How to Be Happy: 23 Tips to Be Happy With Your Life

What makes you happy?

This question is not as easy as it might seem.

According to Shawn Achor in The Happiness Advantage^{1 https://www.shawnachor.com/books/happiness-advantage/#:~:text=We’ve%20been%20taught%20that,five%20pounds%2C%20happiness%20will%20follow.} , most Americans find free time harder to enjoy than work. Yes, you read that right. It’s easier for most of us to be successful than to be happy at work!

We are so honored to help you find authentic connections! If you are struggling to find the help you need, please note that all content found on this website is not to be considered professional medical advice. It is always best to consult a doctor or licensed therapist with any questions or concerns in regards to your physical or mental health. For a good resource for therapists, you can check out Mental Health America’s helpful list^{2 https://www.mhanational.org/finding-therapy} .

Why Is Happiness Important?

Guilt. Fear. Pressure. In today’s age of achievement, we put a tremendous emphasis on success and very little importance on happiness. We are trained to be effective and successful, but we are not given the skills to be happy.

And this is a huge problem. Shawn Achor calls this the Happiness Myth: If we work hard and become successful, we will be happy.

From a young age, most of us are taught that if we work hard, then we will be successful; and once we are successful, we will be happy. I am completely guilty of this myth. I used to live by what I call the “when-then” mindset.

• When I get an “A,” then I’ll be happy.
• When I get this house, then I’ll be happy.
• When I finish this program, then I’ll be happy.

We have this mindset all wrong. In fact, our ideas about happiness are completely backwards! More than 200 scientific studies on nearly 275,000 people found that people who start off happy are more likely to succeed; unhappy are more likely to fail.

What makes you happiest the most?

1. Spending time with people I care about.
2. Spending time alone with my hobbies or interests.
3. Enjoying the small things in life like a nice cup of coffee.
4. Going on vacations and grand adventures.

How to Be Happy at Work

Happy people are more successful.

Happiness helps our productivity, our immune system, our creativity, our income, and our effectiveness.

Happiness gives us a huge competitive advantage—and it has great side-effects.

One study followed college freshmen for 19 years after graduation. The researchers found that those students who were happier in college had a higher income than their unhappy classmates 19 years later.

Let’s dive into how exactly to become happy:

23 Tips For Greater Happiness

Turn Your Routines Into Rituals

Your morning coffee can be a rushed gulp while checking emails, or it can be a savorful moment of mindful appreciation. Same action, completely different impact on your happiness.

In fact, most of us have about 25 transition points in our day—moments between activities that we usually rush through:

• Getting out of bed
• Starting your workday
• Breaking for lunch
• Returning home
• Getting ready for sleep

Instead of treating these as throwaway moments, turn them into happiness anchors. Choose any daily routine and enhance it with:

3 enjoyable physical elements (specific location, posture, or movement)
2 sensory elements (sounds, smells, or textures)
1 meaningful intention

For example, transform your morning coffee routine:

• Physical: Sit in your favorite chair, hold cup with both hands, face the window
• Sensory: Inhale the aroma, feel the warmth
• Intention: Set one priority for your day

Pro Tip: Rituals can be the most effective when they involve at least one physical action that signals to your brain “this moment matters.” Even something as simple as lighting a candle or taking three deliberate breaths can mark the transition.

Utilize The Fulcrum and Lever Principle

How can you change your mindset? How can you learn to be happier? Achor calls this the Fulcrum and the Lever principle.

You change your performance by changing your mindset.

Greek mathematician Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

Your mindset is the fulcrum and the length of the lever is your potential power. If you move your mindset to be more positive, the lever of possibility lengthens, which leads to eventual success.

