What is your favorite tool? Recently a friend suggested a garden tool that has cut weeding time in the garden by half! Hello, new best friend. Where have you been all my life?

We have all heard the saying, “Work smarter, not harder.” Tools allow us to do this and they are helpful for all kinds of tasks inside the house and out. There are also tools that help us to become Pathologically Positive and when we choose to use these tools, we choose happiness.

Scott Wilhite, author of, “The 7 Core Skills of Everyday Happiness,” joined me for a recent episode on YouTube and shared three skills he practices every day that bring him happiness. The first skill is the skill of gratitude. If we feel we owe someone for what they have done for us, that isn’t gratitude. Gratitude is being thankful for the small and big things that give meaning to our lives.

The second skill is to be fully present. In our busy lives, we rush from one thing to the next, not really giving our full attention to the task at hand. We are thinking ahead to what needs to happen next or get sidetracked. Stop, pause, enjoy! Give your full attention to the task at hand and more importantly, to the person in front of you.

The third skill is to lift someone else. We all know we should help and serve others but knowing is not practicing. Make a difference, be the difference.

Do these three skills seem too easy? Simple and easy are not the same thing. Consistently doing these things will help us to be happy, no matter what is happening in our lives.

You CAN get happy now. Watch Scott explain the three skills outlined here on the YouTube episode of, “What Can I Do To Make Myself Happy.”

“We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.”

~Marshall McLuhan