7 Strategies to Create a Happiness Habit

After being laid off from my newspaper job several years ago, I struggled to find anything to be happy about. My job applications and freelance-story pitches seemed to meet consistent rejection, and every day turned into the same slog of negative experiences. It all reminded me that job hunting is the worst.

To turn it around, I decided I would do one positive thing for the world each day. I complimented strangers, sent resources to friends in need, and even donated blood. Tracking those good deeds on my calendar helped me feel that no matter how my job search was going, my day’s efforts weren’t totally wasted.

Research has found that these kinds of micro acts of joy appreciably increase our sense of well-being and help create a habit of feeling happy. People who performed five kind acts each week experienced a self-reported boost in happiness over six weeks, according to one study led by Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside. Subsequent experiments on kindness replicated these findings, with noted increases in well-being.

Kind acts are just one of the many ways to create a happiness habit, according to Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD, science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. There are practical steps you can take to feel more connected, effectively manage setbacks, and increase your sense of meaning and purpose. To spread this message and help people learn to cultivate a habit of joy through bite-sized, actionable behaviors, Simon-Thomas and her colleagues launched the Big JOY Project.

“Happiness isn’t a genetic phenomenon that they have nothing to do with.”

“We wanted people to know that happiness isn’t a genetic phenomenon that they have nothing to do with,” she explains. “Your everyday experience and behavior also factor into how happy you are. There are some very simple things you can weave into your daily experiences that can make a difference.”

Participants in the Big JOY Project receive daily email prompts for one week, inviting them to complete a micro act that will take seven minutes or less. So far, more than 98,000 people from 209 countries have signed up, and they’ve completed a total of over 404,000 micro acts of joy since the project first launched, in 2021.

According to questionnaires completed by a subset of participants, those micro acts increased their well-being by an average of 26 percent and their relationship satisfaction by an average of 30 percent, Simon-Thomas reports. Participants also reported improvements in the quality of their sleep.

Simon-Thomas uses “happiness” and “joy” somewhat interchangeably. These aren’t momentary feelings, she explains, but durable characteristics of your life that include pleasure, amusement, pride, enthusiasm, and curiosity. And they can bear you through difficult emotions like fear, grief, and annoyance.

“Being a happy person involves a rich array of emotional states — the positive and the unpleasant ones,” she notes. “It really hinges on your sense of mattering in the world and your feelings of connection with others.”

7 Steps to Feeling Happy

Try these micro actions to create a happiness habit in your own life.

1) Celebrate another’s joy. Research suggests that happiness is contagious. Watch a sitcom with a laugh track, and you’re likely to feel your mood lift. Even better, aim to spread laughter.

Ask a friend or family member to share something positive that happened to them and listen with what psychologists call an “active-constructive” mindset. That means making eye contact, expressing enthusiasm, and asking open-ended questions. Note the positive implications and reflect on the potential benefits of the experience.

For example, if someone tells you about reaching a personal exercise goal, you might say, “I bet this means you’ll do even better in that 10K next month.” Or you could draw their attention to positive feelings, like by saying, “It must feel really satisfying to succeed at something you trained so hard for.”

(Read more on “How to Be Happy for Others.”)

2) Shift your perspective. Processing your anxieties and daily annoyances can help you become more resilient. Consider a worry you have about the future and describe your feelings in the second or third person. I might think, Why does Katherine worry that this article will be terrible, when she’s written hundreds of well-received articles in the past? The idea is to gain some distance and view the stressor through the eyes of an impartial, third-party observer.

Feel free to journal if that helps. You may come to realizations or closure that eluded you when viewed up close. Studies suggest that this practice may help reduce anger and grief as well as rumination — getting caught in a loop of negative thoughts. (Learn more about reducing rumination at “How to Stop Ruminating.”) 

3) Dwell in awe. Have you heard of forest bathing as a way to reset your stress level? (If not, learn more at “What Is Forest Bathing?“) You don’t need to journey to a faraway forest to take an awe walk. Participants in the Big JOY Project simply watch a video of a beautiful scene in nature that envokes a sense of vastness.

Research has found that the benefits of awe include more patience, an increased sense of social connection, and greater life satisfaction.

We can all awaken wonder through experiences that challenge and expand the way we see the world — often due to the presence of something greater than ourselves. You could find awe in a virtual reality setting or while attending a choral performance at a nearby church. (Discover more ways to experience awe at “How to Experience More Awe.”)

4) Tune in to what matters. Focusing on your values can lower your stress, help you think more expansively, and guide you to make healthy choices. Researchers have noted that writing about a closely held value compared with writing about a less important value can reduce defensive tendencies and even help your blood pressure recover more quickly after criticism. That’s because daily interactions that bruise your sense of self — anything from admonishment at work to feeling FOMO — can cloud your thinking and decision making.

Instead of sweating the small stuff, make a list of personal values and rank them according to their importance. Write a brief reflection about the top value and why it’s special to you. This exercise will remind you that there’s something you care about more than the momentary stressor and may call to mind other resources you can rely on, such as your interpersonal skills or supportive community. 

5) Make a gratitude list. Studies have shown that intentionally appreciating the good in your life can improve your well-being, your relationships, and possibly even your physical health. We tend to dwell more on what’s going wrong than what’s going right, but it’s smart to count your good fortunes. By reflecting on the positive, you steer more attention to those pleasant events or circumstances. That habit can shift the emotional tone of your daily life.

To deepen the effect, record your thoughts. Be as specific as possible: Name individuals who have improved your life, or consider what your life would be like if you hadn’t had certain lucky breaks. (Learn more about the benefits of gratitude at “Real Thanks.”)

6) Be a force for good. Sending positive thoughts into the world through a lovingkindness meditation, also known as a metta meditation, conveys a huge array of benefits, according to years of research. Those include more life satisfaction, stronger relationships, less depression, and relief from anxiety.

A basic version of the practice is to put one hand over your heart, close your eyes, and repeat three blessings: one for yourself, one for someone you love, and one for someone with whom you have conflict. One standard blessing is to say, “May you be happy. May you be well. May you be peaceful and safe.” (Learn more about lovingkindness meditation at “How to Practice a Lovingkindness Meditation.”)

7) Do something kind. As I discovered firsthand after my layoff, random acts of kindness can increase your happiness and feelings of goodwill toward others. Try to mix it up so your kind acts don’t start to feel routine. Approach the practice with a spirit of curiosity, challenging yourself to find new ways to express your care and seeking out new people to help. The beneficiary doesn’t even need to know about it! For a happiness boost, write down what you did and how it made you feel.