Tag: #happy

What will make you happier in 2022?

Happiness is a state of mind, not a trait, and therefore not a permanent feature.  According to some experts 10-50% of our happiness comes down to genetics, the rest is up to us.  But just like learning an instrument, or learning to ring bells, we can learn to be happier.

If you’re a regular to my blog you’ll know I occasionally get sucked in by those ten question quizzes that are supposed to be able to define you and then offer you a way of self-development.  Sometimes they are fairly accurate, others way off, and sometimes I find it hard to accurately respond to the multiple choice answers as none of them really fit, so end up picking the best of the bunch, even though it may not reflect my feelings at all.

In such a quiz in February’s Woman & Home magazine, the questions are reduced to just seven in their quiz to determine how to make 2022 the best year yet.  Out of those seven questions four of them didn’t really have answers that were accurate for me, and even the second best option wasn’t that close.  However, the results were still fairly accurate:

“Work on – being more confident.  You’re kind and generous, but be careful not to give all your energy to other people.  Your fear of making mistakes may be holding you back.

Try the “one for me” rule – when you give someone a compliment, mentally give one to yourself.

Remember to practice failure – the only way you’ll learn is to try, fail and try again. Practise failing in situations where it doesn’t really matter. You’ll normalise failure as a part of life”.

To some point I agree. I don’t think it’s my fear of making mistakes that holds me back.  Everyone makes mistakes and that’s now we learn.  For me its more a fear of being discovered as an imposter, not knowing what I’m talking about, being somewhere I shouldn’t. 

I have noticed more recently, where I’ve held back from saying what I really want to say because it won’t make matters any easier, or not wanting to add fuel to the fire, I have noticed where not to say something doesn’t add any value, I have acknowledged that to myself.  A sort of compliment for not making things worse.

As I said, failing at something is how we learn.  We won’t get everything right every time, we’re only human.  There will be times where I say something I shouldn’t, or do or not to something, whether it’s at work, #bellringing or in my home and social life.  The important part is that I learn from that mistake and try not to do it again, and where necessary make an appropriate apology if it caused distress or problems for others.

I’m not entirely sure how I am supposed to translate this result into actions that will make me any happier.

The pursuit of happiness

Every time I hear that phrase I think of the film The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. It’s about a young man who loses everything, his wife, his home and almost his son, but through tenacity and determination teaches himself how to make huge money investment sales and went on to make his millions. It’s the real life story of Chris Gardner who is now reputed to be worth around £50million.

The story shows that how we interpret happiness can directly affect our experience of it and how we strive to achieve it.

In October’s Psychologies Magazine an article discussed how our sense of happiness was influenced by who and what we surround ourselves with, including what we read, listen to and watch.

There is a certain pressure to attain a certain level of happiness which can have damaging effects. Other people’s views of what should make us happy doesn’t necessarily mean our sense of happiness is wrong though. We might be trying impose other’s happiness on ourselves as a way of avoiding our own feelings. Someone else’s view might provide the opportunity to challenge our own thoughts.

People often say to me that I must enjoy #bellringing and doing that makes me happy. Yes and no. I have become so accustomed to a way of life that revolves around #bellringing that I often don’t enjoy it. That’s not to say I hate it, its just become “the thing I do”. It makes me happy when I master a new method. It makes me happy to see someone else have that moment of clarity and they now understand or can do something they couldn’t before. It makes me happy when large groups of ringers get together and there’s an excitement and energy in the room. I’m not necessarily happy (but not unhappy either) about Sunday ringing every week, or practice every week. Particularly when the striking isn’t so good. These are just things I do. Like getting out of bed in the morning.

In exploring our authentic happiness, the article offered five questions (although most of them had multiple sub questions) to ponder:

  1. Write down what you define as happiness for you. Where do you feel happy? Who with? Doing what?
  2. Where does your sense of happiness come from? What influenced your happiness growing up?
  3. Who influences your happiness? Family, friends, colleagues, partner? Do you chose to be around them because they make you happy or are you around them because you are happy?
  4. What other factors influence your happiness? Do you find yourself comparing your life to someone else’s?
  5. Are you in touch with yourself? If you’re out of touch with your thoughts and feelings, you’ll be out of touch with your happiness.

What can we do to ensure a better relationship with our happiness?

I will be ensuring I do more things that make me happy and fewer things that please other people, or out of some sense of obligation. I’ve still got some birthday experience vouchers to use and now things are opening up again I’ll be getting dates booked in before the diary is taken over by #bellringing!

What will you do to connect to your happiness?