How to Be Happy Again: 23 Tips

Here are 23 tips for how to be happy again:

1. Reflect on What’s Making You Unhappy Instead of Avoiding Your Feelings

Consider pinpointing the exact people, situations, or emotional triggers contributing to feeling unhappy. Keep in mind that happiness itself isn’t a fixed state. However, it’s possible for certain variables to exacerbate emotional distress or erode feelings of happiness. Identifying these triggers head-on can help you prepare for how to cope with them more adaptively.

2. Reframe & Look for the Good

Optimism and happiness go hand-in-hand.^1,2,3 While working to have a more positive outlook might not change your circumstances, it can change how you experience them. Confirmation biases, or the human tendency to find evidence to support existing beliefs, are often unconsciously shaping how you perceive and experience events, interactions, and circumstances.

Pessimists may be inadvertently finding confirmation that things that are wrong, bad or missing in their lives, but optimism can help people become more aware of what is going well.

3. Prioritize Connections With Loved Ones

There is extensive evidence that strong, close relationships are the key to happiness, having more of an effect than any other circumstance or habit. Not all relationships are created equal, and quality of relationships matters much more than quantity, helping to explain why strong romantic relationships have the most important effect on happiness.

Feeling understood and accepted by a few people, for instance, is more impactful than having hundreds of people like your Facebook posts.^1,2,4

4. Begin Within & Learn More About Your Personality & Values

While many people search outside of themselves for happiness, research suggests they account for only 8-15% of your happiness.³ Internal circumstances like positive self-image and high self-esteem have a more substantial effect on happiness because it’s difficult to like your life if you do not like being you.¹

If you have a negative view of yourself, take a personality test, identify your core values, or identify your strengths to get a different, more positive perspective on yourself. This growing self-awareness can help you develop a new, more accurate and positive understanding of who you are and what you want and need to be happy.

5. Stay Off (Or Limit) Social Media

Social media may aggravate symptoms of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Subsequently, it can trigger the heightened experience of FOMO, where you feel like your life is inadequate compared to others. With that, creating limits around social media frees up your time to pursue activities and relationships that bring a more genuine sense of happiness. As a first step, it may be worth experimenting with a social media detox to determine if an abstinence break improves your mood.

6. Seek Out Experiences Over Material Items

Research shows that spending money on experiences instead of possessions evokes more happiness. This effect remains even when both the experience and the material item cost the same price. Social psychologists attribute this effect to how experiences positively affect memory. You may remember the joy of a vacation for a lifetime, but the effect of a new outfit might weaken each time you wear it. The key is to focus on spending money on experiences that feel purposeful and engaging—if you’re just doing them to do them, they may not generate much happiness.⁵

7. Find Ways to Do What Brings You Meaning

Feeling a sense of meaning can deepen your sense of happiness. This speaks to the benefit of being involved in a community or feeling connected to something larger than yourself. Meaning comes in all different forms. Some people find it through spirituality, others seek it by volunteering with others, and many experience it in spending time with loved ones. Work can also be a source of meaning, so don’t overlook the importance of pursuing passion in your career.

8. Don’t Rush Through Life

Life is what happens in daily interactions, mundane experiences, and all the nuts and bolts of a working routine. It is not just about the noteworthy milestones. Slowing down and taking time to truly appreciate the here-and-now can be an important component of happiness. This means trying to accept where you are today, rather than only feeling focused on what’s to come.

9. Practice Being Present With Mindfulness Exercises

You may not realize how much time you spend dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, or analyzing the present, but these mental habits are often primary sources of unhappiness.¹ Mindfulness exercises can help you break these habits, teaching you how to untether from unhappy thoughts and spend more time in your life than you do in your head.

