Rewire Your Brain for Happiness
Likely, your list of Spring cleaning activities does not include rewiring your brain. However, if asked, most of us would list being happy as one of the essential goals in our lives. Research on happiness indicates that only 10% of happiness is accounted for by life circumstances, with genetic differences accounting for 50%, leaving us with 40% of happiness within our control.
While a rewiring of our inner world may be much more daunting than cleaning our closets, it will be worth the effort. To help you get started on this critically important task, you can practice these four areas while doing your more traditional Spring cleaning activities. Give them a try! You may find that you are more productive and motivated and may even enjoy them.
Take Control of Your Thoughts
We have hundreds of thousands of thoughts each day. We are so accustomed to all this noise in our heads that we barely even notice it. Our mind is so busy that we rarely see what is happening around us. The first step is to become aware of the chatter and internal dialogue. As you reflect on your thoughts, see if you can uncover reoccurring themes. Then determine if these themes are primarily negative or positive. For example, are they filled with worry messages, replaying bad experiences, or projecting negative consequences into the future? It is incredible how just becoming aware of our thoughts is the start of rewiring our brains towards happiness. Here is a brief exercise on becoming more aware of our thoughts and taking control of our attention.
Limiting Beliefs
The way we think of ourselves … who we believe we are … is often one of the most resistant obstacles to changing our behavior. When we believe that our behaviors are unchangeable, we easily give up and say, “I knew I could never do that.”
One way to begin might be to become aware of the silent messages you send to yourself. Tip: These messages become more noticeable when we experience a setback or are thinking of giving up.
Seek Out and Savor Positive Experiences
Our brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to the wrong things (or the negative aspect of situations and people). In other words, we are wired for negativity. It takes an active, conscious effort to internalize positive experiences and emotions. Focusing on positive experiences is not about suppressing adverse events or avoiding challenging issues. It is about focusing on what is good and allowing these positive experiences to become part of your awareness. Here’s a practice will help you begin this journey
Self-Affirmations
A self-affirmation is a positive statement of how we envision our best self or some aspect of what we desire in our life. The power of these statements lies in connecting them to what is meaningful to us. In other words, the affirmation needs to focus on our most important values. That’s why mindlessly repeating statements, without connecting to the meaning, does not bring about the change we’re seeking. This brief practice will help you develop personalized affirmations that work for you.
Unlike other spring-cleaning activities, rewiring our brains takes time and practice. The activities described here are just a few of the ways we can be on a path to live every day like it’s the first day of Spring. Want more? Check out our new app, Levelhead for Real Life. It features 100+ micro-lessons like these that can help you boost positivity through rewiring your brain.