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The Ultimate Guide To Happiness Audits
Happiness audits help us determine our current level of happiness, as well as confirm what makes us happy, unhappy or stressed. Performing a happiness audit is step two in our six-step plan to move you toward a happier life. As a reminder, those steps include:
Perform A Happiness Audit
Ultimate Guide To Happiness Audits
Happy people pay attention to the things in everyday life that give them pleasure, and the things that are in line with their purpose.
Now that we have our purpose statement ironed out, we can determine what makes us happy and try to build more of those items into our daily routine. This requires us to be more mindful of our activities, instead of being mind-numbed robots, moving unthinkingly from one task to the next.
An audit forces you to be more mindful, to pay attention to the things that make you happy, unhappy or stressed. By performing an audit, I discovered that I enjoy my day more if I get a workout in before starting my daily writing. I am more focused and energized, and ready to write after a workout.
Plus, the exercise itself lifts your spirits by increasing your production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain directly connected to happiness and pleasure. Additionally, exercise helps you deal with stress in your daily life. When I write before working out, my prose can have an angry edge to it. After working out, sunnier prose!
Admittedly, an audit can seem daunting.
You may discover that a relationship or your job is the cause of your unhappiness. Leaving a partner, dropping a friend, or launching a new job search can cause great upheaval in your life. So, you will not want to rush into a lot of major life changes at one time.
Let’s get started with our audit. I recommend that you spend at least two weeks performing your audit. A month is even better. This gives you time at work and at home to quantify your happiness, unhappiness and causes of stress.