Even dedicating 15-20 minutes a day to a mindfulness routine can help relieve stress and anxiety, reduce rumination, improve focus, and boost your mood and energy levels.³

10. Volunteer Your Time or Resources

Generously giving away your time, talent or money is more likely to bring happiness than being the beneficiary of these contributions. Consider how you can make a positive difference by volunteering, giving to charity, or helping others. This logic extends to your career as well, with people being happier in jobs where they feel like they are helping make a positive impact. Even small, random acts of kindness like giving a compliment or offering to help someone can generate positive feelings and over time, can even create a lasting emotional shift.⁶

11. Write Down Things You’re Grateful For

You might think of happiness as something you will experience “if” or “when” you achieve a goal or get something you want. In reality, this kind of thinking keeps you focused on what you lack, leading you to feel dissatisfied. A gratitude practice can reverse this mental habit, teaching you to find things to be grateful for right now. Identifying and writing down three things you are grateful for each day can deepen your appreciation for the life you have right now, instead of one you hope to have in the future.^{3, 7}

12. Stay Active (Bonus Point for Exercising Outdoors)

People are spending the majority of their days in front of screens, and in America, this has led people to become less healthy and less happy. Reducing screen time and replacing it with physical activity is good for all aspects of your physical and psychological health. Mood-enhancing brain chemicals are released during exercise and people who develop a regular exercise routine are less prone to mental health conditions like depression, and also report feeling more confident, healthy, and happy.¹

13. Prioritize Healthy Sleeping & Eating Habits

Sleep and nutrition play vital roles in your emotional well-being. Even mild sleep deprivation can correlate with feelings of irritability, fatigue, and brain fog. Similar effects are often seen with poor nutrition. Remember that baby steps are significant; try to dial in a healthy sleep routine that ensures you get enough sleep and make sure to eat a diverse diet of nutritious foods regularly.

14. Be Kind to Yourself & Practice Self-Compassion

Research has found that self-compassion has several positive impacts on psychological health, correlating with higher levels of optimism, initiative, and happiness.⁸ Work on interrupting toxic self-criticism and practice finding and using a more compassionate inner voice during times when you are insecure or have made a mistake.

Also, self-kindness involves being more attuned and attentive to your own self-care—especially if you tend to ignore, neglect and override your wants and needs. Self-care is something that needs to be a consistent priority, and not just something you do in reaction to stress or unhappiness.^{3, 8}

15. Have Flexible Expectations & Relinquish Your Control

When you pay attention, you may be surprised at just how many expectations you have of yourself, other people, your work, and specific outcomes you want to occur. Unknowingly, you are probably comparing your reality with these expectations, which can lead to the negative evaluations that are known to cause unhappiness.^{1, 3} Interrupt this mental habit by having more flexible expectations and be willing to abandon what you want to happen when you need to accept what is actually happening.

16. Never Stop Improving by Working Toward New Goals

Happy people are continuously working to learn, grow, and improve themselves and their circumstances, but they are not just in it for the outcome. While meaningful goals are a component of happiness, the experience inherent in striving towards a goal can be just as rewarding as actually realizing a goal.^{1, 3} Energy devoted towards goals boosts happiness from both internal and external channels, improving your self-confidence while also bettering your circumstances.⁴

17. Tap Into Your Creativity

Most people think of creativity as a trait or talent that some people have and others lack, but this idea tends to come when creativity is defined too narrowly. Art, music, and writing are creative tasks, but redecorating, making a playlist, building a website, and perfecting your apple pie recipe are creative tasks, too. These activities all stimulate the creative brain, allowing you to turn your ideas into reality, and using this part of your brain improves your psychological well-being. Research shows that daily creativity can create an “upward spiral” that makes you more energetic, motivated, and happy.⁹

18. Try Something New

While some fears are healthy, others are unhealthy, and unhealthy fears could be limiting your potential and your happiness. You might have let fear hold you back from talking to people, visiting new places, trying new things, or chasing dreams that seemed too big or unattainable. There is truth to the notion that people’s greatest regrets are usually the things they didn’t do, and fear is often the culprit that holds them back. Stepping outside of your comfort zone when there is something you deeply want on the other side will help you avoid these future regrets, build confidence, and sometimes, unexpectedly enrich and expand your life.

