Want to be happy? Here’s the secret. The pursuit of happiness is a universal desire. We are all striving to have more of it in our lives.

The challenge that many people face is that they try to find happiness, in the form of external circumstances or rewards. This form of happiness is only temporary.

This idea is supported by research that suggests that only 10 percent of our happiness comes from external factors. The rest of the happiness equation is made up of our genetics, the thoughts, and behaviors that we do deliberately, and our attitude.

People fail to realize that happiness comes from within, and the degree to which you experience it is entirely in your control. In the words of Many Hale, “Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life.”

Want to be happy? Here’s the secret. It’s easier than you think.

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Happiness flows more easily into our lives when we focus on the positive. Here’s where the problem lies. As human beings, we are hard wired to look for the negative.

This is supported by research that shows that the brain reacts more strongly to negative stimuli. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by bad news, rather than good news.

It’s easy to blame others for our downfalls, but ultimately we are the ones who are responsible for our lives. We can either rise up, take accountability and change what doesn’t feel good, or we can dwell in self-loathing and despair. Which sounds better to you?

Don’t dwell on the negative. Rather, wake up every day and ask yourself, “What is the good in this situation?” Doing so will allow you to train your brain to continually look for the positive and celebrate life to the fullest.

We all need to get out of our heads and into our hearts more. The head is great for processing information and breaking down thoughts, but our hearts are our compass, our seat of truth, and the place that we go to when we are seeking alignment.

A great way to strengthen the heart muscle is through adopting an attitude of gratitude. No matter what our circumstances are in life, we can all be grateful for something. What are you grateful for?

The feeling of happiness is a state that is achieved by way of being present with yourself and being grateful for what you have. If you actively look for the good, you will find it.

Gratitude has been shown to have countless benefits; some of which include health, happiness, satisfaction with life, and the way we relate to others.

Every single day, as part of my morning routine, I take part in a gratitude exercise in my 5-Minute Journal, which inspires me to start my day with a grateful heart. Take 5 minutes every day and write down what it is that you are grateful for. This is a simple, yet powerful exercise.

Do you want to be more happy? Here’s the secret. Let happiness find you by finding your flow and engaging in valued activities that bring you joy and fulfillment. These are the experiences that contribute to the feeling of happiness.

Happiness is a choice that we have to make every day. Create a morning ritual and engage in something every day that makes you happy. When you make this commitment to yourself, these healthy habits will shift your mindset, allowing you to see the good in everything.

Want to be happy? Here’s the secret. Make the decision to be happy NOW! Focus on it, feel it, and live it.

Take it from David Cuschieri, “Every morning I make the biggest decision of my life: To be happy today. All I know is the here and now. What happened yesterday and what may happen tomorrow is either gone or hasn’t happened yet.”

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I would like to share 3 benefits of minimalism that extend to all areas of life. Through life's ups and downs, it is important that we remember to take the time to enjoy the simple things in life. We need to be grateful for what we have, and focus on finding meaning in our lives.

Life is meant to be enjoyed, not filled with stress and frustration. Minimalism is a state of being, a simple approach to life, that can help us do more with less.  In the words of Vernon Howard, “You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”

That is why I wanted to invite Will Chou, the founder of Will You Laugh, a self-development blog that focuses on the secrets to success, to write a guest post to talk about 3 benefits of minimalism that extend to all areas of life.

Take it away, Will!

When I first discovered minimalism, I was a mess of a person and I thought it was stupid. But everything has changed now.  To explain my change of opinion, we have to go back to the beginning. When I first discovered minimalism, I really wanted to travel the world for a living.

At the time, I was disillusioned with my career paths and confused about my future. I was struggling to find work I could enjoy and the job opportunities that I was offered, sucked. To put it simply, like many Millennials, I had chosen a tough college major that I loved (pre-med Biology) but realized too late that it wasn’t my passion (after graduation).

My days of despair led me to seek escapism on the Internet. I discovered a large group of online bloggers that had a huge following and who called themselves, “travel hackers.”

Essentially, they would travel to exotic places for a living and make their living by “hacking life.” They were able to achieve a level of financial freedom that most people would envy. At first, I wasn't sold on this whole idea of minimalism, but that soon changed. Today, I want to share with you the three benefits of minimalism that extend to all areas of life:

1. You Will Stay Organized and Clean

I had always been a messy person. Despite my best efforts to stay clean, my room would quickly morph into a mess of junk. To put it simply, the more items you have, the more opportunity it is for it to make you feel and appear messy.

When you only have a couple of items on your desk, it’s never going to look that messy no matter how long you delay cleaning it up. It’s shocking how few people understand or use this habit. Nowadays, I have applied this minimalist philosophy to every area of my life.

2. You Will Achieve More By Working Less

A lot of people make the mistake of approaching their daily to-do list with a reactive state of mind. They take on too many tasks on a daily basis, many of which are unimportant. When they look back at what they have accomplished, they are surprised by their lack of progress.

A solution is a form of minimalism called essentialism. The concept is simple. Focus on one to three tasks per day. Make sure they are the most important tasks that will make the biggest impact on the accomplishment of your goals. If you do this right, you will realize that you’re doing less work but getting more results by prioritizing and cutting out the unnecessary.

3. You Feel Happier and Less Stressed

Not so long ago, I was frustrated with my progress, both professionally and personally. I didn’t have quality friends, I wasn't earning much, and I was lost and without direction in my dating life.

