7 Steps To Become A Chief Happiness Officer
Introduction: When I refer to the chief happiness officer, I don’t refer to the management jargon of having a person in HR dedicated to ensuring the company’s level and quality of happiness. As the name and the position signify, in my opinion, each and everyone is responsible for their own satisfaction. We are our own Chief Happiness officer, in charge of taking care of our well-being.
However, it also means that we should not abdicate our responsibility to someone else and blame them for our miseries. The point is that the source of self-contentment is not outside but inside of us to make us feel happier, positive, and motivated.
Why is this relevant?
Given the challenging situation and time that we live in right now, we feel overwhelmed. This is especially true and noticed during pandemic times, as it has interrupted our normal activities flow. Moreover, we live in times when we cannot connect with our loved ones or meet our neighbors, friends, and even colleagues. This can be taxing our energies at times as the emotional connection is broken.
Robin Sharma, Leadership Expert Guru, famously refers to his 4 interior empires- Mind Set, Heart Set, Health Set, and Soul Set. However, he mainly refers to the heart set as the main ingredient amongst all the four factors. Robin says that “Heart Set is about your emotionality and so if you have cold emotions, you’re full of sadness, pain, anger, difficulty in letting go of people and situations and forgiving yourself. Then, you will not be at your creative best nor be psychologically best.
What are the steps to become being a Chief Happiness Officer?
1) Awareness: The first step is awareness. It’s necessary to know where you are and what you want to be. It’s important to understand that this is a journey, and the journey will not be smooth; it will be a bumpy ride.
2) Repository of Skills: The second step is to understand what skills are required to become a chief happiness officer, e.g., being emotional intelligence, letting go of things, mindfulness, meditation, and manifestation.
3) Practice Gratitude: Gratitude is a positive emotion that involves being thankful and acknowledging positive moments in one’s life. It is connected with many emotional and health benefits. When you practice gratitude, you feel grateful for someone or something in your life.
4) Distractions: You can’t stay focused unless you ensure that your external environment is noisy and disturbs your focus. Your phone, for example, should never bother your attention. Turn off the notifications, saying “NO” whenever someone interrupts you. It would help if you committed to cutting off every possible distraction around you.
5) Being a minimalist: Means you value yourself more than material possessions. It means making decisions are made on what you need instead of desires. It doesn’t mean that you don’t buy things. Instead, it means that you only buy something you really need, irrespective of how much it costs.
6) Physical Exercise: Being physically active has proven to have many health benefits at both physical and emotional levels. It’s been proven to reduce negative emotions like anxiety, depression, and stress. On the positive side, it’s proven to increase the production of endorphins which help to produce positive feelings.
7) Practice Mindfulness: We become more conscious of things around us by being mindful. It also helps us live in the moment and get a better perspective of things happening around us. In addition, scientific evidence suggests that mindfulness can make you peaceful, relaxed, and be more productive at work.