Happiness through Personal Development

Everyone wants to be happy, but with the fast-paced society that everyone lives in, it is easy to fall into despair without even realizing it. In fact, most people can easily identify at least one part of their life that they are not happy about. Being happy lays the foundation for everything that you want to work on in your life and if you are not happy, you will find it difficult to do any other types of personal development. Finding happiness can be a long process, but it is something that everyone is able to achieve.

​When it comes to increasing your happiness, your personal development plan should look at all of the primary parts of your life and assess them separately. This will be a long plan and one that will take a while, but you will notice a positive difference as soon as you get started.

Your Physical Health

One of the biggest areas of despair is your personal health if you have any issues. Even being 15 pounds overweight is something that can really weigh on someone's mind and make them unhappy. Of course, more chronic issues like an autoimmune disease, arthritis and diabetes can have an even more profound effect on your ability to be happy. To start this part of your personal development plan for happiness, go to your doctor to get a full physical and see your dentist for a checkup and cleaning. This gives you a starting point for getting healthier.

Your Mental Health and Stress Level

Stress is a major roadblock to being happy and it is something that everyone has. However, some people use stress to their advantage while other people allow their stress to spiral out of control making things worse.

Your State of Spirituality

Being spiritual is important and you do not have to be religious to be spiritual. This is all about increasing your connection to the world around you so that you feel grounded and as one with the earth. Since being spiritual is something that is unique to all people, exactly how you go about this is dependent on your needs.

Your Career and Working Life

Having a great job that you love should be a major goal. This is not something you can do overnight. However, simply working toward finding a career that makes you excited to go to work is enough to increase your overall happiness starting right now because you are giving yourself something to look forward to.

Your Schooling and Education Level

When you want to go better in life, this often involves having to increase your education. Not everyone is meant to go to college and this is perfectly okay. Reading books more often, including those you read just for fun, is plenty to help you to increase your education. Think about what you want to do in life and then determine the type and amount of education you need to accomplish this.

Your Personal Relationships

Your personal relationships have a major bearing on your ability to be happy. When you are working on this, this can cause you to need to cut people out of your life and you must be strong enough to do this. The bottom line is that you have to surround yourself with people who make you happy.

Your Financial State

You surely know that financial matters are a major point of contention for people. It is important to note that you do not have to be wealthy to be happy with your financial situation. You simply have to learn how to live within your means to make sure that you have enough money to take care of business, save a few dollars and then have some pocket money for things like entertainment. Everyone, regardless of their income, can be happy with how much they make once they learn how to properly manage it.
You can work on these in any order and be successful. It is best to start with the areas of your life that make you the least happy so that you can take care of them and give yourself a major boost. This keeps you motivated and it gives you the time to really dig in and evaluate the various parts of your life. You can add more parts of your life to this plan too. This article simply explores the areas of your life that tend to have the biggest impact on your happiness and your life as a whole.

References:

http://stress.about.com/od/selfknowledgeselftests/a/happy.htm

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247185