Gratitude = Happiness

Everybody wants to be happy. Some people believe they are happy. Some people would say they are chasing happy. Some would say they are not happy at all. Happiness can appear elusive. It means different things to different people. What may make one person happy would not work for another person.

There is good news! One strategy works well for everyone who puts their full focus on it. (What you focus on is what you get. So focus on what you want!)  Gratitude.

So simple. But maybe not so easy. Think of those hard days when you can't think of things to be grateful for. And even if you do, they don't seem as important as those things that are going wrong in your life at the moment.

However, if you focus and you stick with it, gratitude does indeed equal more happiness. Being able to see the positive in your life increases happiness. Being able to focus on the good in life increases happiness. Being able to do this despite having a bad day combats depression and anxiety AND increases happiness. (and resilience)

I had a difficult day yesterday. One of my children was sick unexpectedly and my day became filled with running out for medicine, doing laundry, cleaning carpets, and making sure no one else got sick. It was not a day of ease and at the time, I would have said there was no reason to be grateful.

But here I am, the day after, writing a post about Gratitude. I am grateful for medicines, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, friends who help, restaurants who deliver, and the physical capability and energy to do all that was necessary to take care of my child and family. This morning I found gratitude in sleeping in, kids playing, birds chirping, hot coffee, and a quiet moment.

Gratitude is like a short cut to happiness. When you are focused on all that is good in your life, you feel the joy in life. When you focus on the positive, it becomes more difficult to live in the negative. There will always be bad days. But we can't forget the good. That is when we lose that elusive happiness. We get stuck in the bad, the difficult, the negative. But learning to focus on what you are grateful for in your life can pull you out of that. It can show you the joy, the happy, the good in your life. Focus on that. Focus on your joy. Gratitude = happiness.