Cheerfulness is a critical happiness skill. Have you ever been told that you look unhappy, when in fact at that moment you were very happy? Cheerfulness is your ability to express how happy you are to other people. It is theoretically possible to be happy, yet not express that happiness to others. There are many benefits to having good cheerfulness skills:

1. When others share in your happiness, you bring happiness to them
2. When other share in your happiness, some of their happiness reflects back to you and amplifies your happiness
3. When others share in your happiness, your happiness can be sustained longer because the positive actions of others serve as reminders for you to be happy

Tips to improve your cheerfulness skills:

1. Imagine that you are a famous movie actor or actress, imagine that a production company is paying you a large amount of money to be happy.  
2. Use the same techniques that an actor would use to communicate his feelings. Do some research on acting techniques at the library.
3. Choose to boost your cheerfulness in one maximum effort in a chosen situation. How long can you maintain your cheerfulness, one hour? Thirty minutes?
4. Inventory your existing methods of expressing cheerfulness. Now consciously use these methods during the day to increase the frequency that you express cheerfulness.  

This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.