Each season has its highs and its lows. When you find yourself in life’s highs, it’s easy to ride the waves and enjoy the time coasting, and that’s OK. But it’s important to realize that — even though it can be challenging — maintaining good habits during the less-than-ideal times can make the lows of life more manageable.
And it starts with how we view the world.
Perspective can change your world more than you’d think
Have you ever caught yourself thinking something negative?
Say that in the grocery store, a lady gives you a dirty look as you enter. It’s easy to think that she’s just a jerk or you may wonder what you did wrong. But in fact, she might have just had a long day and was thinking about something else entirely.
When we assume the worst in our world, the colors can fade away and all we see is black and white rather than a plethora of different shades and tones.
It’s an easy spiral to fall into.
But by keeping a more positive mindset, studies from Harvard University — published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society — have suggested that individuals from all backgrounds could live longer lives.
“Our findings suggest that there’s value to focusing on positive psychological factors, like optimism,” said lead author of the study. — Harvard doctoral student Hayami Koga
“Our findings suggest that there’s value to focusing on positive psychological factors, like optimism,” said Hayami Koga, a Harvard doctoral student and lead author of the study.
Instead of assuming the worst, try to see the good before the bad. That can be hard at first, but the first step is finding reasons to smile each day.
Find reasons to smile
Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital said that smiling has been proven to reduce stress by making the facial muscles relax and calming the nervous system.
Smiling releases endorphins because it’s a natural outward sign of being happy, which means you can even trick your body for an endorphin boost by faking a smile, per Walden University.
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy,” said Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist Vietnamese monk known as the “Father of Mindfulness.
It seems counterintuitive to smile before feeling happy, but it’s a good reminder that life is not all bad. More consistently looking for reasons to smile is a good mental wakeup call to remember the positive and good things that life brings.
It sets an intention for positivity that brings joy.
Life is in the details
We experience thousands of thoughts a day and even more physical experiences that ultimately make a bigger picture.
Think of every day as a pointillism art piece.
Pointillism is described as placing small dots of paint to mimic how light works, which when “viewed from afar, the result of this technique meant that the viewer’s mind and eye would be able to blur the dots together in order to create a detailed image,” Art in Context explains.
Each thought, interaction or event throughout the day is a dot on the canvas. Even if that canvas may depict car troubles, a sick child, or anything else that weighs down the day, in the end you have a masterpiece. You are the artist that has the power to paint your life the way you would like.
The power of choosing happiness
In the late 1800s, William Ernest Henley wrote, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
But is it possible to choose happiness?
Some therapists say yes.
Psychologist Marty Nemko wrote in Psychology Today about one of his patients who chose to be happy every day using a method called mass incrementalism — or simply making small, incremental choices throughout the day that would make them happy and focusing on the good that had happened at the end of the day.
The gist of the idea is that we can make the choices that bring us happiness. And the power to choose is definitely in our hands, making each of us the master of our own fate.
There’s power in our ability to choose to see and create the details in everyday life that brings happiness.
It’s a method I like to call “learn-as-you-go and grow.”