2 Tips to Being Happier

February’s always been a month to me that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. This isn’t just my POV I know/am sure since it’s only 4 weeks. But it also got me to thinking about the importance of prioritizing my time and spending it doing things I actually want to be doing. 

I’ve been thinking about some things that I have been striving to do more consciously recently that everyone really can. Since being happy is really what we all want I thought I’d share. It’s just two because well, that’s sort of all you need.

2 Ways to Be Happier:

1. Spend your time in ways that make you happy

I’ll just go ahead and give an example from the part of my life that offers the most mystery/intrigue (ha) and that some readers might find the most interesting: dating. 

For those who don’t know me or know me well, I’m the queen of ending things with guys I’m not into extremely quickly. (Sorry to any fellas who have experienced this and read my blog, but trust me, I’ve done a favor for you because I really can’t lie which creates the tendency for me to hurt people’s feelings so really this is just for the best) 

Anyway, like any good girlfriends, mine often encourage me to “give him a chance!” and “just see what happens!” And while I totally believe in and strive to live my life under Coach Taylor’s mantra, "clear eye, full hearts, can’t lose” but I also believe in not spending more time than you need to doing things you don’t like. Wow, that was a bit of a run-on sentence and a lot of ideas. But it is Monday and the fact of the matter is if I’d rather catch up on DVRed TV than go on another date with a guy who I am simply not feeling why should I rush home from work, skip a day at the gym, and put on makeup? Waste of my time and waste of his money if you ask me. Okay, that’s harsh, it’s likely not a complete waste of my time but it’s the wrong way to spend my time.

Bottom line: spend your time in ways that make you feel fulfilled and happy and content versus things that don’t. Which brings me to number two...

2. Stop things that don’t make you happy 

I could simply give the reverse example from above and say that these guys were not making me happy so I stopped seeing them. But that’s no fun and also not the best example since I’m not going to stop dating altogether. 

So what’s something that didn’t make me happy that I consciously walked away from?  Hot yoga. 

I hate it. Seriously, and I don’t hate much. But 90 minutes of sweating so much that I feel like I’m dying only to lose water weight and feel as if I didn’t even complete any exercise just isn’t for me. I have friends who love it. They should keep doing it. But 2 years ago I did something pretty out of character: I let the remaining 4 classes of a 10 class pass (don’t worry, I brought it via Groupon) expire without even using them. It was worth it to me to lose whatever money I was losing rather than go to those last 4 classes. This is your classic cost/benefit analysis. 

See it’s super easy to be happy! Want a recap? Do more of what makes you happy and do less of what doesn’t. Happy Monday you happy people!