Follow the 3 habits of especially happy people to help you enjoy a better life, says Art Markman, PhD, professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.
Goals: The kinds of goals you pursue can definitely impact your long-term happiness. The happiest people tend to pursue goals that enable them to connect to others.
A good example are those that see their careers as part of a broader purpose that involves helping other people. If you are happy in your professional life, it's bound to boost your overall happiness. To whittle this down a little further, happy people set goals that are co-operative rather than competitive or comparative.
Positivity: Clearly, if you focus on the positive aspects of any given circumstance, your perception of each experience is more enjoyable because your concentration is on the good. This then has a knock-on benefit for your memories (because the details that you focus on is what stays in the memory), so when you recall any particular experience, you’ll remember it as a happy memory, which in turn will boost your overall happiness and wellbeing.
Forgiveness: Happy people tend to be good forgivers, enabling them to forget the unpleasant details of what people have done to upset them in the first place. As a result, they won’t be reminded of those negative things when they see or think about the person in the future. Forgiveness lets you move on without holding on to negative feelings and avoids them messing with your happiness.