Scenario 1: Job Interview

• Negative Fulcrum: “I’m so nervous, I’ll probably mess up all the questions”
• Positive Lever: “Each interview is an opportunity to practice and improve my communication skills, regardless of the outcome”
• Action: Before the interview, write down three past accomplishments that make you qualified for this role

Scenario 2: Learning a New Skill

• Negative Fulcrum: “I’m too old to learn programming/painting/a new language”
• Positive Lever: “My life experience gives me unique perspectives that can enhance my learning journey”
• Action: Set aside 20 minutes daily for practice, celebrating small improvements rather than focusing on the end goal

Scenario 3: Public Speaking

• Negative Fulcrum: “Everyone will notice how anxious I am”
• Positive Lever: “My nervousness shows I care about delivering value to my audience”
• Action: Reframe physical symptoms of anxiety (racing heart, butterflies) as excitement and readiness to perform

Action Step: Notice when you start to feel frustrated, anxious or negative about a particular challenge or situation. This is the “fulcrum” – the area of your mindset that you want to shift.

Instead of dwelling on the negative, consciously reframe your perspective. Ask yourself, “How can I view this in a more positive light?” Identify one or two optimistic, empowering beliefs you can focus on instead. This new, more constructive mindset is the “lever” that can increase your capacity to address the issue.

In fact, one limiting thing people might find is that they aren’t happy with their social skills! If that sounds like you, check out our resource:

Build Happiness Habits

“Each activity listed below not only gives us a quick boost of positive emotions, improving our performance and focus in the moment; but if performed habitually over time, each has been shown to help permanently raise our happiness baseline.” -Shawn Achor

• Write a thank you email to an employee or friend.
• When you meditate, even just five minutes a day, it rewires your brain to “raise our levels of happiness, lower stress, and improve immune function.”
• Set up something to look forward to—it can be as small as a chocolate after lunch or seeing a friend this weekend. Knowing you have this coming up releases dopamine in your brain as if you are actually doing it. In other words, you benefit from the reward before actually getting the reward.
• Commit conscious acts of kindness by doing one nice thing for someone every day. Buy coffee for the person behind you in the drive through or help someone else bag their groceries at checkout.
• Make your environment inspiring. How can you infuse positivity into your surroundings? A beautiful pen? A nice walk mid-day? A better ringtone? Make an effort to surround yourself with things that make you smile.
• Exercise whenever you can—I know we have heard this one before. But even small walks a few times a week results in significant improvements in mental health.
• Spend on experiences. Research shows that spending money on experiences and activities rather than on material purchases makes us happier in the moment and over time. Look at your credit card statement over the past month- what did you spend more on?
• Read about 65 more ways to enjoy life.

Find Your Thing

My favorite part of the book was actually a rather small section called “Signature Strengths.” Researchers told people to focus on a signature strength and focus on exercising it every day. This is more than just “pursuing your passion.” It’s the daily practice of utilizing your natural born strengths.

Action Step: What’s your thing? This can be anything from organizing your workspace nicely to cracking jokes to making small talk.

Want to know more about what works best for you? Read our ultimate guide here: 20 Steps to Become the Best Version of Yourself

The Tetris Effect

The Tetris Effect found that our brains love to find patterns. In fact, participants who had to play tetris for 3 hours a day began to dream in tetris patterns and see tetris shapes in their mind all day long.

We do this pattern finding with many things in our life. For example, some IRS employees are trained to look for mistakes 8 hours a day on forms. When they leave work, they can’t help but keep looking for mistakes and errors. You need to train your brain to recognize positive patterns. 

Here’s how:

• Whenever you have a positive experience, put a star next to the event or time in your calendar.
• Journal about positive experiences at the end of every day.
• Talk about the highlight of your day over dinner.
• Think of three positive things in your life before you check your email.

In this way, you can retrain your brain to spot patterns of positivity rather than patterns of failure.

Learn to Fall Up

Let’s take a look at these failures: Michael Jordan was cut from his High School Basketball team. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for not being creative enough. The Beatles were turned away by a record executive who said that guitar groups were on their way out. They didn’t let failure stop them.

Why should you?

“Things do not necessarily happen for the best, but some people are able to make the best out of the things that happen.” —Tal Ben-Shahar 

Study after study shows that if we are able to conceive of a failure as an opportunity for growth, we are all the more likely to experience that growth.

Don’t define yourself by what happens to you, define yourself by what you make out of what happens to you.

