Happiness isn’t easy to find. We’re always looking to add meaning to the things we do in life, but a lot of times we look in the wrong places. It’s the simple things that have the power to provide us with the most happiness and the most meaning, but it’s easy to lose track of that in the quest for self-improvement. Intellectual ideals are important, but so are practical applications.
Feeling happy and adding meaning can be as simple as changing a couple things about your week; creating new habits that you can turn into weekly rituals that you couldn’t even think about skipping out on in the future.
Here are four weekly habits that could be the source of your newly found sense of purpose, and your ultimate happiness.
1. Get Off the Phone
This doesn’t mean you need to forgo having a phone, it just means give yourself one day a week where you don’t use it. If you need your phone for work, pick a Saturday or Sunday, whatever works for you. The point here is to spend time in the real world. Technology has a way of pulling us out of the moment, and it’s easy to miss things. Give yourself a day to catch it all.
2. Read More
One day a week, you should spend some time reading scholarly articles or informative books. It can be on any subject you wish, but make sure they have the chance to actually influence your life in a positive way. If you’re learning something new, then they have served their purpose. Learning new things isn’t reserved to students, we should be doing it as much as we can.
3. Write Down Your Worries
We have a tendency to sweat the little things in life, but we don’t really see how small they are until they’re in some tangible form. Writing them down on a piece of paper can help you see how little these problems or worries matter. The next time you feel a little worry in the back of your mind, right it down, you’ll see how little it actually is.
4. Think Fun Things
Very rarely is our entire day or week filled with things we don’t want to do. There are always plans in the making, people to see, stuff to do. If you’re having a tough week or day, pick out two fun things you plan to do when you have the free time. This will give you something to look forward to, and it will also help you move past the monotonous.
