The top New Year's resolutions include getting healthier, exercising more, losing weight, saving more money, learning a new skill, and spending more time with family & friends. As you begin a New Year, temptations abound to develop a new resolution that you probably won't be able to keep! Rather than succumbing to the temptation to resolve and then fail, I recommend focusing on something I call "the habitude of happiness." What is a habitude? It's the combining of two key things - a habit and an attitude - in a way where we continually choose a healthy attitude that becomes habitual.
Doctors Les & Leslie Parrott, marriage authors and speakers, write extensively about this. "It is your attitude that will determine whether you and your partner live 'happily every after'." So many couples believe that money, good jobs, the right friends, college degrees and successful careers cause us to be happy (or winning the lottery). But the truth of the matter is that you can have all these things and be miserable. Happiness doesn't make its home in our hearts because of the external factors - it's a matter of the heart and mind.
Happiness is a choice that we need to make every day of our lives. Marriage researchers show that healthy marriages have one thing in common - both partners have taken responsibility of their emotions and feelings and they've chosen to be happy even though their circumstances are less than optimal. Anyone can complain about virtually anything. "It's too hot, too cold, too sweet, too sour, too loud, not loud enough, too much work, not being challenged enough." And on and on the complaining and moaning goes. But when we choose to step outside the "moan zone" and choose the habitude of happiness over time, we will have a happier marriage.
With your partner, take a few minutes and do this: talk about one thing that you are happy about or content with in your marriage. It could be something as simple as the way your spouse dresses or how they make coffee for you. Focus on it. Thank your spouse for helping create contentment in that area. Pray and thank God for it. Just focus on that area and then a week later take another area you're happy about. Do this for 6-7 weeks and you'll see a marked change in your habit of happiness!
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