How To Cultivate Happiness For Yourself

What is this elusive thing we call happiness and is there something we can do to create more of it in our lives? Assuming you’re not physically dead and have some remaining urge to survive and would like to see an improvement in your current condition there are things you can do.

Have you quit? No! Good. Here’s what to do now. Because you can’t do nothing or the same thing and expect something different. Because that would be insane. If you want more, you’ll need to do more. If you want something different, you’ll need to do something different.

Are you or have you ever found yourself feeling stuck, trapped, limited and with no motivation whatsoever? Are you unhappy? How do you flip that around?

Cultivate means to acquire or develop so if you’ve been trying to figure out how to cultivate happiness for yourself and in your life, here’s three things you can do right now.

STEP ONE: Identify and celebrate your wins!

Think of a time when you had ANY success. A moment where there was a victory. Even the smallest of wins will count here. Do you have it?

Write it down in a journal or notepad. Then…
Can you identify what the main obstacle was? (All victories require an obstacle.) And write that down too.
Identify the lessons you learned and
What you did right is worthy of repetition.
Lastly, find the things not worth repeating.
How do you feel when you win?

Nobody likes to lose. Winning feels good. How to win is not nor should it ever be a mystery. There is a way. Additionally, when other people win it means you can too. It does NOT mean there is less for you or for anyone else. The universe and this planet is abundant regardless of what the media and the politicians try to convince you of.

STEP TWO: Start and end your day with happiness

When you have a goal and you’re moving towards it, how do you feel? Do you feel on purpose? What kind of mood do you find yourself in when you are working towards something, on the move, creating and pursuing?

When you Google “happiness definition” you may find this from Britanica,

happiness, in psychology, is a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences either in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment, or more broadly, as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall—that is, subjective well-being.”

Guess what? That’s on you! Nobody else. “As a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall.” So whoever taught you winning isn’t everything may have been misinformed or was trying to justify their own lack.

Now that we have that handled, here’s the idea. One of the first things you should be doing in the morning, every morning is writing your goals and dreams down. Moving forward and towards the things you are creating in your life also creates happiness. You’re setting the tone for the day.

And one of the last things you should be doing at night is writing down your goals and your dreams. Look, your subconscious is going to be up all night anyway, might as well give it something to work on.

This ritual, because that really is what it is, was gifted to me by one of my mentors, Grant Cardone. He taught me this in 2003 but I didn’t start implementing it with any real sincerity until about 2007. My head was harder back then. However, the decision to implement this ritual into my daily life has helped to actualize so many things in my life that at one time I believed were not for me.

STEP THREE: Cut the crap

HARD QUESTION: What thoughts and behaviors do you have and do right now that reduces your happiness? If you would like to feel better (happy) about yourself, your relationships, community and your world then are the things you’re thinking and doing contributing to creating that better world, community, family, self or are they taking away from that?

Success and happiness needs space to flourish. So in your mind, let’s start there, what’s in there right now? Is it contributing to the creation of happiness or unhappiness? How much real estate is negativity and bad behavior occupying in your mind.

Maybe, just maybe in order to create we may also need to destroy.

Identify the thoughts and behaviors that you know are NOT contributing to your happiness and waste ‘em. Cut ‘em out, destroy them and then replace them with the thoughts and behaviors that YOU KNOW will contribute to the creation of success and happiness in your life.

Keep in mind, this is ridiculous and irritatingly simple. That’s the good news. The bad news and the opportunity here is that this part will most likely not be easy. Many of us, myself included, have confused simple with easy. They are not one in the same.

So cut the crap that’s holding you back. Cut the crap that you’re allowing to hold you back because once you acknowledge it’s real and holding you back anytime, you entertain the thought or perform the behavior, it is no longer hidden from view or compulsive, it’s a conscious choice.

How to Cultivate Happiness

How do you cultivate happiness?

Celebrate your wins. All of them. Then use them all to build momentum and win more and win bigger
Write your goals down at least twice a day.
Cut the crap.

NEXT STEPS: Which one are you going to do more of now? When do you plan on starting the implementation of these three steps? How about right the eff now? Because once you have a method to go with your madness, waiting and stalling will never ever help. Tomorrow is always tomorrow. Today is only now and the only now we have. So take a moment right now to celebrate a win… Write your goals and dreams down right now, then do it again before you go to sleep and again when you wake up. Start that now. And isolate one thing you’re cutting out right now. Trust me, if you know what it is, you don’t need it and you’ll survive, for the better, without it.