A few months back
I made a video on a breakup I had
and ever since then I've been very interested
in the specific actions, not just the mindsets,
but the actions that lead to feeling happier
because at the time, feeling happy was tough for me.
It was something that had always come easy
and all of a sudden
I just couldn't tap into it.
So I tried dozens of different exercises
and really settled on three that
were head and shoulders above the rest
in terms of immediately changing the way that I felt.
So whether or not you're struggling
with happiness today or you would just like
to feel a little bit happier every day
because why not, I want to share these
exercises with you because they are truly powerful.
First off, create space for your brain
to subconsciously solve problems.
Now I gotta explain that because
what a lot of people don't realize
is that we spend a lot of our time engaged
in active problem-solving.
We're thinking about the future,
we're thinking about the past,
there's some kind of problem we want to solve
or we're just passively absorbing media, really,
whether it's from your computer screen, your phone,
wherever, you're being stimulated in some way
or you're directing your brain.
What we don't realize is that our brain sometimes
work best when left to their own devices
when we just get them space to unwind
and I realized this because
when i was going through break up,
I'm a writer and one of the first things I did
was write all my feelings, get rid of them.
That's helpful but what I didn't realize
was going to happen and
the reason I've continued freewriting since,
is that I started solving problems
I didn't realize that I had at the time.
I go into a free writing thing and
come out with some sort of business solution
for Charisma on Command or I'd realize I feel like,
"You know, I haven't done jiujitsu in a while
and that's really bothering me
because I said that was important to me.
In any of that, what I started realizing is that
we have these subconscious
pebbles in our shoe, if you will, and while they
don't always bubble up to conscious level,
they bother us and they weigh on us so
when giving yourself time to realize what those are
and then solve them through something like
freewriting which if you don't know what it is,
it's just taking 10 minutes or so to write
about 750 words three pages --
there's applications that are linked to
that you can do it.
That gives you your subconscious brain permission
to say, "Hey, we gotta deal with this stuff."
and then fix it and it's incredible
how much it helps.
I really recommend freewriting
but if you're not a writer you can also take a long walk,
you can go for a run, you can do traditional meditation.
A lot of these things can help tremendously
so that's the first one.
The second piece and the third piece are related
to gratitude because in just about every credible
scientific study of happiness,
gratitude ranks among the top things
that you can do to feel happier
but there's not a lot of good exercise for actually doing it.
It's just write down five things that you're grateful for
and i found that wasn't really connecting with me
but connected with me was,
as really horrible as it sounds,
was imagining the worst case scenario --
was a negative gratitude.
So instead of just saying I'm thankful for my health
I would say imagine that you went to the doctors today
and you walked in and he did a test.
He said, "I'm sorry. We just looked at your results
and it appears like you have cancer
and it's likely to be terminal,"
and then I would sit with that or instead of just saying,
"I'm thankful for living with my friends
and spending time with my friends," I'd say,
"Okay right now my friends are abroad.
What if their plane crashed and they were gone?"
that creates a visceral fear in me and I would sit
with that for 30 seconds, a minute, whenever,
playthrough like, I know this sounds really morbid,
but like the funeral and that would take me to a place
that when I stop and I went, "I'm thankful to live
with my friends. Holy cow! That feels amazing!"
and not only does the gratefulness sink in
but all of a sudden all of your other problems
whether it's a breakup,
something going on with your business,
or somebody's being mean to you --
they seem so petty.
Your training your brain to really put things in perspective.
You don't want to do this every minute of every day.
I'm not asking you to constantly do this
but for one moment a day as you're doing these
exercises to do this i found its really helped me
tap into honest gratitude.
And then the third thing, once I get there,
where I'm like, "Wow," like things are amazing,
I'll take it to the next level like
not only are my friends not in a plane crash
but I get to live with them,
I get to hang out with them,
I get through all this cool stuff.
Then when i'm feeling really good,
I extend that gratitude to people that I
especially am feeling envious of.
And to give a quick example of someone
that I may feel envious of --
I love music.
I've been playing guitar for 10-12 years.
I just started learning piano and I've
been trying to sing for like three years now
and I've moved from horrible screeching terrible
to mediocre and that means that when I see people
that seem to do it effortlessly
especially when they're younger
and they break onto the scene.
There's a moment of I like that song
but, "Man, that fat guy. Screw him. It's just not fair,"
and what that does is -- that sort of thought pattern
can become a habit and you can start to see it
in other areas of life.
So rooting it out is going to help you be much happier
and what I'll do here is, "Okay, I really like his music
but i'm jealous. Shawn Mendes, kid sings great."
I'll go, "You know what? That's amazing --
that he gets to travel the world and express himself
musically for so many people that his full-time job
is to just get better and better and better at that."
That is amazing, that's so cool for him,
or if I see someone that has anything --
it doesn't have to be someone that I'm jealous of.
My friends are traveling I don't want to travel
but i know that's really great for them --
that they get to travel.
They've been wanting to do this for so long.
You train yourself.
You do five things that you're grateful for and the
opposite but then five things that other people have
that you don't have a reason to be grateful for but
just try to tap into that gratefulness for them anyway.
It can feel hard at first but go through this practice
and what you become is really incredibly charismatic.
This is tough for me but if you can really be the guy
or the girl who is out there and is genuinely happy
when good things happen to other people
like filled to the brim,
man, that's the kind of person other people
want to be around and it just gives you
so much more happiness in the world
to tap into and have yourself.
So I hope that you guys do these things.
If you want to roll them all into one concrete thing
that takes 10-20 minutes,
go to the apps in the description
and do your freewriting.
Just, you know, let yourself write, brain dump,
get things out, solve some problems,
then at the end do two or three minutes
of this negative gratitude where you're
only going to write down five things but
you're going to sit actually and you're
gonna think about, "Man, would be the opposite
of this be?" and really associate with that
and then then be grateful for the things that you have
and then when you're feeling good like,
"My life is so fortunate. Not only these bad things
aren't happening but I wasn't born in the fifth century,"
that like there's just so much to be grateful for
for just about every person in the world
especially those of us who can watch have leisure time
to watch Youtube then you go
and you spread that gratitude to other people.
It takes about 20 minutes, 10-20 minutes a day and
if you do that, you will find that you condition yourself
to be happier all the time.
So I hope you guys found this helpful.
If you have, make sure to subscribe to the channel.
We've got tons of videos like these.
Happiness is a pet project of mine
that i'll definitely be doing more on but
how to learn faster with the charisma breakdowns
of the world's most charismatic people.
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and of course i hope that you enjoy this video.
I hope you guys go out and apply some of this stuff
at least for today
and I will look forward to seeing you in the next video.