Determining your "happiness generators"

Do you use "external" successes to chart your progress and your happiness? By external I mean - buying something to cheer yourself up when you are feeling down, or feeling "happy" because the sun is shining.
 
Now I am not saying that you shouldn't be happy when the sun is shining, nor rewarding yourself when you have done something remarkable. The problem I have found with using external "happiness generators" that sooner or later we need more to give us the same effect. 

An associate said that he had stopped drinking alcohol because he found that instead of having one or two drinks a night - he needed 6 or 7 to reach the same kind of feeling that the one or two bottles of beer used to generate. He also said that he had put on about 10 kilos as a direct result of the additional "empty" calories he was consuming. 

If we constantly look for other people or things to make us happy, we will never be truly happy with who we are or what we have. We rely on external influences to make our weather, and if things aren't to our satisfaction we run the risk of being sad and more than likely - grumpy as well.
 
Do you rely on external influences to make your weather? How do you know if you do?
Think back to when you were last "happy" - what were you doing? Who were you with? What were they doing?
 
So the question is - how can you start the process of change from external happiness generators to internal happiness generators?
 
First of all I would recommend taking a moment or two to do the exercise above.

• What makes you happy?
• What were you doing?
• Who were you with?

Now - add another question or two

When was the last time you were truly contented? Ah - a much better word than "happy".
Did you do an amazing piece of work? Did you clean your house? Did you sit on the grass and enjoy the sun seeping into your skin? Were you playing silly games with the kids? Did you sit down at the end of the day and think - I have achieved some wonderful things today?
 
You see - being contented is about being "happy" with yourself and your achievements - those things that boost your self-esteem rather than your ego.