A wonderful way to improve happiness involves periodically performing an inventory your life and taking actions to fill more of your life with the positive aspects and less with the negative aspects over time. Even if you focus solely on one side of the continuum – moving towards the positive or filling less of your life with the negative – you will experience greater happiness. But the combined effect will greatly accelerate your progress in these regards.
And just how might one go about doing this? Well, one thing you can do is consider multiple aspects – when conducting an inventory of your life – to include activities you engage in, the work you perform, your financial situation, the people in your life, the information and media content you tend to surround yourself with and expose yourself to, your living situation, the goals you are presently pursuing (and any new ones you are considering), that which consumes your life more than you would like, any new experiences you are considering, and any personal issues which repeatedly create substantial unhappiness or negativity for you such as recurring stress, depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, and temptations, addictions, and compulsions. When performing this inventory, list each of the items you come up with and score each of them using a scale such as the following:
+2: Highly Positive
+1: Moderately Positive
0: Neutral or Slightly Positive/Negative
-1: Moderately Negative
-2: Highly Negative
Once you do this you will have a pretty good idea of which aspects in your life tend to affect you in a positive way and which tend to do the opposite. Becoming mindful of these aspects is helpful because awareness is the first step to change. Upon gaining this awareness, you would next ask yourself what steps you can take to move in a more positive direction.
Potential ways to address negative aspects generally fall into two primary categories: (1) those which involve creating distance or limiting participation (to include perhaps even removing oneself completely where possible or feasible), and (2) those which involve taking steps to work through or making significant changes. For those which fall into category 2 – which might include current life challenges, work, and recurring personal issues (stress, depression, anxiety, etc.) – you would consider actions to take to address these such as reading books on the topic(s), getting professional assistance, going to a support group or workshop, talking with others who have gone through similar experiences, and investigating/employing various other potential resources and sources of support.
Regarding the positive aspects of your life, you would simply take actions to move towards, or increase your participation in, these positive aspects.
Start with addressing the highly negative and highly positive aspects first and then move on to addressing the moderately negative and moderately positive aspects. Within each of these categories, develop and execute plans for addressing these – perhaps starting with the easiest items first and then moving on to the more difficult ones to build confidence and momentum.
As you progress towards filling more of your life with the positive and less with the negative, you will begin to clear the “clutter” from your life and become increasingly happier. Once you’ve made significant progress in these regards start over and repeat these steps. Some people like to perform this process on an annual basis, perhaps the week leading to New Year’s or the week leading to their birthday, while others prefer to do this more frequently. Just do what works for you or those you are offering assistance to.
Every time you inventory your life and work towards improvement in these regards you will move in a positive direction, your life will get better, and you will feel increasingly happier. So don’t delay. Start today.
This and other happiness and self-improvement related tips are provided throughout my self-help oriented books: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/published-books-and-life-coaching-services/
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