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Below is a collection of tips that will help you to change the way your mind works. Some of the tips may seem very simple, but an old wisdom “simple solutions are often the most effective ones” is true also in this case. Give these methods a try and judge for yourself!
Do not compare yourself to others
This is a typical trap where most people fall into. How do you know you have a fancy car? If there were no other cars in the world, you would not know whether your car is fancy or not. You get the answer only by comparing your car to the car of the guy next door. Same goes to your job, girlfriend or boyfriend, social status etc. The society around us defines the standards of happiness and we are comparing what we have to those standards.
The key to the freedom and harmony of the mind is to stop comparing oneself to others. They have their own life, you have yours. Every life is unique. Be happy about what you have, that way you will always feel good about yourself and your life, and THAT is more than the guy next door most likely has, regardless of all his riches. Most people do not realize this very simple basic fact and end up spending big portion of their lives not appreciating the things they have, such as health, stable income, children etc. until those things are taken away from them. Only after getting sick, getting terminal illness or permanently incapacitating condition, losing a limb, losing a child, a spouse or a job, one realizes how valuable those things really were.
Imagine for a moment that those things would be taken from you. Imagine waking up next morning after losing one or all of those precious things in your life, hoping it was just a bad dream. You would give anything if you could make it to be just a bad dream. And now imagine you are given that one chance! It was all just a bad dream and you still have those things in your life. A child, a close relative, a spouse, alive and well, living with you. Your job, stable income, your health. News of the terminal cancer taken back. Imagine the joy!
Imagine now the day when those things will indeed be taken from you, because that day will surely come. You get the news from your doctor that soon it will be the time for you to go, or someone who you love gets that news. You become older and all those dear people around you start to die. These things will inevitably happen at some point in your life. But that moment is not today! Embrace that fact and enjoy this day and your life as it is right now! In the end all we have is this moment, there is no guarantee of tomorrow. Be grateful of what you have and do not spend your energy wanting something more. That is the path to a true happiness. It is in your own hands, you can change the way you perceive your life and the world around you. You can do it today!
Do enough exercise
Physical exercise has been linked to mental health in several studies. Exercise releases endorphins, the brain's own pleasure substances, which makes one feel energetic and euphoric. Adrenaline also has a bit of this effect. This is the reason why so many people become addicted to doing sports. As drug addicts, they are looking for the “kick”, and know what they must do in order to get it. An adequate and regular amount of endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine ensure your mind stays healthy and alert. People who do exercise on regular basis are less likely to become depressed. So, even if you did not feel like it, go to do some sports, you feel great afterward and you arm yourself against whatever blows the future might have in store for you!
Meet friends and relatives on a regular basis
Human is a social creature and spending time with other people has a bit of a same effect as doing sports. It releases the same pleasure substances in your brain, which helps you to keep depression away. Keeping contact with friends and relatives also has other favorable effects on your life. When you go through a difficult time in your life you will have a safety net, people who will support you and help you. It is good to take care of that safety net even during those times when it is not needed, to ensure it will be there when the need emerges.
If there is something in your life that makes you unhappy, try actively to change that thing
If you feel unhappy, scan your mind to find out what it is that actually makes you unhappy. Do you feel your life is standing still? Are you not happy about your relationship with your Significant Other? Are things going badly at work? After you have located the source of your problem, ask yourself “can I live with this? Do I want to live with this?” and answer honestly to yourself. Answering may require several days or weeks of careful thinking and self-observing, because you do not want to make big decisions in a haste. Once you have gotten your answer, do what is necessary and do not think about it more for a while.
If you decide to change that factor in your life that is bothering you, be prepared to go through some difficult times immediately after making the decision. But those difficult moments and longing for the way things used to be will only last for a while, after which you will be much happier and more comfortable with your life. When you look back after several years, you are glad you made that change! Trust yourself and your intuition.
After making the decision of either to change your life in some way or not, do not look back or have second thoughts. Think that it was you who made this decision, no one forced you to do it. You have the power to decide how your life will evolve. Be proud of the decision you made! If you later feel you want to make another kind of decision, you can always do it. But at this moment, be proud of the decision you now made!
Meditate on a regular basis
Throughout the history of a mankind people who are troubled by negative and tormenting thoughts have been seeking for the peace of mind by using various methods. Some seek the deliberation from the solitude of the monasteries, others from the remote corners of the wilderness, and yet others from the sweet ignorance and delirium offered by the drugs.
You can start by reserving a special moment of a day every day when you allow yourself to have a quiet moment, when you do not think about anything. Just listen to the silence around you (you should try to be in silent surroundings while doing this), observe your own body and just relax. You should be sitting in a comfortable position while doing this, if you are standing you are not as relaxed as when you are sitting and if you are lying down you are likely to become drowsy. Just let your mind float around, aimlessly. Block all thoughts, both negative and positive. This is the moment dedicated only to you!
Keep on doing this for a while every day over a period of time and you start to feel more relaxed. Then try to do this couple times per day, in different places. You can have your private moment of emptiness and solitude in your workplace or in a buss or in a car on your way home. Just close your eyes and shut the noisy world outside. After learning to relax at will you can use this technique to help you to deal with the difficult moments in life, should they come your way.
Make a list of all the things that are well in your life
There are things like this in everyone's life. The list can include work, relationship, children, relatives, friends, hobbies, health, etc. Most people have at list one of these things in their lives. It is important to appreciate these simple things and not to take them for granted. Imagine if those precious things in your list were taken from you... Now do you realize that you are actually quite lucky to have them? There are many people in this world who do not have the things you have.
Say to yourself several times in a day “I am a wonderful, unique human being, there is no one like me on this planet!”
This is actually true, so be proud of who and what you are!
- Maria
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That is actually a very natural thing. The evolution has favored those individuals, who have been competitive. The feeling that you want to do as well as your neighbor is doing has its roots deep in time before the written history. But we do not have to be the slaves to those feelings. We can alter the way we think. Comparing oneself to others is a path to an endless dissatisfaction, since there will always be someone who is doing better than you. Visit page 
Your answer can be for example like this: “Yes, I can live with this, I do not want to change my life so that this factor (work, spouse, etc) would go away from my life, it would be too big of a change and even to I am feeling a bit unhappy sometimes, in a big picture this is the way I want my life to be. It is MY DECISION to keep things as they are”. In this case do not change your life and stand proudly behind this decision, which YOU made.
Those who do not want to mess up their head with substances or go to live in solitude have a “short cut” they can choose to help them learn to relax their mind at will. This short cut is meditation. It is not, however, a short cut in that sense that it could be learned in a blink of an eye. It takes a bit of a time to learn the technique, but then again same goes to learning all new things in life.