The Zorro Circle

In the classic movie Zorro, the main character has to master everything in a small circle during his training. As he gets better, his circle gets bigger and bigger. In the face of overwhelming odds, we can regain control by beginning with small manageable goals. In other words, we should find small circles of control in our life and focus on making those small areas as good as they can be. Control brings us happiness and fixing small problems helps us fix bigger ones.

• As humans, we crave the feeling that we are in control because it helps us see ourselves as masters of our own fate. Whether this is in social or professional spaces, it is one of the strongest drivers of both happiness and performance.
• Interestingly, happiness has less to do with how much control we actually have and more with how much control we think we have. Hence the importance of small circles of control that we pick and work on purposefully.

Action Step: Identify a specific area of your life that feels overwhelming or out of control right now. This is your “Zorro Circle” – the small, manageable space where you can regain a sense of mastery.

Start by setting a simple, achievable goal within that circle. It could be as small as cleaning out your inbox, going for a daily walk, or practicing a 10-minute meditation.

The 20-Second Rule

Happiness has barriers. The 20-second rule is all about how to minimize the blockers of happiness by turning bad habits into good ones. It’s about lowering activation energy for good habits and making it really hard for yourself to engage in bad ones.

Right now think of the things that cause you moments of frustration or minimize your productivity. These can be both big and small:

• Constantly searching for lost or misplaced items like your car keys, wallet, or phone.
• When the office coffee machine is inexplicably out of coffee right when you need that morning caffeine boost.
• Trying to untangle the mess of cables behind your TV or computer desk.
• Dealing with slow or unreliable internet connection when trying to get work done.
• Having to listen to your neighbor’s barking dog at all hours of the night.

Now think of ways that you could prevent these blockers from coming up and put the better habit in a path of least resistance.

For example, I want to improve my mile time. Snacking is a huge barrier to me and I mindlessly eat. I got rid of all the snacks in my kitchen that do not require assembly. I only kept the healthy ones (carrots, grapes) that are grab-able.  I also realized I would get anxious whenever I saw a push notification from my email so I turned it off and put it in a folder in my phone so it is harder to open mindlessly.

But, I moved my meditation app to the home screen. I also leave my workout clothes out next to my desk so I can change easily.

You might also consider changing your physical surroundings as studies show this affects your mental health.

Design Your Happy Environment

Evaluate your most-used spaces through your senses:

• Sight: What do you see first thing in the morning?
• Sound: What’s the background noise in your workspace?
• Smell: What scents greet you when you enter your home?
• Touch: What textures surround you daily?
• Taste: What flavors are easily accessible?

Pro Tip: Research shows that making even one positive sensory change in your environment can increase your happiness hormones. Start with the sense that matters most to you.

For example, you can set up dedicated areas that trigger positive emotions:

• A morning sunlight spot for coffee
• A cozy reading nook
• A movement space for stretching
• A creativity corner for projects
• A calming area for decompression

Strategic color placement can even shift your mood (read up on color psychology here):

• Add yellow accents for optimism
• Incorporate blue for calm
• Use green for renewal
• Place orange for energy
• Include purple for creativity

Action Step: Choose one room you spend lots of time in. Identify three small changes that could make it more joy-inducing. Remember, you don’t need a complete makeover—even adding one plant or rearranging furniture can shift the energy.

Learn to Laugh

Laughter is truly one of the best medicines when it comes to boosting happiness and well-being. Studies have shown that laughing and experiencing humor can have a profound impact on our mental, emotional and physical health.

When we laugh, our brains release feel-good endorphins that elevate our mood and counteract the effects of stress hormones. It can also strengthen our immune system, lower blood pressure, and reduce inflammation in the body. Laughing with others is especially powerful, as it helps strengthen social bonds and cultivate a sense of connection.

Make a conscious effort to seek out more laughter in your daily life:

• Watch a funny TV show or comedy special
• Read humor books
• Spend time with playful friends
• Aake an effort to smile and chuckle more often
• Try laughter yoga

Pro Tip: Don’t be self-conscious about your laughter! There are many ways to laugh… can you relate?

