It’s easy to see why being happy is such a challenge these days. People are working jobs they hate, struggling to pay bills, and living in an increasingly isolated, digitally driven world. And that lack of happiness has real consequences beyond just feeling glum: When you’re unhappy, you’re less productive and less stable, and that sense of powerlessness can quickly become a rut that’s hard to climb out of. And happiness leads to greater stability and productivity, both of which lead to even more happiness.
There are steps you can take to break out of the cycle. Some are physical—getting out into nature more, getting more exercise, or socializing with people in person—but you’ve also got the most powerful happiness engine in the universe inside your head. You can use your own mind to trick yourself into being happier—though it’s important to note that while these tips can help anyone reset their outlook and elevate their mood, they’re not a substitute for formal therapy or medication.
Pay attention to what you enjoy
Feeling depressed can be a vicious cycle: You’re feeling sad or unmotivated, so you skip activities that make you happy. Friends invite you out, but you’re in no mood, so you stay in. You’ve got a day off, but you feel too sluggish to engage with hobbies that bring you joy. In seeking to break that cycle, we tend to focus on eliminating the negatives. Instead, you should try to boost the positives.
Studies have shown that you can treat happiness like a muscle. A strategy called “reward sensitivity” means actively noticing positive emotions and taking the time to relish them. If something makes you happy, even momentarily, take a moment to record and catalog the feeling. Then seek it out again. Being aware of what makes you feel good and pushing yourself to relive that experience can train you to be happier in general.
Use the “behavioral activation” technique
Research has shown that a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) skill known as Behavioral Activation can help us to be happier. Depression and unhappiness can often become a vicious cycle—we stop doing things that make us happy because we’re depressed. This can manifest as avoidance: If going for a run reliably elevates your mood, you find reasons why you can’t go for a run right now—it’s too hot out, you don’t have the right clothes, there’s not enough time for your usual route. Avoiding that pleasurable behavior makes you even more unhappy, deepening the cycle.
Behavioral Activation is a technique where you do these pleasurable activities even when you don’t feel like doing them. You might not enjoy that specific run (or doing laundry, or engaging with hobbies) that instance, but simply by consistently engaging in that behavior your mood will improve. If you begin scheduling activities that should bring you joy, you can “train” your mind to be happier in reality.
Challenge your critical thoughts
We often fall into depression because we repeat negative messages about and to ourselves. If you’re constantly criticizing yourself, it starts to feel like the natural state of things. A trick that can work wonders is to challenge that negative outlook by forcing yourself to defend your position—a process known as Socratic Questioning. If your position is that you suck and you’ll never get the things you want in life, challenge those thoughts by asking yourself to provide facts that back your perception, how other people might see you, and how you would react if someone else told you they were feeling the same way. By challenging and interrogating your negative thinking, you can remove some of its power.
What do you think so far?
Socratic questioning has been studied in the context of a therapist doing the questioning, but there are also worksheets that you can use to try out this technique on your own.
Use the “One Minute Rule”
For a quick mood booster, try the One Minute Rule: Identify tasks and chores that you can accomplish in one minute or less. These will be simple things, like putting something away, responding to a text, or packing up an item to return. Because these tasks are quickly accomplished, they take relatively little effort to engage with—but the sense of accomplishment is often the same as with larger, more complex tasks. By engaging in the One Minute Rule several times a day you train yourself to experience that sense of accomplishment, and to internalize its positive effects. Plus, the effects of the rule are tangible—you can see your desk getting cleaner, your inbox getting more organized, your life getting streamlined.
Practice compassion
Compassion—empathizing with someone else’s suffering and seeking to help—can be learned, and studies have shown that people who “practice compassion” toward others are happier—and more resilient. There’s also evidence that turning that inward and practicing self-compassion has a direct relationship with your happiness. While it might initially seem silly, writing yourself a note or giving yourself a supportive speech as if you were talking to your best friend can have a real and powerful impact on your happiness. Practicing self-compassion can also include treating yourself, offering yourself little kindnesses.
Being unhappy and depressed often leads us to be self-critical, constantly castigating ourselves for our shortcomings. Flipping that script and constantly reminding ourselves how great we actually are helps to recalibrate our thinking, leading to more happiness.
