How to be happy in 2021!

The article originally appeared on the happiness blog.

2020 was probably the most difficult year in the history of the world and which affected lives around the world. On this blog, my goal is to help people find their happiness and since it would be the first post of the year, I think it is a good idea to share my top tips on happiness for the year ahead.

You want to be happy, don’t you? Read on.

For most of people around the world, 2020 was traumatic in many ways. Usual life got disrupted and we just couldn’t do so many things that we are used to doing, for our happiness.

We couldn’t travel. We couldn’t hug. We couldn’t meet our friends. Work got affected for large numbers of people around the world, and thankfully, if you are reading it, you are not one of those about 2 million people who have already died because of the virus.

Do we have reasons to be happy?

Yes, we will find them.

Let us see how we can be happy in 2021 and beyond!

1. You are alive. Please be grateful

Frankly, this is one of my top reasons to be happy. I had a difficult year too. Probably, I had the most difficult year of my life so far, but I can’t be complaining because so many people lost their lives, and I am so far, alive.

Please take a moment to think about that. If you have been fortunate to be healthy in a year which took so many lives and affected the health of several millions of people, you have a reason to be happy right now.

2. If you have a job or a running business, you should be dancing

More than the number of people who lost their lives, countless others lost their livelihoods. Industries like travel, airlines, hospitality, entertainment, restaurants/eating out, and several other sectors suffered in unprecedented ways. I know, and I am sure you do as well, the number of businesses which would have downed their shutters through 2020.

A few businesses like the internet businesses of Google, Amazon etc. flourished this year, which is an indication of the future of work and where we should all be headed. In India, new start-ups emerged matching education and technology.

The future of work is online and work has changed completely this year. If you had business through the year or a paying job, you have several reasons to be happy, since countless number of people didn’t.

3. The advancements in medical science

What we learnt this year is that the human race has advanced to a point where a medicine for a disease which wasn’t even known to humanity before the beginning of the year can be developed in record time. As you read this, governments around the world are busy inoculating their citizens with the corona virus vaccine, which would hopefully reduce the spread of the virus in the coming year.

We live in unprecedented times. Although we have a virus on one hand, which can shake up the whole world, we also have the will and the technology to fight it so it doesn’t threaten the survival of the entire human race.

4. You can and you will bounce back

The human will is indomitable. Time and again, we have fought adversity and emerged stronger than ever. Hopefully the year that went by would help in understanding the impact of our collective actions on the environment. Hope it will also help in understanding how to prepare for a year like this again in life, because this time, most of us, including me, were caught unawares and didn’t know how to handle this.

You will bounce back. Promise yourself you will.

5. Health is happiness

One of the most important things we realized in 2020 is that health is wealth. When we are not healthy, we are not able to focus on anything in life, and that includes our ability to be happy.

Starting this year, if you haven’t been focusing on already, renew the commitment to your health-emotional, mental, and physical while being conscious about everything in your life that affects your state of health.

Health has multiple dimensions, and we need to be conscious of all of those. Everything about our physical health affects our mental health. If our mental health suffers, it affects out body as well. Similarly, our financial health affects all areas of our health. Be aware of everything that affects how you feel in your body and in your mind and only do things that make you feel better, healthier and stronger.

6. Embrace optimism about the world about you

The world is a good place, and we can all make it better together. It helps to think positively about our lives and the world about us. Positive thinking fosters creativity and helps us deal with our problems.

Since 2020 was a difficult year and it led to tremendous amount of negativity in the world, become a harbinger of positivity and share it with others. The more positive you are, the more people you would infect with your thinking, thereby, making the world a positive and happier place.

7. Heal from your past

Heal is a powerful word. It means to cleanse and be pure again. When we are full of negativity, it affects our body, our mind and our while spiritual being. Please allow yourself to heal from the negativity of your entire past, including 2020.

Only when you have healed emotionally, you would be able to start life with a fresh perspective. When we carry pains in our mind and our body, we are not able to embrace life and give it the intensity it deserves.

So, heal. Please heal, so you can be happy again.

8. Take an emotional break

If you don’t feel ready to get started with your routine of life yet, do not rush. Take a break, especially an emotional break while allow yourself time to understand and process what has happened and accept it.

It was an extremely difficult year that we have just finished and there is a lot of baggage that we all are carrying currently. If you need a few days before you are ready to get into the thick of your life, allow yourself that mental break.

New Year’s tend to put a lot of pressures of us and we tend to feel that we need to suddenly transform our lives now. But, it can’t happen in a flash. It will take time, work and patience, and you would be fine.

9. Say thank you and sorry to whoever you need to say

This is a good time, while you are looking at a fresh start, to say sorry, and thank you to people who matter to you. We are all imperfect and fallible human beings, and we end up causing pain to others, even if we don’t want to. Say sorry, and mean it. Express your gratitude to people who meant something to you and your life during the last one year, and say thank you.

Thank you, and sorry, are two of the most powerful expressions in the language, and when we say these from the heart, these words can save relationships.

10. Set goals

This is a good time to set goals, goals that would set you right in the path of your happiness.

Look at things that you have been wanting to do in a long while, and you haven’t had the chance. Now that you realize that from 2020 and life could actually end in bizarre ways that we can’t even think of, you would not want to wait to turn your dreams into reality. You want to start doing things that make you happy this year.

Start making the girl you love feel loved.

Start that business you have been craving to start.

Become the artist you have longed to be.

Build new friendships with people you admire.

Rebuild your relationship with your parents.

No, these don’t necessarily have to be your goals. I am just suggesting a few possible goals. You need to write your own goals, and then get working hard to achieve them. We need goals so we know that life has purpose.

11. Write down your purpose

Life is short and unpredictable. We wouldn’t want to do things that don’t matter anymore. How would you decide what do you want to do with your life, and what your goals should be, when you don’t know what’s your purpose?

Take this time to figure out your purpose, and write that down, so that you can align everything you do with your purpose. Hasn’t this been pending a while?

12. Embrace the new world

The new world that we now live in 2021 is led by technology. Software engineers have taken over our world. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Byjus are the new world. Education and work life went online in a big way in 2021, and the trend of things going online would continue. Take the time to learn how the new world functions, even if you have to take a few courses in your 40’s or 50’s or 60’s. Age doesn’t matter if you don’t let it.

13. Let love be the reason

I love the point header and I mean it. The more the world changes, the more we realize that love is a good reason to do things. Be passionate about life. Do things that get you fired up so that work doesn’t feel like work. I am passionate about writing, I guess, for I must not be smiling as I write this now.

Find your passion and let it run your life. Your passion knows where your happiness lies.

14. Kill your ego

I have realized our ego is our enemy. It stops us from doing things we want to do by telling us that we are too important to do them. It stops us from saying sorry, and thank you. It stops us from healing. It stops us from being nice to people.

If you want to happy, remember, your ego is in your way.

15. Your happiness awaits you

We don’t know what life has in store for us. We do now what we have in store for life. One of the best New Year messages that someone sent me yesterday said that we should not ask what time has in store for us, rather it’s a question for us to answer.

It is partly true that we don’t control a lot of things that happen in the world about us. But, if we lean onto our happiness and things that could possibly make us happy, at work, at our homes, and in life, we are more likely to find happiness.

I always say, that sooner or later, we get what we seek. Seek out your happiness. You may find that it was always waiting for you.

To be happy, takes effort and I do feel that you genuinely want to be happy. I wish that you would put in the effort to find your happiness and then work on creating it every day. I wish you a happy New Year and hope that happiness becomes the norm in your life henceforth.

Thank you for reading.

I appreciate the time you spent in reading the post and wish you happiness.

Amarvani