The 3 Habits of Happiness | Robin Sharma

Hi, it's Robin Sharma. Welcome to this issue of my video blog. Well, I wanted to focus on the three habits of happiness. Or maybe not the three, but three habits that I know if you do them every day will make you a much happier person. Number one, gratitude. What I do right here, I'm just going to show you. I have my journal, and almost everywhere I go, I have my journal with me. And I write in my journal. And a lot of what I write in my journal is daily gratitude. I write, you know, here I'm in South Africa. I'm at the Singita Game Reserve. I'm at a beautiful lodge. There's a fireplace behind me right now. This morning I woke up and I saw a number of the big five animals eating or grazing right outside of my room. And so in my journal, I'm going to write about where I am and what the stars looked like last night and the meal that we enjoyed. And I was in Botswana the day or yesterday morning. And getting to share the lead without a title message with all those people. And I just write all the big things and little things that I'm grateful for. And sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes I write for an hour. But the key idea to remember is our minds are hardwired for ingratitude. It was a survival mechanism that was valuable thousands of years ago when we lived out on the savannah. But it no longer serves us right. Now most of us have roofs over our heads, Most of us have enough food to eat, and yet we still focus on what's wrong in our lives. It's a biological instinct we have to fight. And how do you do that? Focused gratitude. And a great way to do it is write in your journal. Do it every day. You start to hardwire your brain and actually you start to refocus the way you see the world. And we know to be successful in business and successful in life, it is about spotting possibilities where others are looking for problems. Number two, this is a very simple one. But remember, savor. A lot of the work of the pioneers in the field of positive psychology talks about savoring life. So when you're drinking a cup of coffee, don't just drink a cup of coffee. While you're thinking about your emails, drink a cup of coffee and actually savor.

Savor the flavor. Savor the coffee. Savor your environment. And if you start to go through life and you savor the breeze and you savor maybe the car drive and you savor conversation with your teammate at work or your children at home, life starts to take on a much richer context. And the final thing in terms of a happiness habit is find work that matters. Or even more importantly, find meaning in your work. I have been here in Africa and I've interviewed, and you probably saw this on another one of my video blogs, but I've interviewed a hotel housekeeper and I said, did you like your job? And she almost was breathless. She said, I can't believe how much I love my job. And all I'm saying is a job is only just a job if you choose to see it as a job. All work is a chance to be of service. All work is a chance to express your gifts and talents. All work is a chance to be helpful to other human beings. All work is a chance to change the world. And it's up to you to find meaning in your work, whether you're a street sweeper, whether you're a police officer, whether you're a teacher, whether you're an astronaut, whether you're an entrepreneur. To find the meaning in your work so that every day you feel like you're on a mission. And that's a great source of happiness. So, from the Sangeeta Game Reserve here in gorgeous South Africa, I'm Robin Sharma. Three habits of happiness. Focus on them every day. Over time, you get some extraordinary results.