5 Skills You Need to Have for a Happier Life
We all want to be happy. But most of us go through our adult lives on autopilot, taking whatever life throws at us no matter how bad it gets. I hear about a lot of people feeling “stuck”. They don’t know how to change their circumstances and relationships to live a more fulfilling life. That’s why I came up with five skills you need to have for a happier life.
1. Determination
Will-power is fleeting. Determination means you won’t stop until you make something happen. People with determination are far less likely to give up on their dreams. These are the people who will fail 100 times just to succeed at what they really want. People with determination envision aspects of their life and relentlessly pursue them until they achieve their goals. They don’t just hope for things to go their way, they have the determination to ensure they do. And having the determination to live the life you want will bring you way more happiness than being complacent in whatever situations you’ve found yourself in.
2. Resiliency
This is all about being able to “bounce back” after negative things happen to you. It’s the ability to keep yourself together under pressure, under criticism, after rejection, and after failure. It’s ditching a victim mindset and taking control of your life. It’s knowing that your response to a negative event is more impactful than the negative event itself. Resiliency is withstanding the storms of life with grace, strategy, and emotional intelligence. Being a resilient person doesn’t mean you won’t go through hard times. But it does mean that you’ll work your way through them much faster than other people.
3. Self-Compassion
While it’s great to be strong and resilient, it’s equally important to have self-compassion. Instead of beating yourself up for your mistakes, you forgive yourself for them and move on. You recognize when your body needs a rest from all of those determined efforts and you give yourself one. You take care of yourself emotionally and physically. You have self-confidence and self-love fueling your every decision. People with self-compassion don’t wallow in self-pity and engage in self-destructive behaviors. They give themselves grace to be imperfect and lovingly take care of themselves.
4. Boundary Setting
Once you have self-love, setting boundaries with people becomes easy because you have the confidence to protect yourself from harmful people and situations. You’re not easily manipulated into letting toxic people in your life. You’re not guilted into doing things you don’t want to do or know wouldn’t be good for you. You have the skills to say “no” and to remove people from your life who don’t serve it in a positive way. And removing all of those toxic people and situations from your life will increase your happiness more than you could ever imagine. Being able to set boundaries means you only engage with people who are a positive influence on your life and do things that you genuinely enjoy. There’s no more tolerating disrespect or doing things that don’t align with your goals and values. Your life becomes a beautiful bubble of aligned positivity.
5. Clear Communication
The ability to communicate clearly and effectively is the most important life skill you can have. You need it for your relationships, career, calling customer service, and ordering from the deli counter. So many problems in life stem from miscommunication. We have falling outs with people, miss important work details or deadlines, and go round and round in circles trying to explain an issue or point. Being able to clearly express your wants, needs, and feelings will have a huge positive impact on your relationships. People will respect you and value your thoughts more in the workplace when you clearly communicate. And life in general will be so much easier everywhere you go and with whoever you speak to if you can communicate effectively. People who think the world is full of mind readers end up feeling misunderstood, undervalued, and miserable. People who clearly communicate feel respected, understood, and much happier.
The five skills you need to have for a happier life are determination, resiliency, self-compassion, boundary setting, and clear communication. Did you notice how all of these qualities work together and how together they can make a much happier life? A life where you achieve your goals, bounce back quickly from obstacles, treat yourself with kindness, surround yourself with positive people, engage in activities that align with your values and goals, and where you feel respected and understood. That sounds like a pretty great life to me. What do you think?