6 Ways to Train Your Brain to Be Happy
Happiness is a skill. How good are you?
It is possible to be happy for no reason.
And make happiness your baseline state.
It doesn’t have to be something you put off for then, later or a day that never comes.
The only thing holding you back from being happy now is your brain.
Once you realize this, you can change the way you feel each day and on a moment-to-moment basis.
By using your brain to work on itself.
And it’s easier to do than you think when you know how.
Each of these 6 ways will help and you can start today.
1) Break your goals into small chunks
Overwhelming tasks make people procrastinate and stir up anxiety.
We don’t accomplish tasks in one broad stroke, so it’s not helpful to think about them that way.
Instead, track your goals and divide them into small chunks.
Why?
These small chunks give you multiple opportunities for a dopamine rush—the brain’s motivation neurotransmitter.
It’s your brain’s ‘go-juice’
The more of it you get, the more motivated you feel.
Not only making your task seem more doable but making progress easier to maintain motivation for.
2) Celebrate small wins
With more motivation, you’ll get more done and more things will have the opportunity to succeed.
When they do, take every chance you have to celebrate them.
Each celebration tells your brain that what you’re doing is good for you, and to do more of it.
Your brain isn’t born knowing what is good for you—it learns.
And that learning doesn’t stop when you’re an adult.
Over time you can train your brain to enjoy things you dislike this way.
Imagine enjoying exercising.
Or meditating.
Or doing hard things.
What kind of extraordinary person could you become if you celebrated every small win?
3) Laugh more often.
Doing hard things means taking action in the face of fear.
And that’s not easy.
We fear the things we do for a reason.
Fighting against that fear can hurt, but it doesn't have to if you learn how to laugh at your fears.
You don’t laugh at them because they aren’t real, or shouldn’t be respected.
You laugh at them because laughter is the psychological release of fear.
A laugh is not just a laugh.
In the brain, what happens is endorphins are released, which are the brain’s painkillers.
You can recognize the feeling as the ‘runner’s high’ or the feeling you get after a workout.
We also get this feeling in a smaller way, when we laugh.
Because of this, laughter helps us bring awareness to our pain in a way we can endure, and even enjoy.
Consider how much easier things are for people who don’t take themselves too seriously, and who can laugh at themselves, and other people, and face hard things far easier because of it.
4) Feel proud
Many are taught that it’s wrong to be proud.
That it’s a sin, or something that ‘cometh before the fall.’
And pride is a slippery slope, but pride has another name in the brain: serotonin—the neurotransmitter of respect.
We get serotonin as a reward when people respect us.
It tells our brain, this behavior is good because if people respect me, I’ll have a place among them.
Much unhappiness comes from a lack of serotonin, or relying on others as your source of affirmation and respect.
But the truth is your brain produces serotonin based on perception.
Which means you’re perfectly capable of getting serotonin from yourself just by changing how you think.
Specifically, there is a benefit to being proud in yourself, your work, what you’ve done, and who you are.
And when you can, express that pride.
Without pride, you’ll seek that affirmation elsewhere, and that’s not always good—and if you’re not proud enough to promote what you do, no one will know what you’ve done.
5) Recognize your influence on others now.
Serotonin also happens in response to how much respect you are getting.
So, the more respect you get, from more people, the more serotonin you’ll get.
This can be highly motivating.
The inverse is also true, if you feel invisible to others then you definitely don’t feel respected—and that’s going to make it hard to get the serotonin you need.
Instead, recognize the positive influence you already have on others, which is greater than you give yourself credit for.
Just because you aren’t where you want to be in some areas of your life, doesn’t mean you don’t already make an impact on others in your life now.
At this moment, there are others respecting you behind your back.
So, don’t sell yourself short.
And...
6) Don’t pursue happiness as your goal.
The last tip is not to make happiness one of your goals.
Happiness is a state.
It’s a chemical compound coalescing in the brain.
It is triggered as a result of your intention, and perception.
Which is why the least happy person in the room is the one looking for it.
Viktor Frankl, legendary psychiatrist, and Auschwitz survivor once wrote,
“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”
Happiness, paradoxically cannot be achieved by pursuing it.
It’s a goal you can only attain when it is not your aim.
Instead, think of others.
Consider this:
Anxiety comes about when you are concerned with yourself in the future tense.
Depression comes when you are concerned about yourself in the past.
Happiness, success, and a number of many good things ensue when you spend more of your time thinking about others than yourself.
When you do that, you get the chemical cocktail in your brain called happiness more often.
Because you spend less of your time engaging with self-sabotaging patterns, and more time impacting others.
That also means those patterns get weaker the less they get used.
And you can build a new brain, one that enjoys happiness more often, and that helps you be a force for good for yourself and others.
These 6 tips will give you a powerful head start; if you do them consistently enough, you will build a better, happier brain.
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