Only 10% of Your Happiness is Determined by Your Happiness

Wednesday, August 16, 2017 / Blog, Chronic Illness, Motivation To Change

How happy are you today?  Does your degree of happiness depend on your external circumstances?  Do you spend your life on a roller coaster of emotions because you allow the external experiences of your life to determine your attitude?  Does your child’s attitude and degree of happiness mirror yours?

Henry Cloud has just written a book entitled “The Laws of Happiness”.  He quotes research that states that only 10% of of happiness comes from our life experiences.  He goes on to explain that another 10% of our happiness is connected to our genetic make up and the remaining 80% is determined by how we live our life.  The research of people who feel consistently happy has determined that this feeling comes from a set of life practices that they deliberately include in their day.  Happy people live differently than unhappy people.  Read the list below and see how many of these habits make up a regular part of your life.  Consider, also, how many of these choices and behaviours you model for your child and incorporate in your family life.  Children learn from what they see and not what we tell them.  What if you modeled a sense of hope and happiness for your child, despite your circumstances and helped them learn to do the same?  Whether it is dealing with a disappointment when they don’t make the team or helping them embrace a new diet so their health will be improve, finding the positive side of the story will help build strength and resilience they will carry with them into adulthood.

Happy people:

1. Are givers
2. Are not lazy about pursing happiness
3. Don’t wait to be happy someday – they actively pursue it today
4. Actively identify and pursue goals
5. Are fully engaged with people and their life and are not just coasting and feeling distracted
6. Develop close and supportive connections with others
7. Don’t compare themselves with others
8. Think well and keep their thoughts focused on positive, life giving topics
9. Have an attitude of gratitude, no matter what their circumstance
10. Have healthy boundaries in the relationships of their life
11. Forgive
12. Have a dream and a calling that they actively pursuing
13. Have a  faith that helps them make meaning of the things they can’t understand.

The Laws of Happiness book is available on Amazon. com For more great resources on the many topics on relationships and faith written by Dr. Cloud, check out his website at http://www.cloudtownsend.com/