How to: Be Happy?

Today marks the 50th blog post in Oh My Nour’s history so as a celebration I thought I’d talk about one of my recent life achievements; that is knowing how to be happy. I’ve mentioned before in a previous post that years ago I used to be sad, pessimistic and filled with hatred… until one day I popped out of that dull bubble. I think the endless number of RomCom movies I watched back then made me realize that I too want to live every day with a happy ending. So I made sure to learn how to make oneself happy:

1) Learn to Love Yourself

I believe that learning to love yourself is an essential step to accomplish the state of being happy. I mean, you need to love yourself so you can enjoy a moment while you’re comfortable in your own skin. Surely, there’ll be times when you hate the way you look or something you did but these times will pass and you’ll be back to loving yourself sooner than you think. I wrote a whole post about this months ago so give it a read here.

2) Notice the Little Things

The world is a much better place than we think it is if only we stopped for a second and looked around for its beauty. You’re probably going like “Such a cliché sentence” and you’re right but have you ever tried it yourself? Have you ever just stopped and looked around to notice the little things? Wherever you are in the world, you’ll always find something beautiful; it could be a face, a thing, a situation or even a moment. Even if you happen to be at a slum, you’ll find something worth looking at there; maybe it’s the beautiful details of an old door, or the giggles of children playing a street game. The beauty lies in the obvious things but you just need to pay attention to it. Once you do that, you too will be filled with beauty so you’ll easily enjoy life as we know it because you could now see how beautiful life is. Am I making sense?

3) Do what You Love

This is like stating the obvious but seriously, doing what you love is like the basic rule of how to make yourself happy. The trick here is to dedicate some time of your day to something you love doing. We all get caught up in our life that we forget to dedicate some time to ourselves; we tend to think that some me-time isn’t a priority while actually it is. For example, I’m a TV junkie; I love watching a number of tv-shows and daily YouTube videos. I literally set time in my daily schedule (because I’m such a perfectionist) to watch them, even during final exams and even if I’m so behind in studying. The shows help me disconnect from life – the responsibilities and the stress – and enjoy my own company at that moment. It’s like daily therapy to me. If you don’t set a time for yourself (daily), you’ll lose yourself to the non-stopping wheel of life and end up feeling shitty. So decide on things you love to do and make some time for them in your schedule.

4) Find Comfort in Sadness

This may sound like a weird suggestion on how to be happy; I get that reaction a lot when I tell people so. But trust me when I tell you this, finding comfort in sadness is like the golden secret of happiness (in my opinion). I am a true believer that sadness needs to be as present in your life as happiness is. I believe that for one to have a happy life, they should experience sad feelings as equal as happy feelings. For through sad feelings, you touch down with your core self and are more appreciative of your life. Most people avoid watching sad movies while I willingly do; they make me cry. Whether it’s silent crying, weeping or sobbing, the feelings really get to me and afterwards I feel like my soul has just been washed by dem feels. I feel as if I’ve just been refreshed and I’m ready to encounter the world with an open heart. Also, people avoid real life sad situations while I don’t; I like to take my time to grasp what happened, grieve and later get over it. It’s healthier to acknowledge the sadness so that it won’t pile up and you eventually feel shitty. So try to find comfort in sadness for the sake of feeling happiness afterwards.

5) Practice Gratitude

I feel like I’ve clearly talked about how important and effective it is for one to practice gratitude so I’m not going to go into much details. My first time to practice gratitude was when I challenged myself to journalize my day for a whole month. At the time when I did that I was going through some rough time, however when I reflected back on that month, each day had at least one thing I was grateful for. I realized then that my month wasn’t as bad as I thought, in fact, it was a good one. Practicing gratitude will help you notice the blessings in your day that you might normally miss just because you believe your day could have been better. You can start by buying The Book of Blessings from Frog Stationary where you can write one thing you’re thankful for every day for a whole year. You don’t have to write a paragraph, I usually just write one or two sentences. You’ll notice how grateful and happy you became when you reflect back on those days a year later.

So yeah, these are my 5 simple tips on how to be a happy person who enjoys life and their own company. I’m sure there are a lot of studies and books about it but these tips have helped me become the happiest I’ve ever been for 4 years now. But I’m sure everyone has his own theory of how to be happy, so give me an insight into yours in the comments below.