How to find happiness in everyday life

Everyone wants to find happiness. And yet, it can seem hard to actually be happy.

Have you ever felt that you needed a successful career, family life, and social circle to find happiness? I certainly did.

But despite that, it’s actually quite easy to find happiness in your everyday life. All it really takes is a shift in your mindset, and you previously dull existence might suddenly seem exciting and full of opportunities.

Are you interested? Then let’s talk about 4 tips that will help you find happiness in everyday life.

Acknowledge that you don’t have to be happy all the time

No one likes to share the bad parts of their lives. Hence, social media and the internet in general is filled with seemingly happy people and thousands of checklists to make you happy, every day.

But the thing is, you don’t have to be happy all the time. I’m pretty sure that constant happiness is not only humanly impossible but also not really desirable. After all, how can you be compassionate with other people and help them, when you can’t even imagine what it’s like to have problems?

In my opinion, the first step to finding happiness in everyday life is to stop wanting to be happy all the time.

Acknowledge that it’s okay to have bad days.

Even when everything in my life is going well, I still have days where I’m in a bad mood. And that’s okay. It’s better to say: okay, I don’t feel so well today, so I’ll focus on self-care and try to cheer myself up rather than getting down on yourself because you don’t meet the unrealistic happiness standards you’ve set for yourself.

Accepting yourself – whether you’re happy or not – is so important in everyday life. Only then can you address the things that are actually going wrong.

Be grateful for the good things you have

You’ve probably heard the saying that happiness is all about the mindset. And it couldn’t be truer.

How do you explain why seemingly successful people can be really unhappy, while others who have so much less are much more fulfilled? Right, because material things and external validation don’t make anyone happy.

After the moment of pride due to other people’s approval has passed and you’re back to being by yourself, this superficial type of happiness will fade.

The moral is, you can’t strive for something, thinking that this one thing will finally make you happy. If you’re unhappy now, you’ll probably be unhappy when you get it, too.

But don’t worry, that’s not a bad thing! It actually just means that you don’t need anything else to be happy. You already have everything that you need!

Think about your life, your loved ones, your health, your skills. Write down everything that means something to you, and learn to be grateful for it. Every single day.

By appreciating what you already have, you focus on the abundance of your life, not on the things you lack.

Even if this seems too simple to be true: I promise that practicing gratitude makes the biggest difference when it comes to happiness!

Try it, and you might find that you can be really happy with the life that you already have.

Work towards your goals

We always imagine that we need to reach our goals in order to be happy. But that’s not true. At least not always.

In my opinion, happiness comes through working towards your goal. Actively and consistently. In a sense, the path towards something you strive for gives you a unique sense of fulfilment. Instead of waiting for happiness to fall from heaven, you’re out creating your own.

In general, having goals in life give your purpose, something to work for. And that is simply essential for being happy.

In Paul Bloom’s course Introduction to Psychology, he explains that short-term success is actually unable to make us sustainably happy.

So, instead of waiting for the achievement of your goals to make you happy, try to find ways to enjoy the process!

Make other people happy

I don’t know about you, but one of the major things that gives me a sense of purpose is adding value to people’s lives.

Now, this might sound fancy, but it doesn’t have to be. Isn’t it amazing that you can make your grandma’s day by calling her on the phone? That you can make someone smile by writing them a sweet message?

But it doesn’t have to be just these little things.

Sometimes, you can save a colleague a lot of stress and anxiety by offering to help them with a project they struggle with. You could take over the chores at your house when your partner is going through a hard time. Make dinner when he or she comes home late from work.

There are so many ways in our everyday life to make the people around us feel less stressed, appreciated, and even happy.

By focusing on making others happy you not only feel a sense of purpose, but you’re also becoming a person that is nice to be around. And if that’s not a goal in life, I don’t know what is!

Being happy is no sorcery, and it doesn’t have to be hard. Oftentimes, you can find happiness in everyday life by shifting your mindset and focusing on all the good things you have, while working towards goals that you believe in.