To Be Happy, Focus on Personal Development

We all want to be happy.  But often, we misunderstand how to become happy.  We mistakenly think that if we chase happiness by society’s recommended approaches, we’ll find it.  But realize that if you really want to be happy, you need to stop chasing happiness.  Instead, you need to pursue personal development.

I’ll give you an example.  I once knew a gentleman who was profoundly unhappy.  So, he chased happiness.  He bought stuff – cars, motorcycles, books, and electronics.  He looked at pornography regularly.  In short, he did whatever he could to get quick jolts of satisfaction.  And yet, he still was profoundly unhappy.

The truth is that he was unhappy because he wasn’t a nice person.  He was hot-tempered and arrogant.  He cheated on his wife and was unkind to her.  And no matter what he did – or bought – he could not shake his unhappiness.

His problem was that he was chasing happiness through the traditional routes that society tells us will lead to happiness.  However, the reality is that buying stuff isn’t going to make you happy.  Vacations and adventures likewise aren’t going to make you happy.  And pornography, drugs, alcohol and infidelity definitely aren’t going to make you happy.   

The only way to be happy is to become a good person.  That is because generous, kind, patient, loving, humble people are happy.  And stingy, hot-tempered, arrogant, aggressive people are miserable.  Those are the immutable rules of life. 

Admittedly, it would be great if you could buy happiness.  But you can’t.  You can’t buy your way to happiness with stuff, vacations or alcohol and drugs. 

Instead, happiness comes from the hard work of personal development.  Simply put, there is a direct correlation between how good you are and how happy you are.  The challenge is that it is hard to be a good person.  Being nice, kind and generous all the time is hard! 

Below are personal development areas that you can focus on in order to become a truly happy person.  Realize that personal development is not easy.  It takes work.  But be ready to do that work because it is the only path to happiness.

Choose to Be Kind – No Matter What

There are lots of reasons why we may choose to be kind to others.  Perhaps our religion mandates that we be kind.  Or maybe we simply want to be kind in order to make the world a better place.  But there is one very self-serving reason to be consistently kind to others – it will make you happier.

That is because when you aren’t kind, your life becomes a mess.  If you aren’t nice to your spouse, he or she will leave you.  Treat your children poorly, and they will abandon you.  If you treat your colleagues or supervisor with disrespect, you’ll get fired.  The same holds true for your relatives and friends. 

For example, I know a man who was cruel to his father for years.  He demanded money from his father whenever his bank account was low and otherwise ignored his dad.  One day, he spoke to his father in a cruel and disrespectful manner.  His father then had finally had enough and ended their relationship. 

We all have choices as to how we operate in this world.  This man could have chosen to be kind to his father.  He could have chosen to treat his father in a loving and respectful manner.  After all, that is what children have been taught to do for millennia.  Instead, he chose to be cruel to his father.  And now this man will be miserable because he’ll have to live the rest of his life with the regret of having abused his parent. 

No good comes from being unkind.  Being unkind will never result in your being a happier person.  Instead, you’ll just screw up your life.

By contrast, kindness pays off!  In fact, there is a direct correlation between how kind you are, and how happy you are.  So, make kindness one of your personal development goals. Realize that if you are consistently kind – even when you don’t feel like being kind – you’ll have better relationships with your friends and family.  In addition, people will have a greater level of respect for you.  They’ll view you as someone who isn’t guided by emotionalism, where you are kind one minute and cruel the next.  Rather, they’ll see you as someone who is guided by a steady moral code of goodness and kindness.

Be Generous with Your Time and Resources

It may seem counterintuitive, but generous people are happy people.  You would think that if you spend all your money on yourself, and if you spend all your time solely satisfying your own needs, that you would be the happiest person on earth.  But the converse is true.  Generosity creates happiness.

For example, I know a man who is an extremely relaxed, happy person.  Now, if you looked at his life, you would think that he should be miserable and exhausted.  He has a fulltime job with a construction company.  And in his limited free time, he works at home improvement store.  He has nearly no time to himself.  But he chooses to work all these hours so that his son can go to a prestigious university.

Now, if you have a conversation with this gentleman, he won’t tell you anything about his long work hours.  Instead, he’ll brag about his son, “the scientist.”  He practically glows with happiness because he is just so proud of his kid.  This gentleman derives his happiness from helping his son achieve his full potential. 

And that is the payback for generosity.  The permanent good feeling that you get from helping someone else far exceeds the fleeting satisfaction that you may get from buying a new outfit or taking an exotic trip.  In short, if you want to be happy, be generous.

Follow A Narrow Moral Path

The older I get, the more I realize that happiness comes from walking the “straight and narrow,” as they say.  Admittedly, in our younger years, some of us test the boundaries of moral behavior.  We may drink to excess or try drugs.  Or, we may “sleep around,” for lack of a better way of putting it.  But if we have some common sense, we pretty quickly realize that those kinds of behaviors are self-destructive.  And we figure out that there is a reason for those old-fashioned values of sobriety, fidelity and simple living.  They work.

I don’t espouse following a narrow path in order to be judgmental.  For example, I don’t think drinking alcohol to excess or using drugs is wrong, per se.  Rather, those behaviors are simply self-destructive.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but alcohol makes you overweight, and drugs destroy your brain.  And both have a negative effect on your personality.

So, if you want to be happy, don’t engage in self-destructive behaviors.  Don’t intentionally make your life harder than it has to be!  Follow a narrow, moral path.  If you simply stay sober, act ethically and don’t engage in promiscuous behavior, your life will be a thousand times easier.  That is because you’ll be healthier, and you’ll feel much better about yourself.

Now, you may think that the narrow, moral path sounds boring.  But it’s just the opposite.  Living a simple, structured, “by the book” sort of life allows you to be happy and relaxed.  That is because you aren’t giving up what could have been an amazing life to engage in dumb behavior.

Make the Pursuit of Personal Development Your Lifelong Passion

Given that the key to happiness is to pursue your personal development, it is critical to make personal development your passion.  It can’t be something that you only work on once in a while.  Self-improvement has to be something that you work on every day.

Realize that when personal development is your focus, you then have the right priorities.  You aren’t chasing stuff, trips and self-gratification with the false believe that they will lead to happiness.  Instead, your efforts are properly placed on becoming a kind, decent, generous human being – which is the only path to happiness.

The good news is that are lots of ways to become a student of personal development.  For instance, you can read personal development books or blogs.  Or you can listen to a podcast geared toward self-improvement.  The key is to think about personal development issues regularly. 

You might ask yourself these types of questions throughout the day: “How can I become a better person?”  “Did I just handle that situation in the best way possible?”  “Are there ways that I can become more patient and easy going with others?”  Those are just a few of the questions that you can ask yourself as you go throughout your day.

When you make personal development your focus, you then get your priorities in the right order.  Specifically, your priority should be to be the kindest and most ethical person that you can be.  If you do so, then happiness will naturally follow. (To read about how to find happiness through loving others, click here.)