Wellbeing_ 7 Steps to a Happy New You _ Mail Online

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Wellbeing: 7 steps to a happy new you

By Gyles Brandreth

PUBLISHED: 00:01 GMT, 5 January 2014 | UPDATED: 00:01 GMT, 5 January 2014

Want this year to be your most contented yet? Author and broadcaster GylesBrandreth shows you how to make it happen

Happiness does not just enhance your life but extends it

1 Audit your happiness

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Research from around the Western world shows that happy people live between seven and a half to tenyears longer than unhappy people. Since happiness does not just enhance your life but extends it, it isworth giving the amount of happiness you are getting some serious consideration.

Take time – today – to make a list of the 20 aspects of your life that make you most unhappy, from thetrivial (cleaning out the hamster cage) to the serious (commuting to work), then sit down with your familyand talk through the ways in which, by the end of this year, you can have halved the number of items onthe list. (Moving house or changing your job to avoid the hell of that commute may seem drastic, but areyou serious about living seven years longer or aren’t you?)

Next, make a list of the 20 things in your life that make you most happy (going to the movies, spendingtime with your children, bird-watching, soaking in the bath). Now get out your diary and allocate time forthose things so that you double the hours you give to your happy activities this year.

We all need an absorbing passion

2 Cultivate a passion

Outside yourself and your family and friends, what interests you most? Do you have a passion thatdrives and sustains you? Do you have a hobby that’s truly involving? If you don’t, you should. We allneed an absorbing passion.

Margaret Thatcher’s only passion was politics. When her passion was denied her – when she lost herjob as prime minister – she had no others to fall back on and she died last year, aged 87, after 20 yearsof frustrating retirement.

Now consider another 87-year-old lady of distinction, The Queen. If you saw the photograph of HerMajesty on the day her horse won the Ascot Gold Cup last June, you will have seen a picture ofhappiness. The Queen is driven by duty, but what keeps her happy is her passion for horses.

Everybody needs an interest that will keep them engaged in life, come what may. George V collectedstamps. The Duke of Windsor loved embroidery. Prince Charles is an avid watercolourist. Rod Stewart isnever happier than when he is playing with his model railway. John Travolta gets his kicks parking hisaeroplanes in his backyard. This year cultivate a passion that gets you up and out of your chair – andpreferably up and out of your house.



To be happy, you need to be a leaf on a tree - still unique, but definitely attached

3 Be a leaf on a tree

Every leaf on every tree is unique. Detached from the tree it remains unique; it floats about a bit (thefreedom can feel quite nice), but quickly falls to the ground and dies. To be happy, you need to be a leafon a tree – still unique, but definitely attached.

This year make sure that you are actively linked to an organism that is alive and larger than you are. Itcan be a family or a school, a university, a church, a place of work, a social club – anything, so long as ithas a life of its own.

If you sense that you are semidetached (you have a family, but they live in Australia; you have a job, butredundancies are in the air), cultivate a passion that will help you become a leaf on a tree.

Become a bell-ringer, help teach children to read at a local primary school, join a choir or the golf club,volunteer at the local Citizens Advice Bureau (yes, for that you will need training – you don’t get sevenyears of extra life for nothing: effort is involved).



Change is good for us. It is the salt in the soup of life

4 Don’t resist change

Of all the seven secrets, this is the one I find the most challenging. I am conservative by nature. I resistchange. I like the good old days. I preferred TV when it was in black and white. (I am sure theprogrammes were better then.) I am a technophobe. (I do not want to learn another wretched password.)But I am wrong and I know it because when I hear myself railing against change I sound like a grumpyold man.



‘Don’t rock the boat’ – that used to be my motto. Not any more. A little gentle rocking is something we allneed. Change is good for us. It is the salt in the soup of life.

So this year, don’t resist change when it comes your way. Embrace it. And, if you can, get ahead of thegame by trying 12 things you have never done before. Yes, once a month, surprise yourself. If you’re ameat-eater, try a veggie diet for a change. If you have never ridden a horse, give it a go. Play acomputer game. Go to a concert that normally you’d never dream of going to. And, in the summer, find asecluded beach and try a bit of skinny-dipping. I dare you.

Don't let your life become one long selfie

5 Break the mirror

The more outward-looking you are, the happier you will be. Introspective, self-regarding, self-absorbedpeople are not very happy – and, often, crashing bores. If you talk about yourself all the time, it drivespeople away. Face it: people aren’t interested in you. They really aren’t. They are interested inthemselves.

So begin the year by monitoring what you say when you are chatting to your nearest and dearest. Howmuch do you talk about yourself? How often do the words ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘myself’ crop up in your conversation?Don’t let your life become one long selfie.

