The lectures focused on making students’ lives more meaningful and treating happiness not as an accident, but a science. The programme recognised that people will experience good and bad and that they should learn from both if they wanted to make the most of their life.
So what were the 7 steps to increased happiness? Will it work for us? See what you think.
1. Accept that we are human and that there’ll be good and bad in life. Something bad or painful is a natural emotion and doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with us. By allowing ourselves to experience painful emotions, we’re more likely to open ourselves to positive emotions.
2. Aim to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. If we’re doing something that we don’t like doing, we should ensure that we have a ‘happiness booster’. An hour of meaningful and pleasurable experience can affect the quality of our whole day.
3. Happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not our status or bank balance. If we recognise that statement, we’ll be happier. Like thinking of a glass half full, not half empty, we should use failures as a learning opportunity and not a catastrophe.
4. Simplify our lives. Quantity often influences quality and we compromise our happiness by trying to do too much. Saying ‘no’ to others may mean saying ‘yes’ to ourselves.
5. Looking after our body influences our mind. Regular exercise and healthy eating habits will lead to both physical and mental well-being.
6. Learn to appreciate the simple yet wonderful things in life and savour them; from people to food, from nature to a smile – any of these can give us greater satisfaction.
7. An indication of happiness is the time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. The most important source of happiness may be the person sitting next to you.
The above list, taken step by step, could help us feel inwardly happier and that will be demonstrated by a positive attitude recognised by those around us as contentment. We’ll look forward to the day ahead and embrace challenges in the same way that we relish success. How wonderful to smile at the world and see it smile back at us. Surely, that will make everyone happier!