Seek Joy; Don’t Wait

Here’s a happiness truth that might surprise you: Joy rarely just shows up on our doorstep. Research shows that people who actively seek out positive experiences, rather than waiting for happiness to find them, report higher life satisfaction scores.

Think about it—we don’t expect to get physically fit by waiting around for muscles to appear. Yet somehow, we often expect joy to magically manifest in our lives without putting in the work to find it.

The good news? Joy-seeking is a skill you can develop! And you don’t have to “add” anything to your life—try reframing instead.

Notice how often you say “I have to…” and try shifting it to “I get to…”:

• “I have to go grocery shopping” becomes “I get to choose fresh food for my meals”
• “I have to attend this meeting” becomes “I get to contribute my ideas and practice my public speaking skills“
• “I have to clean the house” becomes “I get to create a comfortable space”

Remember: The happiest people aren’t the ones who have the most reasons to be happy; they’re the ones who are best at noticing and amplifying the joy that’s already present in their lives.

Become a Day-Dreamer

Allowing your mind to wander and imagine new possibilities activates the same reward centers in the brain that are stimulated by things like good food, money, and even drugs. Daydreaming triggers the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, which can elevate your mood, spark creativity, and provide a much-needed respite from stress.

To harness the happiness-boosting power of daydreaming, carve out dedicated time each day to simply let your mind drift. This could be during your morning commute, while taking a walk, or even in the midst of mundane chores.

Allow yourself to envision vivid scenes, imagine exciting future scenarios, or ponder deep philosophical questions—whatever piques your curiosity and sparks a sense of wonder.

Pro Tip: Avoid judging yourself for “wasting time” or getting distracted. Instead, embrace the indulgence as a form of active rest and creative exploration. Over time, you may be surprised by how this simple mental habit can elevate your mood and create happiness!

Break Your Happiness Rules

Here’s a counterintuitive discovery: Many of us unknowingly follow “happiness rules” that actually make us less happy.

Think about it: How often do you tell yourself “I’ll be happy when…” or “I can’t be happy unless…”? These are your happiness rules, and they might be holding you back.

Common Happiness Rules to Break:

• “I can’t be happy until I finish my to-do list”
• “I shouldn’t feel good if others are struggling”
• “I need everything to be perfect to enjoy the moment”
• “I have to earn happiness through hard work”
• “I can only celebrate after reaching my goals”

Pro Tip: Notice when you use words like “should,” “must,” or “have to” in relation to your happiness—these are usually clues that you’re following an unnecessary rule.

Action Step: Write yourself actual permission slips (like the ones from school) to:

• Feel joy even when things aren’t perfect
• Celebrate small wins before big ones
• Take breaks without finishing everything
• Be happy even on a Monday
• Enjoy success without downplaying it

Make Social Investments

This chapter made me the most excited. This is the principle that stumped me for the longest time and when I finally figured it out, it completely changed my life:

Our happiness is directly connected to the strength of our social connections and support network.

In fact, investing in social relationships is the most important of all the happiness principles!

We typically think about investing in our stock portfolio or our savings account, but I want you to think about investing in your social capital or your friend account.

My favorite tip on building your social IQ is to embrace the idea of anti-boring:

How to Stop Being Boring

• Abandon boring social scripts. Chatter, meaningless conversations and small talk breed shallow, unfulfilling relationships. If you really want to connect with someone try asking them real questions and giving them unscripted, uncanned answers.

More tips on not being boring here. Think of social skills like investing—but in relationships instead of stocks. Here’s why socials skills matters:

Your network affects:

• Career success (85% of jobs come through connections)
• Happiness (top scientific predictor)
• Health & resilience

Unlike money, these skills never depreciate and work everywhere.

Our resource shows you how to build genuine connections that create lifelong returns:

Big Micro Wins

We become so fixated on the big picture that we fail to appreciate the incremental progress we make each day.

Can you relate?

