends..

And I thought about it…

Do good things really happen when bad things stop happening?

She was right at her place… When everything around you sucks hurts, you might feel like things will be much better and you would be happier without all this

But are you really happy when bad things stop happening?

No!

You won’t have a pizza if you are not eating vegetables

You might have something else!

What I mean is, we focus too much to making the bad stuff around us go away….

We try to make things right

And that’s okay!

Completely okay

But we’re under illusion that this will make us happy

We might feel relief… That okay… Thankfully this is over

But are you really happy?

Nope!

You need some different activities to make you smile…

As Martin Seligman once said that his patients came to him saying ‘I just want to be happy’ what he translated was that ‘you don’t want to feel distressed’ and then after working on the patients anxiety or depression issues, he thought he will get a happy patient… But he didn’t. he got an ’empty patient’. That’s when he said you cannot have mental health and wellbeing just by eliminating depression and mental illness, you need different activities to build wellbeing.

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Just because it isn’t raining doesn’t mean there is sunshine

You can work on this…

Think about what really makes you happy and do more of that in your daily life

Take a little break from fixing everything n just be… Create your happiness…

Especially during these challenging times… That’s what you need to do the most 🌼💖🌻

But maybe being happy is not your priority right now… Maybe it’s caring for your friend or family member who is struggling. And that is okay, you can take some time to recharge yourself by listening to your favourite song, reading a paragraph from your favourite book or talking with your sister, just do it. Take a little time for yourself too, that way you have more to give others… When your cup is full, then you can fill others💗💕

What’s the best way to respond to good news?

Let’s say your girlfriend tells you that she has been promoted at work.

How would you respond to it?

Will you say –

A. That’s good. Congrats!

B. But now you will have to work extra hours, have you thought about how to manage everything?

C. What’s for dinner?

D. Wow! That’s amazing! Congratulations!! Did your boss like the project you made a week ago? Tell me more about it. Let’s celebrate!

Okay so if you are being honest, maybe you’ll say something from A B and C.

The D option is mostly used by girls and their best friends! Am I right ladies?

(When you tell your girl that you’re promoted or something she’s gonna get really excited and insist you to tell the whole story – what happened, how you felt, everything! And then maybe you’ll end up celebrating all night)

Okay I don’t want to be biased here. But in my experience I haven’t received such type of response from my boyfriend or the boys friends that I have. But girls?! Oh the girls! They always say something like that.

You’re still not getting why am I talking about this are you?

Imagine you are telling your best friend or family member or your cousin about your promotion at work.

Which of the above reaction would you like them to give?

How will you feel when they say “good. congrats!”?

Maybe okay. Not so good.

How will you feel when they tell you about the new challenges or problems you might be facing?

That’s such a turnoff. You were so excited and now it’s ruined. Maybe you won’t feel like sharing good news with this person again (unless of course they play a major role in your life). But still a major turnoff.

How will you feel when they ignore what you are saying completely and talk about something else?

Ouch. Who does that? Definitely not telling you next time.

And how would you feel if they get all hyped up and enhance your mood, encourage you to relive the experience and tell them about it. When you see that spark in their eyes that they are really interested and genuinely happy for you, that will make your day.

No doubt. That’s the best response anyone can give. (I am telling you everything from now on. You’re my best friend! 😉 )

Okay so why am I talking so much about how to respond? Why does it matter so much?

It does.

Take a look at this research –

The work of Shelly Gable, a psychologist at the University of California–Los Angeles, has shown that how we respond to positive events, such as a person sharing his or her accomplishments with us, is a better predictor of relationship success than how we respond to negative events

She has shown 4 ways we respond to accomplishments –

A. That’s good. Congrats!

This is passive constructive response.

B. But now you will have to work extra hours, have you thought about how to manage everything?

This is active destructive response.

C. What’s for dinner?

This is passive destructive response.

D. Wow! That’s amazing! Congratulations!! Did your boss like the project you made a week ago? Tell me more about it. Let’s celebrate!

This active constructive response. (ACR)

ACR creates what Fredrickson and Joiner call “upward spirals” of positive emotions—extending the sharer’s enjoyment beyond the discovery or event itself, and building positive capacity so that the relationship will be better able to weather negative events.

– From the book – Joy of leadership (by Tal Ben Shahar and Angus Ridgway)

So research has found that how you respond to good news of eachother strengthens the relationship. And ACR, active constructive response is the best one to give.

Try next time giving such ACR feedback to your friends, colleagues or even family member’s good news.

Have you noticed this before?

That if someone responds to your good news with the same excitement and enthusiasm and is eager to listen and celebrate with you, you feel closer to that person emotionally.

I have definitely felt so before. (That’s the reason I adore my friends so much…)

But anyway,

Tell me about your experience. Will you try this? Lemme know what you think about it.

Other people

Think of a time you were happiest.

Maybe when your crush said yes to you, maybe when you won something you’ve worked hard for and celebrated with your friends and family, maybe on your family trip to Kulu-Manali last year…….

