How to cultivate Happiness
Pursue Intrinsic Goals
Achieving goals that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, especially those centered on personal growth and community, can help boost happiness. According to research, pursuing these types of intrinsically motivated goals can lead to greater happiness than pursuing extrinsic goals such as gaining money or status.
Enjoy the moment
According to studies, people have a tendency to overlearn—they become so focused on accumulating things that they lose sight of actually enjoying what they are doing. Instead of mindlessly accumulating to the detriment of your own happiness, focus on practicing gratitude for what you have and enjoying the process as you go.
Reframe Negative Thoughts
When you are stuck in a pessimistic mindset or experiencing negativity, look for ways to reframe your thoughts in a more positive manner. People have a natural negativity bias, or a tendency to focus on negative events rather than positive ones. This can affect everything from how you make decisions to how you form opinions about other people. Negative thoughts can also be exacerbated by discounting the positive, a cognitive distortion in which people focus on the negative and ignore the positive.
Reframing these negative perceptions does not imply ignoring the negative. Instead, it entails attempting to take a more balanced, realistic view of events. It enables you to identify patterns in your thinking and challenge negative thoughts.