But the truth is, regularly celebrating even the tiniest of triumphs can be even more empowering:

• Finally getting through your entire to-do list for the day
• Making a healthy, home-cooked meal after a long workday
• Hitting 10,000 steps on your fitness tracker
• Reading 20 pages of that book you’ve been meaning to finish
• Remembering to water your plants/take care of your pets
• Decluttering and organizing one messy drawer or closet
• Resisting the urge to impulse-buy that thing you don’t need

Action Step: Make a conscious effort to recognize and appreciate the little daily victories in your life. Did you finally tackle that junk drawer you’ve been meaning to clean out for months? Treat yourself to a small reward. Did you go for a 20-minute walk on your lunch break? Pat yourself on the back!

Pro Tip: You can take this practice a step further by maintaining a “small wins journal” where you record your incremental achievements at the end of each day or week.

Learn to Play as an Adult

The truth is, playfulness isn’t just for kids. When we engage in playful activities as grown-ups, whether it’s doodling, dancing, or trying a new hobby, we relearn our sense of curiosity, spontaneity, and present-moment focus that we had so naturally as children.

To reclaim your playful spirit as an adult, experiment with activities that bring you a genuine sense of joy and freedom, free from external expectations or outcomes:

This could be something like:

• Doodle or draw in a sketchbook
• Dance around the house to upbeat music
• Try your hand at an artistic craft like pottery, woodworking, or painting
• Build LEGO sets or other creative DIY projects
• Play with modeling clay or other tactile art supplies
• Engage in improvisational activities like improv comedy
• Go for a playful bike ride or rollerblade around the neighborhood
• Try your luck at a board game or video game you enjoy
• Participate in a hobby like juggling, magic tricks, or origami
• Engage in imaginative role-playing or storytelling
• Go to a trampoline park or indoor playground
• Sign up for an adult recreation league like kickball or dodgeball

Action Step: You can also challenge yourself to incorporate playful rituals into your daily routine, such as setting aside 15 minutes each morning or during your breaks to engage in a silly, fun activity before diving into the more serious demands of the day.

The Ripple Effect

Our emotions are contagious. When we have a more positive mindset, increase our happiness and invest in our joy, it runs off on others.

Increase your happiness and bring more joy to the world.

Action Step: Make a conscious effort to radiate more positivity in your daily interactions. When you’re feeling happy or optimistic, let that emotion shine through in how you engage with others.

For example, greet your coworkers with a genuine smile and friendly greeting in the morning. Compliment someone on a job well done. Share an upbeat, humorous anecdote that brightens someone’s day (even if it’s a lame work joke!)

Practice Radical Compassion

Just like happiness, compassion isn’t just something that happens to us—it’s a skill we can actively cultivate. Research shows that practicing compassion not only benefits others but also increases our own happiness and well-being. When we show kindness to others, our brains release oxytocin (often called the “love hormone”) and reduce stress hormones like cortisol.

Think of how you’d treat a close friend who’s struggling. Would you criticize them harshly? Probably not! Yet we often talk to ourselves more harshly than we’d ever speak to someone else. Practice treating yourself with the same kindness you’d show a good friend.

Action Step: Next time you make a mistake or face a setback, pause and ask yourself: “How would I comfort a friend in this situation?” Then offer yourself that same gentle understanding.

You Are In Control

It may seem counterintuitive, but yes, you are in control of your happiness. Usually, I hear people say, “Oh, I wish I could be happier”, or “I’m controlled by my mood.”

But research^{3 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.111} has shown that about fifty percent of our happiness can be attributed to our genetics, forty percent to our purposeful activities, and ten percent to temporary circumstances.

So, that small portion, the ten percent, includes environmental factors such as:

• Occupation
• Marital status
• Health

And the forty percent of your purposeful activities include your:

• Behavior
• Mindset
• Day-to-day activities

Bottom Line: Forty percent of your happiness is within your control. I’ll teach you how you can harness that great potential in the next few steps.

Happiness Experiments

How can you wake up every morning excited?

One way you can bring more joy to your morning is doing what I like to call “happiness experiments.” These are my favorite things to do. They can be something you’ve always wanted to try but never have marked off the bucket list.

Think of a place you’ve never been, a food you’ve yet to taste, or a person you’ve been dying to hang out with. These experiments will help you get enthusiastic about the day. If you are not sure where to start, here are a few statements to get you thinking:

• I think that doing ____ might be fun.
• I think that spending time with ____ might be wonderful.
• I have been wanting to do or try ____.

