Let me ask you something. What does it mean to be successful? How do you define success? What does success look like?
These are questions that have some many different answers and it’s because success is and does look different for everyone. But one thing I have always thought was true about success is that it can bring you great happiness, even in the darkest of times.
All my life I have set goals, some that I have accomplished, some that I have abandoned, and some that I am still currently pursuing. All the goals that I have set and achieved thus far in my life have always been for one greater purpose, the sake of my success and happiness.
As I get closer to accomplishing one of my biggest goals, I’ve come to realize something very important. Success does not equal happiness, but rather when you are happy, success is likely to follow.
What? Mind blown, yes, I know! But it’s so true.
For years I’ve been chasing the idea of what it means to be successful. For me that looked a lot like being financially stable and independent, working a career that I loved and was passionate about, and believing that by achieving all of this I would undoubtably be happy.
However, this past year I’ve learned that this isn’t how happiness works.
Happiness brings about success in many different ways. One thing I have learned for certain is that you can’t chase success in hopes of finding happiness. You have to first be happy in order to gain success.
It took me years to finally understand this, but now that I know this, there are so many things that I’m doing differently in my life. I’m a happy person don’t get me wrong, and while I may not have achieved everything I want to in life, I do consider myself to be a success.
However, I also believe that there is no limit to how happy or successful someone can be. So here are my top 5 ways to increase your happiness so that you can be successful in life.
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Practice manifestation
Do you know what it means to manifest something? If not no worries it’s a rather new practice that a lot of people are getting into.
Manifestation or to manifest something is the act of calling forth things that you want for your life. So, you can manifest something like a promotion at work, meeting someone you’ve always wanted to meet, finding a way out of a hard situation, or even manifesting some of your biggest, wildest dreams.
Manifestation is essentially telling the universe what your deepest desires are, and you guessed it, it can also increase your happiness.
Since I’ve been manifesting, I’ve noticed a significant increase in my happiness.
I’m the type of person who always plans ahead, anticipation gets the best of me, and I literally operate on high anxiety (which is something that I’ve been working on decreasing on a daily basis).
So, having a manifestation session as part of my morning routine has helped me to not feel so anxious about the unknown, to not anticipate things, and to plan ahead weeks into the future only when necessary.
In doing so I’ve found that I have more time in my day to focus on the things that matter most to me. This includes my health, my business, my career goals, and most importantly time spent with my family. While manifesting is not the secret ingredient for happiness, it is a skill that can really help put your life into perspective for you.
You begin to realize areas in your life that you may need to pay more attention to, or areas where you may have been putting forth too much energy.
Manifestation is a great practice that can really help you notice a lot of the smaller details in your life that may or may not be working in your favor to being the happiest version of you.
Daily manifestation can also increase your happiness by helping you stay focused on all your goals. Chances are when you manifesting something it will be in relation to a goal that you plan to accomplish one day.
Simply put, manifesting is a reminder to be present in every moment, and that everything you do, and everything that happens to you, is all for a greater purpose.
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Let go of people who are no longer serving you
This is a huge one. I tend to be a people pleaser and while I’m not proud about it, I also recognize that this is just a part of what makes me who I am.
A big part of increasing my happiness has been letting go of people who no longer serve me. By this I mean letting go of people who only take and never give. People who make it hard for me to be around on a day to day basis, and people who I just don’t see eye to eye with (which is absolutely ok!).
I don’t think these people are bad or toxic people in my life, I have just come to realize that these people are not helping me move in the direction that I want my life to go in. While this may seem selfish, I want you to understand that it’s not.
It took me a really long time to understand the importance of having people in your life. Some people are meant to be there for a lifetime, others are only meant to be present for a season. Understanding the role and level of importance that people play in your life will greatly impact your happiness.
Seems super silly and a bit extreme I know, but our behavior and even our personality can shift and change from person to person. We don’t always treat everyone in our life the same, and this is because everyone in our life doesn’t call forth the greatest parts of us.
I love the quote by Tom Hardy where he states that not everyone gets the same version of him. He may be two different versions of himself to different people, and you should never assume that the version you don’t know isn’t a part of his character.
“Not everyone gets the same version of me. One person might tell you I have an amazing beautiful soul. Another might tell you I’m a cold-hearted asshole. Believe them both. I don’t treat people badly. I treat them accordingly.” -Tom Hardy
I think this is something that we all tend to do and just don’t want to admit it. This is because we have been taught that not being consistent in who we are with everyone we come in contact with is a negative thing. The reality is that it’s not.
