Before you say it – I know. You’re about to internally groan and think to yourself, “Another self help article on happiness? Ugh.” I get it, I know that every other week one of your Facebook friends either enthusiastically posts or shares something with a title akin to “The Secret To Happiness Has Finally Been Discovered!!” to which you eagerly click on the link only to be confronted with cheesy clichés like “smile more!” and “don’t take things for granted!” and “always be optimistic!” I’m not discounting the validity of those statements, people probably would be happier if they could effectively achieve doing them 100 percent of the time, but I don’t think people who are looking to be happy know how to get to those places. But I think I’ve found the bridge between wanting to be happier, and actually getting there. So whether you enthusiastically agree with me, or if you take it with a grain of salt in the end, just keep reading for a little longer.

Toxic people. Toxic people are those friends who were never really your friends; you were only stuck together due to circumstance. Maybe they were the friend who was constantly serving up backhanded compliments to you on a silver platter, or maybe they were the friend who just never, ever stuck up for you when you needed it. Toxic people don’t even have to be friends; they are people in your life who exude negative energy like it’s their job. Do you think having negative energy and negative people in your life is going to make you happy? The answer is absolutely not.

I’m not saying you should abandon friends and people who have bad days and get snippy or overly honest with you on occasion, but if they’re constantly like that then you need to purge your life of them. And no, I’m not saying you should rely on other happier people for your own happiness either – that is entirely up to you, but here’s a hint: ridding your life of the Negative Nellies of the world might just give you the bright outlook you need in order to “always be optimistic!”

Stress. Ahh, the big “S” word. Stress can be good, and a moderate level can motivate you and keep you busy. But if stress is eating you alive and consuming you in everything you do, you need to realize that it’s unhealthy for your mind and body (and your happiness). I only speak from personal experience, but regulating anxiety (I know, I thought it was an impossible task too) lifted an immense weight off of my shoulders. Even if I am in a bind at school or work, the realization that stressing out over it won’t do anything to help solve the problem at hand has helped quite a bit.

Stress itself won’t help, but actually figuring out how to channel that stress into productivity will. So detox your life of this awful entity, and instead embrace figuring out how to channel stress into positive energy (see a theme here yet?) I guarantee this will probably help you to “smile more!”

Grudges. Grudges are things we hold on to because we can justify them not only to ourselves, but also to other people. (We’re talking long-term grudges here, not the “You ate the last Poptart!” kind.) Justifying them is so easy because not many people enjoy being nice or forgiving to anyone who has done them wrong, so grudges aren’t a difficult concept to understand or empathize with. But honestly, and this took me a while to learn, people who have wronged you in the past probably won’t see the light whether you hold a grudge or not. You probably do have every right to be angry, mad, and sad about whatever trauma you are holding on to, but the person you’re holding the grudge against doesn’t care! And now you’re the one holding on to all of this negative energy - negative energy that is associated with a toxic person. That’s double the negativity, and in this case a double negative doesn’t make a positive, sorry!

Forgiveness is purging yourself of a grudge. I know this is going to be a hard sell, but hear me out. I think most people object to forgiveness because they don’t believe the other person deserves it. But don’t you deserve it? Forgiveness isn’t for the other person; it’s for you so that you can move on without the all-encompassing dead weight of a grudge on your shoulders. You’d be amazed at how light it feels. So detox yourself!

Happiness is a choice, but not one that you get up one day and decide on. It’s an accumulation of a series of choices you make in your everyday life. Surround yourself with happy, good, and positive people and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.