There are times when you as an individual search for happiness with others. This perpetual habit comes from the childhood up-bringing of associating the happiness — more and more with the other people. However, many a times this behavioural attitude leads to serious dissatisfaction, cases when others don’t understand, trust, and bitch about, despite being good to them.
This issue is sensitive, especially for a student where he/she meets hundreds of people on a daily basis. And, the chances that they get a rude behaviour back are potentially high too. So, the prophecy of self-happiness needs to be developed right from the childhood, because that’s the age where thinking patterns are easily formed.
So, let’s start our journey to discover on how to nurture self-happiness:
Happiness. How do you define it? When do you feel happy? Most psychologists often associate the term happiness with three other terms called pleasure, reward and motivation. It says, “A person feels happy when he/she enjoys pleasure, feels rewarded and gets motivated.”
While, most people attain all the three when they bring other people in equation, what’s real challenging is to nurture and attain all three elements within you – without associating and depending on anyone for your happiness.
For this, you need to know yourself –clearly. What are you? How do you like your life to be? What are your precise likes and dislikes? While, please note that this takes certain time to understand; it helps dissolve the self-doubts, thereby bringing transparency between you and your mind.
With this understanding, one can aim for what kind of pleasures he/she expects – be it money, fame, friends, house, gold or anything one likes. Once clear, the DNA and other cells of the body automatically start working to achieve the pleasures – because that’s what defines who you are.
As a second step, you could reward yourself with little fantasises you ever thought of. It may be that gorgeous ‘barbie-like’ gown or an adventure trip to Andaman! Reward yourself. Don’t get disappointed that someone else has not rewarded, as they might not understand the real value of what have you attained.
Thirdly, its turn to stay motivated by the reward you enjoyed. It’s in your hand to get motivated. A motivation given by others stays only for a while to disperse away like wind; however, a motivation born within you, stays longer.
This vicious cycle — to understand where your pleasure is, to reward on attaining the pleasure and to get back motivated — helps you to be happy by yourself. Happy by yourself – because happiness is what that you can exclusively design for yourself.