It’s a good thing because as Tom Hardy so kindly pointed out, we tend to treat people accordingly based on the power and type of energy that they evoke from us. If you want to be happier why not create more space in your life for people who make you happy, and less space for those who don’t?
Seems like such a small act, but I promise it will have such a big impact on your life.
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Set meaningful goals
Goal setting is so important and I often think we don’t recognize the power they have in helping up live happy, meaningful lives.
I’ve always been a goal setting type of person. Setting goals helps us not only be reminded daily of the things that we are working towards, but it also gives us purpose in everything that we do.
For example, the main reason that I started this blog was to connect with people. I want to be able to help women fall in love with fitness that actually works, with engaging in self-care daily, and most importantly with falling in love with the person they see every day when they look into the mirror.
This goal has a lot of value and meaning to me because it ultimately represented a lot of important changes that I wanted to make in my life.
This is what goal setting can do for you. When you create goals that hold a significant amount of meaning to you, it changes the way you set out to achieve that goal. It creates a fire inside of you that really pushes you work towards that goal until its’ something that you have achieved.
I believe that this is because that goal is something that makes you happy. This doesn’t have to be a lifelong goal either. It can literally be something you can achieve within a month or two. The point is to create goals that hold meaning to you so that you never get bored with the life that you are living.
Our goals are like maps.
They ultimately create the trail for the journey we embark on in our lives. They have an end destination, but so long as we keep creating goals, it’ll be a while before we get there. Which only means that we’re allowing more time for us to experience life to the fullest, which will naturally make you a much happier person.
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Find something you are passionate about
I cannot stress this enough. A big part to being happy is filling your life with things that genuinely bring you joy. Have hobbies or activities that you are passionate about.
When we engage in activities that we are passionate about we aren’t trying so hard to fit in somewhere, or to do things that feel like the right thing to do. Instead, we are putting our interests and likes first and we are doing things that don’t feel forced in our lives.
This takes away a lot of stress and leaves plenty of room for you to just be happy. Plus, when you participate in more of your passions, you choose to be a part of a community that understands that side of you.
Remember how I told you to let go of people who were no longer serving you? This is one of those reasons why.
By removing them you have more room for people who you genuinely share a common interest with, and are more likely to bring out the best in you. You’ve created space to fill with people who will feed and fuel your soul in a happy and meaningful way.
Again, such a small act that will have a big impact on your life. It’s crazy how our passions relate to our level of happiness. The bottom line is that when you do more of wat you love you’re happier. You don’t feel as though you’re doing something for the sake of it, but instead that you’re doing something because you know it makes you feel good.
And wouldn’t want more of that in their life?
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Practice self-love everyday
Self-love, positive self-talk, self-care, it’s all the same thing.
If you really want to increase your happiness then you absolutely without a doubt have to learn how to love yourself more tenderly. We spend way too much time on a day to day basis nit picking at the tiniest of things that make us uniquely who we are.
This isn’t self-love or even just being aware of our flaws. What this is, is an open opportunity to negatively tear ourselves apart. And it does absolutely no good for anyone, especially you.
Instead, you need to adopt the habit of embracing your flaws and finding a way to use them to your advantage. When you stop spending so much time trying to change the things about you that you don’t like, you’ll find that you’ll be a much happier person.
This is because you will be putting more energy into things in your life that matter more. Like your career, your passions/hobbies, and your family.
When you don’t have anything negative to focus on all you have are positive things to focus. This works hand in hand with manifestation because positive thoughts, lead to positive actions, which ultimately lead to ideal results.
Or as I like to put it, the fruition of things you have been manifesting. And how can you not be happy when you’re crushing life by achieve all your goals?
Conclusion
Happiness at times can be a slippery slope. While there are a lot of things that we can do to increase our happiness, the reality is that sometimes there are going to be moments when we’re not happy. And that’s ok.
Happiness isn’t about being happy all the time. It’s more so about living your life in a way that you can be proud of. We spend too much time trying to measure up to others, or live our lives in ways that we think bring about the most happiness, when the reality is that happiness is what you make it.
If you tell the universe what you want, eventually it will give it to you. If you make space in your life for people who bring out the best in you, you will spend more time smiling and being happy. If you set goals that hold great meaning to you, you will create a life journey that in the end will be very fulfilling.
If you do more of what you’re passionate about, you will look forward to new adventures and challenges. If you practice self-love every day, you won’t have the time to focus on the negatives.
Such small acts that result in huge impacts. Happiness lead to success, I truly do believe that, and this is the perfect place to start.
How has your happiness helped you become successful?
-Xo
Kimora