Look at yourself less in the mirror (literally and figuratively) and try to get through a whole week ofchitchat without once telling anybody anything about what you have done or are doing or are thinking orplanning or feeling. Talk to other people. Ask them questions and listen to their answers. Ask them morequestions. Take an interest in everybody else and take a lot less interest in yourself.

When you have managed it for one week, try it for a second, then a third and a fourth. Research showsthat it only takes a month to change the habits of a lifetime. ‘Watch your thoughts, they become words,’says the old Arabian proverb. ‘Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, theybecome habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, it becomes yourdestiny.’



Try to be aware of the here and now

6 Live in the moment

That’s easy to say, but how do you do it? Make it a rule not to look back (there really is no point: what’sdone is done) and, while you have to plan ahead and be sensible about the future, don’t let tomorrowoverwhelm today. A good way to free your mind from worries about the future is to list those worriesonce a week in a notebook – then forget them until you look at the list in a week’s time. And always try tobe aware of the here and now.

Get yourself into the habit of savouring the moment by following the advice of the American playwrightWilliam Saroyan: ‘Try to learn to breathe deeply, to really taste food when you eat, and when you sleep,really sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laughlike hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.’



If you smile, others w ill smile back

7 And finally, if you want to be happy, be happy

Act it, walk it, talk it, do it – now. Dance it and sing it, too, if you can. Music and movement lift the spirits.(Everyone I have met who has been on Strictly Come Dancing says it’s the best thing they have everdone.) ‘Choose to be optimistic,’ says the Dalai Lama. ‘It feels better.’ And you can trigger optimism moreeasily than you realise.

Begin by improving your posture (as you walk, lead with your nipples: that’s all it takes) and slightlyincrease your stride. Hold your head high: stop looking down, start looking up and out. And whereveryou go, whatever you do, whoever you meet, however you feel, smile. If you smile, others will smile back.If you don’t, you will never discover how right I am. If you do, you will have a happy new year – and manymore to come.

The 7 Secrets of Happiness by Gyles Brandreth is published by Short Books, price £7.99. To order acopy for £7.49, with free p&p, call the YOU Bookshop on 0844 472 4157, you-bookshop.co.uk. Gyles’sLooking for Happiness show is touring the UK and will be at the Leicester Square Theatre, LondonWC2, in May. For further details, visit gylesbrandreth.net

http://gylesbrandreth.net/



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Additional photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/REX

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amy lou, edinburgh, 4 days ago

What a lovely article full of common sense advice. Thank you

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bruce rebello, Toronto, Canada, 5 days ago

This is a great article. The idea of living int he moment is critical to being happy. I personally also find that takingeverything in life positively, be it good or bad is also a key to being happy. But on top of it all, I feel doing what you love todo regularly is the most important factor to being happy. Nothing else will bring you more joy. I personally write about thisin my blog, 1 Happy Thought


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Lo_H, South East, United Kingdom, 5 days ago

I can definately relate to this. I was really down at the start of last year for a couple of reasons. I didn't have any hobbiesdue to work being so busy but now work has calmed down and I have picked up a couple. Running being one of them. Iwill never be an athlete but I have entered a couple of races for this year. I think the sense of acievement is definatelygood for the soul. It helped me feel so much better. I have a few things planned this year to look forward to as well andhave made a wee list of wacky days out that I would like to tick off and I am determined to do it.


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WWhite, London, United Kingdom, 5 days ago

This is wonderful. I've taken notes & will be following them! Thank you.


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Diana, Tonbridge, 6 days ago

Some odd ideas, for lots like me, getting a job is the major aim, and hopefully to be attached, after nearly 14 yrs of beingsingle, I add not through choice!! Just gone sugar free, so that is second to the job thing, I do have to say I get a bit sick of

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folk giving me the 'couple overload' thing, they seem insensitive to others who are single and would rather not be, after allsome of us don't moan about it all the time!


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Andrea, Sheffield, 6 days ago

Although I would love to walk with my head held high, I have fallen over so many cracked paving stones etc, and troddenin disgusting stuff, that I have to keep looking down to watch where I'm going.


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Redonkulis, london, United Kingdom, 6 days ago

enough about me. Lets talk about you....what is your impression of ME.


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chinablue, Sunnysideup, United Kingdom, 6 days ago

The smiling at ppl works very well. I don't mind if they ( very rarely) don't smile back. Loved the article, although if I "leadfrom my nipples" I might get backache from stooping lol


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D-Listers, London, 6 days ago

When I smile at people all I get is a dirty look back. They look at me as if I am bonkers!


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Observer, Glasgow, 5 days ago

That's because, you live in London. It's a very old and living trait.

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gnash, los angeles, 1 day ago

That's OK. Do it anyway.

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living in hope, somewhere over the rainbow, 6 days ago

Some good analogies in there. At the moment I'm certainly a leaf that has fallen to the ground, so will be making an effortto find a new tree this year.


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