Happiness is an area of our life that we don’t often spend much time being intentional about growing in but yet it’s one of the most important areas. It’s easy in life to get into a routine and before we know it another year has gone by. It’s almost like we become a robot just going through the motions of our day to day tasks and responsibilities. Life seems to be flashing by and we become complacent when it comes to being intentional about living a life filled full of happiness. When we’re not being intentional about growing in happiness we’re letting opportunities to live a happier, more fulfilling life just slip through our fingers. If we’re going to live a richer life, we need to seize the opportunities to create more happiness for those around us and ourselves. Often times we get caught up in the flow of life, where we wake up go to work, come home, spend a little time with the family, watch some Netflix then go to bed only to do it all over again. It’s like we’re on autopilot and we become numb to the real joys of life because we’re so focused on the next thing that we need to do. So, to help us be more intentional about growing in happiness I’ve created a list of a few happiness tips that will bring more happiness into your life and to the lives of those around you.

* The first happiness tip is to remember to stop and smell the roses. I totally understand, sometimes in life we get really busy and we’re just trying to get everything done. But sometimes all we need to do is slow down and just take in a moment and enjoy life. Maybe this moment means sitting close to your spouse, or taking a minute to call your friend that you haven’t talked to in a while, or taking a moment to enjoy a beautiful view of a sunset. These special little moments can be a lot of different things. So, next time one of these moments presents itself take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy it.

* The second happiness tip is to complement someone in a genuine way. I like getting complements and I also like giving complements. I bet that you’re the same way. So if we like giving and receiving complements then why is it that we don’t do more of it? Giving complements is a win-win activity. When you complement someone, you win because it makes you feel good that you made someone else feel good and it’s also a win for the other person because the complement makes them feel good too. Both people end up happier. Let’s do more of this!

* The third thing is to build someone up. Sometimes I call this talking someone up or lifting someone up. This is similar to a complement but it’s a little different in that its focus is to make the other person feel more capable and confident. In this case you tell someone that they’re good at something, you point out how they’re helping with the rest of the team, and/or you tell them how good of a job they’re doing. You can find lots of opportunities to do this at work. Don’t tell people they’re good at something unless they really are, otherwise you’ll start to lose credibility. The nice thing about this tip is that everyone is good at something so you should be able to find at least one point to make in order to build someone up. This one is a big one especially if you’re in some sort of leadership role such as a manager at your work, or if you’re the owner of a business, or you’re a parent. Any kind of leadership role requires that the leader instills confidence into their team. You need to have a team that is confident in their abilities if you, as the leader,