19. Make a Happy Home With New Decorations or Improvements

While “things” don’t make you happy, decorations, DIY projects, or other improvements that make your home more enjoyable may be an exception to the rule. Research from over 13,000 people in Europe found a high correlation between happy homes and happy people, estimating that 15% of happiness is influenced by their feelings about where they live. People who reported feeling comfortable, safe, and proud of their home were happiest, as were people who felt that their home reflected their personal style and identity.¹⁰

20. Remember What Matters

It is all too easy to get distracted by the endless deadlines, chores, work, errands, and other distractions that disconnect you from the people, things, and activities that matter most to you. Remember that your life is happening right now, in each moment, and it is up to you to decide how to best live it. The more intentional you can be with your time, attention, and energy, directing it towards what matters most to you, the happier and more fulfilled you will feel.^{1, 2}

21. Join a Support Group

Peer support can provide a sense of camaraderie and validation from other people experiencing similar life situations. Today, there are all kinds of support groups you could join, both online and in-person. Support groups may be structured and follow a curriculum, or they might be more experiential and process-based. Joining a group can help you feel more connected and less alone with a particular issue in life, whether that’s divorce, parenting, recovering from trauma, or addiction.

22. Consider Therapy

A lack of happiness can be a core symptom of many mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, personality disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. It can also impact your overall functioning, making it difficult to perform at work, enjoy relationships, and take care of your physical health. Therapy can help you better understand the barriers impacting your happiness, and it can offer you a roadmap for taking care of your emotional health.=

23. If You’re Feeling Stuck, Consider Talking to Your Doctor

Sudden mood changes or the onset of anhedonia or apathy can feel frustrating. You may be having a major depressive episode or another mental health issue. A doctor can assess your symptoms and rule out any potential medical concerns. They can also review medication options. In conjunction with therapy, psychiatric medication is often useful for helping with emotional regulation.

Therapy for Unhappiness

Therapy can be beneficial for anyone feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unhappy with some aspect of their life, but is especially important for anyone who suspects they have an underlying mental health condition like depression. Therapy is typically provided in office settings (or online) in one-hour weekly sessions with a licensed counselor. Therapy can provide more insight about the root causes of unhappiness, as well as teaching more effective methods of coping and supporting changes that can help improve life satisfaction.

Types of Therapy to Treat Underlying Causes of Unhappiness

Licensed counselors and therapists have different styles and theories of counseling that they use, and finding a suitable match is important in getting the most out of therapy.

Some of the following types of therapy are commonly used to help people struggling with feelings of unhappiness:

• Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT): SFBT is a practical, short-term form of therapy that focuses on addressing the most pressing problems in a pragmatic, structured manner. This approach may be helpful to people with known stressors or problems causing their unhappiness.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT teaches people to accept difficult thoughts and feelings instead of trying to avoid or control them, freeing up time and energy to invest in activities that align with core values.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT helps people interrupt and change unhelpful thoughts that feed unhappiness, and can help those whose unhappiness stems from anxiety, depression, or negative thoughts.
• Existential Therapy: Existential therapy can help people tap into the inner resources needed to architect a life based on learning, personal growth, and fulfillment and may be helpful for people searching for direction, meaning or purpose.
• Motivational Interviewing: Motivational interviewing involves structured conversations about making a change, and can help people who need to change but haven’t been able to do so on their own.

How to Find a Therapist

Those looking for a therapist often begin their search online by conducting a search or by using an online therapist directory, which allows people to narrow their search using several filters. People who have insurance or EAP benefits through their employer may be able to access counseling for free or for a nominal copay, depending on their plan. Those looking to use insurance benefits can find a therapist or counselor by contacting the insurer or EAP and request a list of in-network therapists.

Finding a therapist whose style and approach is a good fit and who has experience in the issues you need help with is important. People can have very different experiences depending on the specific therapist that they work with, so the best way to find a therapist is to contact several and request a consultation, which many therapists offer for free. During a consultation, you can ask questions about the therapist’s background, experience, and approach, which will help you make a determination of which would be a good match for you.