Self-actualization leads to true happiness inside you and true happiness is enjoying your own company and living in peace and harmony with your body, mind, and soul. True happiness is a state of mind of constantly being in love with yourself. Learning and understanding yourself help you to find true happiness. It is something that you cannot create artificially but it is a lifelong learning process, and it is experiencing the beauty of your whole life.
In life, one must overcome obstacles in order to grow. Sometimes timing and circumstances are against us and it is inevitable that you will encounter some challenges that test your limits. However, if there is a silver lining that can be made visible with your skills, you will understand the real and true potential to break barriers in life. Once the learner gets a taste of it, he or she would need more and more of that and finally their growth opportunities are fully exploited.
True happiness is a result of attaining a status which is described by a few vital aspects.
Passion for Excellence
Passion is your truth. Passion is what lights your fire and makes you happy. This is simple but powerful. Accordingly, if you find passion, you find happiness. You literally do not have to have a care in the world since you are happy doing what you do. Learn to use or apply it in your life and then this element of passion and the world will make sense to you.
Competence
We are born with certain traits and abilities that can determine our destiny. However, all of us like to explore opportunities. Equal access to education, to choose what you like, to employ to engage, to meet basic human needs are essentials in life. Happiness is determined not only by how freely we can acquire survival skills.
It is achieved also by competence and by being accomplished at skills we desire to have. It is competence that allows us to express ourselves intellectually, artistically, politically, and comically. Consequently, it is acceptable to say that learning new things or building competence increases happiness.
Career Progression
There is an intrinsic and powerful link between a person’s career and well-being. Having a pursuit in a career in life that gets you going each day might be the most fundamental element of happiness. Lack of career satisfaction is a weight that can sink a person’s overall sense of well-being fast, even if the financial payoff is bigger.
Social and Community Well-Being
Relationship dynamics of well-being are also present in work and in personal lives. Research findings have revealed that people who have at least three or four very close friendships are healthier, have levels of higher well-being and are more engaged in their jobs, (Rath and Jim Harter, 2010). Moreover, the absence of any close friendships can lead to boredom, loneliness, and depression. Boosting your sense of social well-being by engaging in social interaction a few hours every day, including socializing at work as well as e-mailing, talking on the phone, texting, or spending time with family, is considered to be significant.
The personal and professional connections you make will pay off in your sense of overall well-being. Further, we often forget the element on many people’s quest for happiness is philanthropy, which provides a far greater sense of happiness than exclusively seeking to fulfill our own needs.
Financial Security
The degree to which money contributes to happiness does not necessarily correlate to income. Once the basic needs are met, how people spend and manage their money determines their resulting emotions.
Those who had the highest financial well-being were not the ones who had the most money, by any standard (Rath, 2010). They did not have to worry about ups and downs.
The happiness achieved by giving to charity and spending money on others, also offers a lasting emotional boost. In fact, studies show that the same regions of the brain that are activated when we receive money glow even brighter when we donate money to community organizations.
Physical Well-Being
Finally, physical health can provide the foundation for other areas of life. If a person exercises regularly, he or she performs better at work, spends more time socializing and contributing to the community. Several studies on Well-being indicate that sleeping well, exercising, and choosing healthy foods can have an enormous impact on energy and alertness—all ingredients necessary to have a zestful life.
Dr D M A Kulasooriya – Director General National Institute of Business Management