It was confusing because I had always worked super hard in school and “done the right things.” After doing a lot of research on success, happy people, and the science of happiness, I came up with a simple mantra that has helped me a lot. It goes something like, “As long as I have air, water, food, a healthy mind, and a healthy body, I am happy.”

This mantra reminds me to lead a simple, happy life. By living this philosophy, I have become a much happier, more relaxed, and lighter person.

I Am Not A Minimalist And I Don’t Want You To Be. 

Wait, what? After all, I have said, I’m now revealing that I’m not a minimalist, I don’t intend to be one. Why? I can't say that I would be happy with living a lifestyle of extreme minimalism, and that’s OK. What I love about some minimalist influencers out there is that they’re not telling you to become a minimalist.

Rather, they are encouraging that you adopt the minimalist practices that work for you. That’s where I stand. I will be rich one day and I will buy expensive experiences, but the items and services I do buy will be fewer than the average person, and they will be focused on memorable experiences, rather than a desire to hold onto possession.

It’s important not to swing from one extreme perspective (“Everything you buy has value so you should hoard it.”) to the other (“Nothing has value so get rid of it all.”). The truth lies closer to the middle.

Will has spent thousands of hours studying the world's most successful people and shares his findings on his self-development blog, Will You Laugh. Get his free gift made especially for Project Life Mastery readers by CLICKING HERE!

I would like to share with you some reasons why you should meditate every day. This is a practice that has greatly impacted my life. Meditation is one of the most effective ways to cope with stress and find a sense of inner calmness and peace from the daily pressures that life brings.

In AsapScience’s, “The Scientific Power of Meditation,” Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown explain that meditation yields a number of benefits, including the ability to fight (not cure) diseases, increase empathy, and even leads to physical changes in the brain (Borreli, 2015).

How would it feel to start your day feeling calm and grounded? Let the power of meditation help you achieve this peaceful state of being. In the words of Ram Dass, “The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” There is no greater reason for why you should meditate every day.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Do you want to learn how to make meditation a part of your daily life? CLICK HERE to purchase my Morning Ritual Mastery course!

I am not a master of meditation, but it is something that I have committed to going deeper with over the last six months. Intellectually I always knew that meditation was good for me, but I never did it because I didn’t associate to it on an emotional level.

Once I forced myself to meditate over a period of time and started to notice the benefits that it had on my emotional, mental, and spiritual state, then I believed in its potential to change my life. So much so, that meditation is now a part of my daily morning ritual.

Sometimes in life you need to do something that you don’t necessarily want to do, in order to see the long-term benefits of it. Just like going to the gym every day and committing to exercise your body. When you first start exercising, you may experience discomfort and soreness, and you might think, “What is the benefit of this?”

However, when you start seeing changes in your body and energy levels, you realize why you took the time to exercise in the first place. The same thing goes with meditation. There is nothing better that you can do than to learn how to calm your strongest muscle – your mind. Once you start seeing the benefits of meditation, it will motivate you to go even deeper, because you will start seeing the purpose of it.

The trigger that got me into meditation was a pattern that I started noticing, which was negatively affecting my life. I realized that I had an addiction. Let me be clear that an addiction can be to anything – to shopping, food, video games, pornography, information, etc. It doesn’t have to be something drastic, like drug or alcohol abuse.

Here is the test to know whether or not you have an addiction to something – try taking time away from a pattern of behaviour that you consistently find yourself doing. If you have cravings or temptations to bring it back into your life, that’s when you know it is a problem.

I had an addiction to technology. I found that every time that I felt uncomfortable or experienced a negative emotion, I would take out my phone and look through my social media. I found myself spending way too much time online. All addiction stems from a fear of emptiness and being alone.

Human beings are so terrified of being present and doing NOTHING, that oftentimes uncomfortable feeling emerge within them. They use things in order to distract themselves. What are you distracting yourself from? For a lot of people, it means distracting themselves from something that needs to be healed or resolved internally.

When we feel like we have no control over our lives, we tend to resist or avoid what is going on inside our body, mind, and soul. Through meditation, I learned that the way to overcome my addiction was to practice being present and experience nothing for a short period of time.

Always remember that whatever you resist will persist. If thoughts come up, merely observe them. Let them come into your mind, accept them, and then let them go. Since I started meditating, I feel more empowered and complete on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level. I have more control over my mind and my thoughts.

When you master your mind, you become less reactive. Today, I find that I am more present and in the moment when I am interacting with people, both in my work and in my personal life. I meditate for 20 minutes twice a day, usually in the afternoons and then before bed. I’ve experimented with all kinds of meditation.

I’ve learned that, as with any industry or school of thought, ultimately you need to find what works for you. If you think you are too busy to meditate, think again. Studies have shown that meditating just ten minutes a day reduces stress, lowers cortisol levels, and improves your outlook on life (Sarich, 2015). These are some reasons why you should meditate every day.

We all lead busy lives, but if we want to achieve life mastery, it is important that we feel a sense of balance, in our body, mind, and soul. Take the time to invest in yourself. Go deeper and embrace the power of meditation. You don’t have to be a guru in order to enjoy the benefits that meditation provides.

In the words of Eckhart Tolle, “One conscious breath – in and out – is a meditation.” Your mind will thank you for it.

Do you want to learn how to make meditation a part of your daily life? CLICK HERE to purchase my Morning Ritual Mastery course!