Good intentions: recipe for a happy life

Are you planning to live consciously happy next year as a resolution? Have you finally listened to your heart and heard that being happy is a choice? Choosing happiness is not always easy. Sometimes it's just nice to wallow in self-pity for a while, but that's not something that's going to make you happy in the long run

To help you achieve your resolution for a happy life, I have written down the recipe for a happy life for you.

Move

Exercise is often something people think they MUST do. That, of course, is not a recipe for a happy life. Fortunately, it's actually not about the sport, but the movement that makes you produce dopamine.

Exercise, such as walking, is also suitable for this purpose. Any form of movement actually.

For example, do you live in a neighborhood where everything is somewhat within walking distance? By doing everything on foot then, you are also already creating the dopamine.

Another fun form of exercise is dancing or yoga. This doesn't feel at all like a sport, but it has the same effect. Dancing doesn't even require you to put on sports clothes.

Follow your passion

Following your passion may not always be possible, as there is work to be done. But having a hobby that you are passionate about can already help a lot in following your passions.

Do you like poetry? Then buy a special booklet where you write down your own poetry.

Do you love images? Buy a camera to capture images.

Whatever your passion, make time to do something with it.

Prevent yourself from getting out of bed on the wrong foot

Unfortunately, everyone is familiar with the fact that you can get out of bed on the wrong foot. In fact, this also shows how important getting up is for the rest of your day.

What's the first thing you think of when you wake up? The sound of the alarm clock? Or just everything you feel like doing that day. In the second case, chances are you'll even wake up before the alarm clock rings. In that case, you avoid the negative alarm clock stimulus.

Do you find it hard to think about the fun things you will do? Then consider what you are grateful for. Your work may not be fun, but on break your colleagues are very sociable. When you get home, you can always relax. You then shift your focus to what is enjoyable, such as your passion.

You are what you eat

Do you eat a lot of fast food, chips and pizza? If so, you are often built from the building blocks those foods provide you, and you feel it. An unhealthy diet can make you tired, this is even a sign of diabetes!

Just by eating healthy, a few pieces of fruit and a few servings of vegetables daily instead of quickly wolfing down a sandwich can go a long way.

In the process, mindful eating also helps to ensure that you also enjoy the food you eat more. You smell, taste and feel the food as you eat. As a result, you eat more consciously, and therefore often healthier, and you eat more slowly, and therefore often less.

Enjoying your food gives you one more thing to look forward to daily.

Make your house a home

When you come home, does it feel like coming home or does it feel like being on a visit to a hotel or someone else's house?

Making your home truly your own ensures that your home is a place to relax. Do you enjoy listening to music with a great audio system? Then put that in your home; do you love art? Hang some beautiful things on the wall. Use your favorite color for the curtains or a wall or something.

Hang pictures if you like people.

Make your house your home where you can relax.

Release anger

Are you angry? Has someone done something to you that you just can't get over? Holding on to anger is something that won't make you happy.

Indeed, it is a shield that keeps joy and happiness away from you because you are totally focused on the negative in life.

To release anger and to forgive the other person, not forget, a hypnotherapist can help you.

Trauma processing

Having unprocessed trauma is a recipe for unhappiness. It is very important to give trauma a place and to be able to think back on the event with less emotion.

You can get help for trauma treatment from a psychologist and from a hypnotherapist. It depends on the trauma you have.

Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) is also widely used to process trauma and disconnect emotions from the unpleasant event. Of course the event remains nasty, but you may now be less likely to get upset by sounds or other small everyday things that remind you of the trauma.

Be kind to yourself

You know that comedian Russel Brand? He has a whole show about shame. That little voice that keeps you awake in the middle of the night, delicately reminding you of everything you've ever done wrong in your life.

If that little voice keeps you awake, it can also bother you during the day. This is not good, and this is not good.

To be happy, it is important to let go of such thoughts. You can also change the thoughts positively to what you do well or why things don't have to be perfect.

Finding it hard to let go? Then a hypnotherapist can help you let go of those negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This can be done, for example, with post hypnotic suggestions and self-hypnosis.

An important step, for example, is forgiving yourself for something that causes that shame voice to keep rearing its head.

Self-compassion is an important step toward a happy life.

Set your own precepts

Living rules are actually even more about the principles you live by. With what behaviors can you look at yourself in the mirror or not?

• What values do you think are important to live by?
• Which character would you be proud of?

By thinking about this and living by it, you can look in the mirror every night with pride that you have been true to yourself, no matter what other people think.

The people around you

What people do you come into contact with most in your life? Your family? Friends? Colleagues? The five people you interact with the most also have the most influence on your development and thoughts.

Are you among all kinds of negative people?

If so, chances are you will become a negative as well.

Are you right among all kinds of positive people or people who care about their own development?

Then chances are you too will experience more positivity and be more likely to pick up a book to learn from or sign up for a workshop.

Changing the people you interact with can be difficult. Picking up the phone to meet with new people is already exciting. A hypnotherapist can help boost your self-confidence so that you no longer find it difficult at all to change the people around you.

Your partner also has a big influence on you. If there is actually nothing wrong with the rest of your people around you, you can also look at how your relationship with your partner is and what steps you can take to improve it.

In this regard, a hypnotherapist can also help.

In addition, mindfulness in your relationship can be an incredibly good boost to strengthen the relationship and make it more positive.

Want to learn more about hypnotherapy? Then come to a playshop or check out the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training programs.

In addition, the book Break Free can also help you find happiness in your life.