The happiest people in our study were able to accurately tell us specific activities, people, and times. Whereas the unhappy people shared vague ideas such as, “I’m excited to hang out with a friend”, or “I am excited to just relax.” So with these experiments, I want you to pick a specific time, place or person.

You Are Not Alone

In our study, the happiest people had a “partner in joy,” someone with whom they shared many of their experiences. This was either a spouse, a close friend, a parent, or a child.

These people might say, “I really have been wanting to try this Barre fitness class. I’m going to call up my friend for us to go at 4pm on Friday.” When we are able to run our experiments with our partners in joy and are able to get it on the calendar, it will increase our hope and curiosity, which are the two major factors of happiness.

The anticipation for X event is what truly gets us excited. Even though you might have that event scheduled on the calendar weeks in advance, you will wake up every morning, marking off the calendar, thinking, “I am __ day(s) away from doing this activity, I can’t wait.” Now, this doesn’t have to be a major event such as a fitness class; it can be something as small as trying a new recipe or reading a book.

Become Nostalgic

What are some of the best childhood memories you can think of? Mine might be eating some warm chocolate chip cookies by the fireplace on Christmas Eve.

Reminiscing about those cherished memories from the past can create feelings of warmth, joy and belonging.

In fact, nostalgia has been shown to increase self-esteem, foster social connectedness, and even reduce physical pain. When we reflect on positive experiences and relationships from our personal history, it activates the same reward centers in the brain that are stimulated by things like good food, money, and even drugs. 

Nostalgia provides a natural “high” that can elevate your emotional state.

To harness the happiness-boosting power of nostalgia, make an effort to regularly revisit and savor meaningful memories. This could involve looking through old photo albums, playing that old Game Boy collecting dust, listening to music from your youth, or reminiscing with friends and family about shared experiences.

Pro Tip: Try to avoid getting trapped in a state of wistful longing for the “good old days.” These days are, after all, in the past. Instead, use nostalgia as a tool to reflect on how far you’ve come, appreciate the joys of the present, and find inspiration for creating new positive memories in the future.

Learn Gratitude

Gratitude is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. When you offer gratitude for anything, it makes you feel more awe, joy, and excitement—and the good news is, you can increase gratitude over time!

I recommend trying a gratitude totem. This is a symbol or a reminder of something. Your gratitude totem is something that you will see on a daily basis. Here’s one example: There is a red light near my house that is timed to turn red each time I approach. Seriously, every time I pull up to the light, it turns red. So, I decided one day to turn that light into my gratitude totem. 

Every time I stop at the light, I think of one thing for which I am grateful.

If you need a little help discovering your gratitude totem, here are a few examples to get you thinking:

• Who is one person you see every morning? Spouse or friend.
• What place do you visit regularly? Coffee shop, gym, etc.
• What is one item you look at every morning? A light, a car, a building, etc.
• Here’s one more easy way to be more grateful.

Finding your gratitude totem is a unique way of reminding yourself of the wonderful and grateful things in your life.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Happiness

The Big Picture

Most of us have happiness backwards! We think success leads to happiness, but research shows the opposite is true. Happy people are actually more likely to become successful. Plus, happiness is totally learnable—it’s not just something you’re born with.

The Most Important Points:

• Your happiness is actually 40% within your control (yes, really!) through your daily choices and habits
• Small happiness habits beat big achievements when it comes to lasting joy—think daily gratitude over yearly vacations
• Your social connections are HUGE for happiness (sorry introverts, but connecting with others really matters!)
• Creating the right environment and systems for happiness works better than trying to force yourself to “be happy”
• The happiest people don’t wait for happiness to happen—they actively look for it and create it
• Your mindset is like a happiness muscle: the more you train it for positivity, the stronger it gets

If you loved these happiness hacks, you’ll definitely want to check out our guide on “20 Steps to Become the Best Version of Yourself.” It’s packed with science-backed strategies to help you unlock your full potential and create a life you’re excited to wake up to every day.