How are you feeling? How is life treating you? Are you satisfied? Happy?

Extremely hard questions to answer today, in these challenging times where the words pandemic, covid19, quarantine, face mask, and social distancing are overshadowing our conversations and conquering social media platforms and everything that we hear and see.

Our daily interactions with the disturbed environment around us are bringing in negative energy, unwanted thoughts, and a shadowy and ambiguous future, that ultimately result in stress and anxiety.

How can we feel better? Can we find hope, a bright light in these blacked-out times?

Most of us are trying, doing our best to surf these days through the high tides and drifting waves, and the harder we try to go up, the harder we fall and our energy drains.
Eventually, we find ourselves in a loop, a vicious circle of volatile emotions, instability, and bad feelings that affect our productivity and performance.

So, what should we do? How can we bring in happiness and positivity?

The answer for these questions is not simple, it is not a formula, but the sure thing is that positivity and happiness are scarce in our surrounding environment, so the key is to bring it out, because everything we need lies within us.
Here are few tips to follow in order to be happier and more satisfied about yourself:

• • Encouraging emotions: Enjoy the little things and live each moment; do not get stuck in things that you cannot control and think of what you can do today to ensure a better tomorrow.
    Reflect on what is going well and be grateful for the blessings you have.
    Use your time efficiently, balance between the realities of family, work, and friends; make sure to always have some ME time.
  • Involvement: Be involved in the present and focus on the tasks at hand, do not lose yourself in thoughts of the future.
    Engage yourself with activities that you enjoy; watch happy movies not the news, follow funny groups and pages, and listen to cheerful music that stimulates nice memories.
    Practice mindfulness through meditation, yoga, or anything that keeps your head from thinking.
    Embrace nature, go to the mountains or the beach, and just sit and listen, observe and feel what is happening around you.
    Learn about your character, your strengths, and vulnerabilities, and do not be hard on yourself.
  • Connection: Human connections have a direct impact on your wellbeing, your relationship with your boss, colleagues, family, and friends all matter. Surround yourself with positive people and put some efforts in knowing more about the people around you and  get in touch more often with old friends and relatives. Our nature needs human connection.
  • Purpose: Why are we on this earth? We will never really find out.
    True happiness comes from creating and having meaning in your own life, other than the regular activities of working, eating, sleeping and similar stuff.
    Getting immersed with something bigger is a great weapon against depression, so become involved in a cause, volunteer in helpful initiatives for the less fortunate or join a non-profit organization that deals with humanitarian or nature improvement programs.
  • Accomplishment: Small achievements help you build a higher self-esteem and give you a sense of success. Set goals for yourself and commit to achieving them; your goal may be as small as reading for one hour a day to as big as losing 10 pounds this month or getting a certification. The important thing is to focus and commit, this will establish constructive habits for your future.

These might be very inspiring and encouraging tips but knowing them and reflecting on each is not enough; you need to start.
You do not need to plan it, you do not need to decide if you will apply them on Monday or in the beginning of the month, just take a leap of faith …START NOW!

About the Author

Amine Kallas
L&D Director