Did you notice one common factor in all these incidents? You were surrounded by people. Your loved ones. People who care for you, people who matter to you. Winning maybe not the ultimate joy or something really memorable, but sharing that win with your family and friends is really something that touches your heart.

Do you remember the last time you brought the cool watch, latest mobile phone, brand new car?

Maybe it failed to make you happy in the long run and you still rate this happiness after rating happy moments with your family and friends.

Remember the last time you did something good for someone.. how did it feel?

I know it must’ve felt awesome!

Researchers did a small study to test this. They made two groups of participants.

They gave 20$ to each participant and for one group they told to spend the money on themselves. To other group they told to spend money on doing something good for others. Maybe giving treat to a friend or buying something nice for your younger sibling.

The second group reported more happiness and satisfaction as compared to first group. Spending money on others does make you happier.

Maybe that’s the reason rich people tend to donate so much amount in charity. It helps others as well as makes them happy too.

Scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we’ve tested.- Martin Seligman

You see… People matter. Making them happy matters. Cultivating good positive relationships matters. That’s the only factor that would make us happier in the long run.

And not just for happiness. Even when you are at your lowest, what helped you heal?

Maybe your partner, your parents, your siblings or maybe you wanted to get better and improve just for these people. These people who mean the world to you.

We should try to stop being mean and ridiculing others just so we could justify ourselves. Stop pulling people down just because it makes you feel better about yourselves. Even if it does for a while, it’s shallow.

Real happiness lies being with people you love and having good quality relationships in your life.

Things to understand

It’s true. When there are so many unhappy people around us, so many disasters going around.. you might feel guilty for being happy.

Tbh these days when I study positive psychology and it includes concepts of happiness and wellbeing I feel weird. Like why am I doing this? I’m not even in the mood of thinking about wellbeing when I’m seeing problems all around me.

But then I realised, positive psychology is not just about feeling happy emotions all the time.

When you are feeling low, you’re facing real problems and feeling like you are stuck in dark cave of hopelessness, positive psychology helps you accept your situation, believe that you can get out of this and helps you actually deal with the situation in a helpful way.

That made me get back to studies. Plus, it also encouraged me to apply all the interventions that I’m learning about in my daily life and benefit from that.

When you feel low, you don’t really want to do anything. Your attention is focused at one particular negative thing and you simply ignore everything positive that’s around you.

When we feel negative emotions our immediate response is fight or flight. We narrow down our focus. For human beings to survive this is necessary.

But at the same time there are benefits of feeling positive emotions.

When you feel better not only you take other things into consideration, you are more likely to contribute to others happiness.

We all know that we can’t give what we don’t have. What about happiness then?How could you make others happy when you are feeling low?

Again there’s nothing wrong with feeling low. I understand. These are tough times. We all are going through a lot. It’s okay to feel sadness, anger, grief. It’s completely natural. It’s human.

Take your time. Recharge. Refill yourself with love and care.

But remember you are not hurting anyone by being happy. In fact, research has proven this – you are much more likely to contribute to others happiness when you yourself are happy and grateful.

Take care guys!❤️

Why is positive psychology important for you?

For many years psychologists were interested in abnormal behaviour and mental disorders. That’s why today for many people psychology seems to be equivalent to Abnormal Psychology.
But the field of psychology is much vast than this.

Psychologists now are interested in what consists in a “good life”? What makes our life meaningful? How can we achieve wellbeing? What makes us happy?

This gave birth to positive psychology in 1998.
Now the word “positive” doesn’t mean that this is the only branch of psychology that is important and others are insignificant or “negative”

Actually, positive psychology and abnormal psychology both work hand in hand to make human life better.

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How’d your life be without any doctors in town? Just your friends and family to make you happy.. will you really be happy? What if you get some illness? You need doctors for that.

In the same way Abnormal Psychology helps us by treating mental illness. And positive psychology helps us to enhance our happiness.
Both are necessary for overall well-being of mankind.
One helps us by reducing mental illness and other helps us by strengthening mental health.

Do you sometimes feel like you’re not really happy with your life? There’s nothing really bad happening to you.. but still, you don’t feel like you’re not living your life to the fullest.

The absence of negative doesn’t mean the presence of positive. That’s where positive psychology comes in. It helps you live a balanced and happy life. It deals with questions like – what makes you happy? What leads to wellbeing? What are the characteristics of happy couples? How can you be successful and happy? How can you enhance positive emotions in your life?
It deals with concepts like – gratitude, compassion, kindness, altruism, happiness, wellbeing, mindfulness, resilience, hope, savouring, grit, etc.

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We understand that talking rudely with someone constantly will damage our relationship with the other person. Does this mean that simply not talking rudely with someone will strengthen our relationship with other person?

Good behaviours are not simply the opposite of bad behaviours.
To strengthen your relationship with someone you might need to appreciate that person, spend quality time together, be kind to one another and make eachother laugh.

Sometimes people wonder what does their relationship lack when there are not really any conflicts happening. Most of the times it’s the absence of positive behaviours which strengthen the relationship.

That’s how positive psychology helps you. And this is why you need to understand what behaviours you need to practice for a happy and meaningful life.