Happy Inside Happy Outside

19 Easy ways to become a Happier Person in 2020

How often have you said, “I just want to be happy”?

How often have you said to someone else, “I just want you to be happy”?

Have you ever stopped to consider exactly what happiness means?

What, exactly, is this happiness you are wishing for?

What is happiness for you?

A theory, largely based on scientific discoveries about how the brain works, has identified 9 universal and overlapping human needs which go by the handy acronym WE PROMISE.

WE PROMISE stands for:

Wellbeing – mind-body connections, aspects of your physical body that affect your mood, and vice versa
Environment – external factors like safety, food availability, freedom, weather, beauty, and your home
Pleasure – temporary experiences such as joy, sex, love, and eating
Relationships – as a social species, relationships are at the foundation of what it means to be human
Outlook – how you approach the world through adventurousness, curiosity, and making plans
Meaning – having a purpose and the wisdom to understand it
Involvement – to be happy you have to be engaged and actively involved
Success – confirmation from yourself and others that what you do has value
Elasticity – how you recover from life’s inevitable negative events

These 9 categories cover the range of human needs in a very general way and are intentionally overlapping, just as our thoughts and feelings overlap in our mind.

For example, the thrill of a roller-coaster ride is a mix of: fear (Elasticity), joy (Pleasure), adventure (Outlook), shared experience (Relationships), safety (Environment), upset tummies (Wellbeing), the courage to ride (Involvement), and the reward of having done it (Success). All these are experienced in one event, many at the same moment in time.

Here are just a few ways you can make yourself happier this year (and beyond):