Success without happiness has no meaning. It is not what happens to us in life that determines our happiness so much as the way we react to what happens. People are as happy as they have made up their mind to be as happiness can only be found within. Happiness is not defined by obtaining everything you want, but by enjoying and appreciating everything you have. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are all in harmony. We should take responsibility for our own happiness by choosing to concentrate on what we have got rather than focusing on what we haven’t.

 Useful Tips for Happiness:

1. Honor your past and accept yourself: Every second you dwell on the past, you are stealing that second from your future. Don’t worry about things you can’t change.
2. Focus on experience rather than on the Reward. Look for the higher meaning of your work. The reward for thing well done is the sense of satisfaction. By concentrating on the value/contribution your work creates, you can enhance your motivation and sense of joy in life.
3. Practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is an act of self love and opens the doors of personal satisfaction. Doctor says ‘health is not what you eat but what is eating you up’
4. Laugh more frequently. It works like medicine. A child laughs 300 times/ day while an adult hardly laughs 15 times. Don’t postpone enjoying with your children/ family till you get that dream job or next promotion.
5. Keep adding joy to the lives of those around you.  It may be a friend, parent, acquaintance, neighbor or a coworker. Become a volunteer to help others. Mahatma Gandhi has said ‘Help those who cannot help themselves and your self esteem will go up’
6. Keep good surroundings and positive environment. Be careful of people you associate, books you read, words you speak. Don’t feed your mind with negative news. Life gives you what you expect from it. Like an optimist start your day with positive ideas/ expectations.
7. Get a Coach/ Mentor. Create a Network for learning and meet regularly, seek advice and discuss challenges. Find the habits, disciplines and strategies of achievers and adopt the best to obtain results for you. Learning helps us to choose wisely and courageously.
8. Increase Your Value and develop your talents. Acquire skills that no one has, read books no one else is reading, think thoughts no one else is thinking
9. You are the creator of your own Moods – Keep your cool. Use meditation to restore that inner peace and tranquility to make you happy and more productive. You can change your moods by focusing on positive, inspiring and enlightening thoughts.
10. Appreciate others and recognize their contributions. Every achievement is the result of help from many. Write thank you notes. If you recognize them, they will support you in future as well.
11. Be Humble.  High Achievers are the people closest to ground. More you are a person less you need to prove to others. Be simple
12. Be an Adventurer. Reinvent your life by making list of pursuits that will bring a greater sense of passion/ energy to your routine. Youth is a state of mind and hope keeps you alive.

Many people live life as if someday they will arrive at happiness like one arrives at bus stop.  As a child we were happy as we mostly lived in present.  When we grow, we allow the past problems and future concerns to crowd our present making our life miserable. We also learn to postpone our happiness by developing a notion that sometimes in the future everything will be much better than now. School student think that ‘I will be happy when I will be in college as I will be free to do what I want’.  When he goes to college he says ‘I will be happy when I will get my first job’. When he gets a job he again postpones his happiness saying ‘I will be happy when I will get that higher position’ and he postpones his happiness again. He keeps postponing happiness till he has a good house, and then till his children gets good education and so on till he retires and finally drops dead, he hardly enjoyed the present. So do not put off being happy for future, if you have postponed spending time with people who mean the most to you, then you are missing your happiness. Corona Pandemic might have taught to many of us the importance of living in present moment.

Happiness Formula:

Happiness is a factor of two aspects. One is level of achievement which is direct proportionate and the other is your attachment to expectations of an outcome of your efforts which is disproportionate to happiness

H (Happiness)   ₌   A (Achievement) / E (Expectations)

So if you want to be happy do the best to achieve what you want but at the same time do not be attached with expectations of results. Do your best by focussing on efforts and then accept whatever result comes. It does not mean that you should not improve. You should surely keep improving as it is part of the achievement, but don’t miss on your happiness. It explains why some people might have achieved big materialist gains, but never got happy because their expectations were irrational. On the other hand, you may find people who may not have achieved so high but still were extremely happy. The concept of ‘Detached Involvement” explained in Indian Scripture says you are involved deeply in the efforts to achieve excellence but are not worried in the process about what you will get and in this process, the efforts get even more focussed with better results as you operate on your Peak Performance without being stressed.