The 4 Conditions of Being Happy

The 4 Conditions of Being Happy

In his brilliant book The Secrets of Being Happy, Richard Bandler lists the 4 conditions of being happy. 

He asserts that all four conditions must be in place for you to be able to be happier.

1. Accountability. 

You need to be accountable to yourself for your own results in life. do you take self responsibility for what happens, the outcomes of everything you engage in, for the way you think, behave and react to. this does not mean blaming yourself but simply being accountable for what happens, that way you open yourself to help yourself get a different outcome or get help form another to help you change the outcome in the future.

2 Proactivity. 

Are you proactive,? When you want something do you take action to go and get it? One of the facets of depressed people is they generally have difficulty in generating enthusiasm for doing anything, they become passive and inactive. Forward motion in life is a key part of being happier and that forward motion is in your hands nobody else’s.

3. Sensory Acuity. 

This means becoming aware of your own feelings, thoughts and behaviours, the way you react to events and things around you that affect you. Are these ways that just continue to recreate the same response of unhappiness that you already have. by become aware of how you feel etc you can become the observer and also in a position to then decide to change your feelings, reactions and thoughts more in line with a person that would be happier in that situation. Becoming sensitive about how you feel, think and behave is the first step to change.

4 Adaptability. 

Becoming adaptable is critical. if we cannot adapt or be prepared to adapt we will forever be trapped in the old ways of disappointment, regret and unhappiness. Learning how to access different ways of feeling, to reframe our thoughts so that we feel differently. 

There are always at least two ways to see something so if your way of seeing it results in unhappiness, disappointment, regret, guilt or some other negative emotion or feeling then examine how another way of seeing it can result in a better outcome.

Remember , our reactions are just OUR reactions, others can and do react differently in the same circumstances. It’s the way we react that determines our outcome and our reactions are based on how we first feel about it.

Being happy is a choice but not one most of us actively engage in. We behave more like passengers on a bus with no control over which stops it will stop at. Events just seem to happen and we react in the ways we have learned to react based on past experience, even if that is no longer appropriate for the current situation. 

Nothing is set in stone in human terms, everything is up for grabs, all change is possible if we first just accept that fact. finding that change is possible is the greatest leap forward in being happier.

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