#72: A Mindset to Be Happy With Yourself
Sometimes, we wish there were a "user's guide" to being happy with ourselves. It seems elusive. What makes us happy? And how can we be happier? You've been thinking about how to be happy. Or more specifically, how to be happy in life. Or maybe even how to be happy again. You may have felt it some time in the past, but where is it now?

First, let's get more concrete with this idea. What is happiness?

Happiness is a warm puppy.
As younger people, we might have said that happiness is what we experience when we get something or have an experience. For example, when we are with a warm puppy, this might prompt us to feel happier. The puppy is youthful. It brings promise of growth and a future. It is still a small creature, waiting to grow.

Or maybe we felt a rush of joy when a friend wanted to be with us. In both situations, we have something or someone outside of ourselves associated with this feeling of happiness.

Yet when we are older, we might feel this same happiness sitting alone in nature. Or, we may feel it when looking over photographs and thinking about memories of the past. While happiness has been studied and found to be interdependent on other people in our lives, the general feeling is within us. And this means that we have something to do with it.

In fact, there are some people who do not feel happiness around warm puppies. And while we might feel good sitting in a serene, natural place, someone else might feel afraid in that same setting. It isn't the external situation that determines our happiness. If happiness does not come from things or experiences alone, we might be able to instead describe it as a way of being. Happiness is the way to live, not the destination.

Do you know anyone who seems to perpetually experience a joy and zest in life? Its as if that person lives every moment perpetually happy. If happiness is a way of being, what does it take to live this way?

You already know how to be happy.
Intuitively, we each have some kind of inner compass. You might call this a conscience. Or, maybe you would call it your "inner wisdom." And many of us call it the Spirit. Regardless, there is some part of us that has a sense of what will bring an overall sense of well-being and satisfaction in life.

Researchers have taken happiness and redefined it as overall well-being or life satisfaction. And from the field of positive psychology, we can break it down into five parts summarized with the acronym "PERMA." Perma stands for positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments or achievements. And when we describe it in these ways, happiness is not so elusive or vague at all. In fact, it is a way of living we can create.
There is no secret about how to be happy in life.
If you've been thinking that someone out there has all of the answers about your happiness, you're looking in the wrong places. The idea that someone else knows the one big secret that will bring you personal happiness puts the control and responsibility for life in someone else's hands. Instead, you have within you the ability to identify what matters most to you, what strengthens you, and what enhances your positive well-being.

Because happiness is a way of being, rather than a goal to be achieved, you are capable of living in a manner of happiness...