Joy is more consistent and comes from within. Joy becomes you. When you lose your battle and make peace with yourself, who you are and how you are. Happiness on the other hand tends to be externally triggered and is based on other people, things, vices such as drugs and alcohol, places, thoughts and events.
Aiming for joy will benefit you immensely. It is much less short lived than happiness as is not tied to external circumstances.
Coach, Rachel Fearnely in Psychologise suggests some things you can do start increasing the amount of joy in your life and change those negative thinking patterns:
- Tap into your intuition rather than your thinking mind. Quietening the chatter in your mind and create space within allows you to listen more closely to what brings you joy.
- Limit use of social media: For many of us, social media has become a necessity in our day. We are so heavily influenced by what we ‘should look like, what we should have in our lives, what we should do etc. These things are so often not in line with what truly brings us joy. In todays world, ditching social media altogether is not really an option but you can think about how you can cut down on it… for example: Check social media sites just twice a day; Choose to follow positive and inspirational people not negative feeds that bring you down.
- Have an attitude of gratitude: Cultivate gratitude wherever possible and even have gratitude for the things that challenge you, as these help you to grow and build strength. This also helps to define what brings you joy and what doesn’t. At the end of each day, write a list of 10 things that you are grateful for that day…it can be anything. Celebrate and recognise these aspects of your day. Soon you will see running new patters and when you do, create your day with more of the good stuff and less of the ‘not so good’ stuff.
Being grateful makes us more appreciative and trusting, it gives us better self-esteem and helps us bounce back from stress. It allows us to view the world, and our situation within this world, in a more positive, healthy way - Embrace the simple experiences and pleasures. When we’re moving at 100mph, we take the simple things for granted. These are often the things that top up our feelings of joy. When you’re more present, the simpler things become joyful; the food you eat, the air you breathe, the sounds of nature.You will notice the more you get in touch with your true self, the less you will feel the need to seek from external influences to experience momentary happiness. Joy becomes a more constant state of being, it no longer becomes about what does or doesn’t bring you joy, as you begin to cultivate joy from the inside out.
