In today’s world where many people are exposed to negative noise and needless negativity, I believe cultivating purpose, and sense of fulfilment to be key ingredients for your inner happiness and overall wellbeing. The starting rather than the end point for creating a life of real success and vitality.
This is backed up by a wealth of scientific research from the field of positive psychology.
You can learn some simple and inexpensive happiness-boosting habits which not only feel good in the moment but can have a big impact over time on your overall sense of wellbeing. Supporting you in becoming more successful by whatever way you want to define success – whether it’s by the quality of your relationships, career accomplishments, creativity, energy or your health.
Furthermore emotional positivity is contagious through your social networks, spreading in a ripple effect through your family, organisation/workplace and community. A real win-win-win.
As humans, we seem happiest when we have purpose & meaning, robust relationships, and a sense of engagement and accomplishment in our lives.
Truth is, inner happiness does not really come from material things. As little as ten per cent of your potential happiness comes from the toys you own or the watch you wear.
Regardless of whether the watch you wear costs twenty or two hundred euros, it tells the same time. No matter how many pairs of shoes you have, you can only wear one pair at a time. No matter what type of house you live in the impact of loneliness can be the same.
So don’t educate your children to be driven by material wealth. Instead teach them the skills of inner happiness and real fulfilment, so when they grow up they will know more about the value of things than the price; more about wisdom and less about wish lists.
Here are some inspirational quotes about inner happiness; words that I hope really resonate for you as they have done for me.
#’Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.’
– Mahatma Gandhi
#’Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.’
– Marcus Aurelius
#’Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.’
– Winnie the Pooh
#’Happiness is a state of activity.’
– Aristotle
#‘Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.’
– Thich Nhat Hanh
#‘Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.‘
– Buddha
#’I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.’
– Dalai Lama
#’For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.‘
– Seneca
#’Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.’
– Confucius
#’The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realise that you control your own destiny.’
– Albert Ellis
#’Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.’
– Abraham Lincoln
#’Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.’
– Joseph Campbell
#’Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.’
– Eleanor Roosevelt
#’We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.’
– George Bernard Shaw
#’What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.‘
– Confucius
#’Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.’
– Marcel Proust
#’The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.’
– James Oppenheim
#’Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.’
– Winnie the Pooh
#’Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.’
– Eskimo Proverb
#‘Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.’
– Dalai Lama
#’Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.’
– Buddha
#’Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.’
– Heraclitus
#’The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.’
– Aesop
#’Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.’
– Buddha
#’When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.’
– Helen Keller
#’On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realise that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.’
– Eckhart Tolle
#’Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.’
– Maxim Gorky
#’There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.’
– Anthony de Mello
#‘If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
‘If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.’
– Chinese Proverb
#’That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.‘
– Henry David Thoreau
#’It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.’
– Dale Carnegie
#’No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’
– Eleanor Roosevelt
#’There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.’
– Epictetus
#’Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.’
– Mark Twain
#’The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.’
– Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
#‘Happiness depends upon ourselves.’
– Aristotle
# ‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.’
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
#’There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.’
– Dalai Lama
My own personal definitions of inner happiness are as follows:
1.’Someone to love & care for.
Something to be grateful for.
Something purposeful to do.
Something to look forward to.’
2. ‘Happiness is a feeling of emotional positivity grounded in purpose & meaning.’
3. ‘Doing what you love and learning to love what you do boosts inner happiness & builds lasting success.’
4. ‘Happiness is a state of being.’
5. ‘Achieving happiness is acceptance.’
6. ‘The real key to inner happiness is not success. It’s the other way around, happiness is the key to success.’
7. ‘Your own unique path to happily
achieving optimal happiness and wellbeing is just that -YOURS!’
What are your favourite quotes about inner happiness?
If one or more of the quotes you have read really resonates with you, feel free to share.
