How To Have Best Days Ever – Again and Again

One thing that amazes me lately is how happy most of the children are. Perhaps a combination of being excited and curious about each day’s adventures, something allows our kids to be happy without much of an apparent effort. Playful attitude and readiness to bend rules make a lot of things much easier than they appear to be.

I’m always inspired by my 6-year old daughter, she finds challenge and fun in almost anything she comes across and this means she’s always excited  and focused, always expecting a surprise or a game to be the result of any situation. My daughter seems to have a lot of fun quite regularly, and one of her most favorite sayings is: “this is the best day ever!”. I hear this at least once a week as an indication that some ice-cream tasted nice or a day at school was fun or a road trip turned out to be an amazing adventure. My daughter is not saying this to pretend it’s been a great day. She certainly isn’t making her days seem better just to impress someone. She simply finds happiness in every small positive thing coming her way, and she knows how to enjoy every bright moment she’s given.

When I inevitably compare my daughter’s attitude to my own behavior, I can’t help but ask: what is so different between us that I sometimes have whole weeks go by without noticing a single great day? Being part of the same family, we are spending most of the weekends together yet I can easily miss a great day even though I was there with her at the time. The scary rumor has it that many adults are even less lucky than me: they sometimes have whole months, years or even lifetimes (ouch!) without a single great day. Can you imagine that? Spend years and years without having a reason to be happy?

Why do you think we adults are so different from kids? Like with so many other things, the difference is in our individual attitudes to everyday circumstances. The explanation is actually quite simple: you get what you expect.

The more fun you expect of the day, the better the chance of you spending the time with joy and purpose. Similarly, the more dreadful the next working day is in your expectations, the worse it’s going to turn out to be. Guess what, you are partly responsible: the more you think of a situation in a certain way, the more likely it is to develop that way.

Every day something bad happens. Every day something good happens. What you pay attention to is entirely your choice. I’m no saying you have to ignore negative emotions or disregard any worry in your day-to-day experiences. I’m simply suggesting that you focus on the good stuff instead, focus on it as much as you possibly can.

How would you focus exactly? You have to train yourself to recognize the positive side in every situation. You have to get into the habit of expecting a better outcome of every event. You must learn to embrace every positive change with gratitude.

In my own experience, following all of the suggested advice really means one thing: stay alert. Stay alert for the good stuff, and you’ll be surprised how lucky and happy a person you can be.

No matter what your circumstances are, there is always something you can consider a positive thing, something to smile and laugh about – you just have to stop for a moment to notice.

Here are my tips for having best days ever, again and again:

• Appreciate your victories – if you don’t have a habit of appreciating your small victories and joyful moments, I strongly advise you to pick this habit up as soon as you can.
• Take the time to recognize your success – If you’re working hard on some project towards a tight deadline – take the time to recognize all the effort when you’re done.
• Help others notice they’re winning – Drop your  colleagues a quite note to thank them for helping you, they’ll appreciate you even noticed that they participated.
• Celebrate special moments – Write yourself a memo to bring home a bottle of wine and celebrate a milestone with your family – however small of an achievement it may seem.
• Anticipate the reward – Anticipate the joy and the reward upon achieving your next goal
• Turn everyday things into special ones – most of the above tips will help you stay focused on the good things in your life. But if your situation is so unique that you fail to see anything good, it’s time to change your direction. Instead of staying alert for the good stuff, start taking every opportunity to make things better – first for others, then for yourself. If no moment seems special enough – think of the next best thing and pronounce it special enough to warrant a celebration. It’s not like you have to qualify, you know? The moment you agree that something is positive, it will get this much better to you and to others.

Think I’ve inspired you enough? Give it a go and stop by to let me know how it worked for you. If you’re stuck for more ideas – just ask and I’ll be sure to post more tips.