Happiness, like confidence, is something many people assume you either are or aren’t…you’re either born a naturally happy person or you’re not.

And yes, while it is true that different people do have different baseline levels of happiness, it is entirely possible to raise your baseline.

Emotions follow events.

And events can either be something that happen to you, or something that you do and therefore make happen.

If you do certain actions, it would only be natural, that as a result, you would experience certain emotions.

If you make a habit of consistently doing things that lead to happiness, there’s no way you couldn’t become a happier person.

And even if you do consider yourself an overall happy person, sometimes, you may find yourself in an emotional rut that’s difficult to get out of.

That’s why I made this list.

Whenever I’m feeling down for a prolonged period of time, it makes me ask:

“What makes a person truly happy?”

It makes me think of what I can do to get myself back to my happy place, which makes me in turn think of the conditions in my life that are present when I do feel happy.

Here’s a cheat sheet of habits of happy people that you can choose to implement at any time to boost your mood and raise your level of happiness.

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01

Don’t compare yourself to others.

Focus only on your own journey and your own progress.

What is for you is for you.

And everything will happen in your life in its perfect timing for your life, specifically.

Focusing on the gifts, talents, and blessings of others causes you to overlook the gifts, talents, and blessings of your own.

02

Stop telling yourself you’re not good enough.

This relates to the previous thing on the list.

The reason you think you’re not good enough is because you think someone else is better than you.

You are evaluating yourself based on how you measure up against someone else.

Just focus on being and doing your best and forget about everything else.

03

Make a plan for each day the night before.

I always spring out of bed in a better mood when I have a purpose.

Don’t wake up and just allow your days to be dictated by external factors like other people’s ideas, moods, and plans.

There is a happiness that comes from completion and you never give yourself that chance if you never designate (in advance) tasks or projects for yourself to complete.

Aimlessness is a steep and slippery slope to unhappiness.

04

Start each day with intention.

Be deliberate about what you want to get out of each day.

Not just in terms of what you want to accomplish, but also what you want to experience, what you want to feel, and how you want to grow.

Each day is a gift, and no day is a promise.

Be intentional.

Make it count.

05

Always have a clear vision and a large goal to work towards.

Growth is a natural human desire, and evolution is a natural part of life.

Nothing is more satisfying than building.

Than knowing that each individual task you are doing is building something bigger and better than the individual task itself.

That the part you are working on now is an integral piece of a greater whole.

That each thing you do today is contributing to a better future for you tomorrow.

06

Judge yourself based on your inputs, not your outputs.

Great peace comes from choosing not to fixate on the variables we cannot control.

We cannot control the results of our actions, but we can control our actions themselves.

Yes, it makes sense to monitor metrics that indicate how well our actions are working.

But you should be focusing more on your habits and the actions you consistently do, trusting that certain outputs are inevitable if certain inputs are executed.

07

Meditate or journal daily.

Ideally both.

These are amazingly easy and inexpensive practices that have the power to shape your mindset, which is the foundation of your happiness.

Meditation and journaling clarify your thoughts, process your emotions, and connect you to your inner compass.

They facilitate the extraction of meaning from negative experiences and emotions, and allow these things to pass through you so you don’t stay emotionally stuck.

08

Spend more time in nature than you do with technology.

The technological advancements we have created in the interest of propelling society and humanity forward have created a prison.

We have created a reliance on and an addiction to technology that mercilessly tie us to our screens and devices.

Being tethered to those devices is bad enough, as it takes us away from the more natural, tactile parts of the human experience, but to make matters even worse, the content on those screens and devices is often more harmful than helpful to our mental and emotional health.

Time in nature is one of the quickest ways to pause, gain perspective, marvel in the beauty of the most “low tech” thing that there is, and prove to yourself that you don’t need nearly as much as you think you do to be happy and at peace.

09

Alternate periods of rest with periods of work.

Don’t feel guilty about rest.

It doesn’t matter how skilled, disciplined, or even enthusiastic you are about your work.

Everyone has a limit.

And the further you go past that limit, the harder it is for you to get back to work.

Avoid the long term pitfalls of burnout by taking periodic short breaks from work.

10

Create more than you consume.

Excessive consumption numbs the mind, repels creative inspiration, reduces self esteem by promoting comparison of yourself to others, and causes you to unconsciously take on the mindset, perspective, and beliefs of the content you are consuming.

Since you will be brainwashed anyway, might as well choose to be brainwashed by content that is in line with the ultimate version of yourself and your life that you want to create.

But even still, consumption should never outweigh creation.

11

Eliminate mindless bad habits.

A lack of self control leads to diminished self esteem, which of course takes away from your happiness.

If you can’t be happy with yourself, it’s hard to be happy at all.

Examine your existing habits.

Make new good habits.

Eliminate old bad habits.

Practice restraint in the areas where it can lead to your optimal outcome.

Restraint is key to self confidence, and self confidence is key to happiness.

12

Have sovereignty over your actions instead of being controlled by the default actions of others.

Don’t be one of the 99% who live on autopilot, mindlessly adopting the actions and beliefs of the people around them.

Does it make sense to leave your life up to chance?

To leave your life up to the circumstances or group of people you happen to be around at the time?

If other people make bad decisions, have bad habits, or aren’t doing anything worthwhile with their lives, it doesn’t mean you should be the same way just because of proximity to those people.

Take the initiative to form a vision for your life, and exercise the discipline to make it real.

No matter what people around you are doing or not doing.

13

Have a hobby that you regularly participate in.

There is a child-like essence in all of us, and I find myself happiest when I indulge that.

Part of this is deliberately taking part in play.

Having a hobby, sport, or craft to regularly participate in takes your mind off of stressful situations and gives you the satisfaction of continual progression and advancement in aptitude.

It feels good to play.

And it feels good to see yourself get better at something.

14

Always have one non-work related event to look forward to.

In school, we had balance built into our lives for us–studies, extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, occasionally work.

But as adults, things switch and we are expected to make work the center of our lives.

Always have something on your calendar (not on your wishlist, not on your vision board–on your calendar) to look forward to that has nothing to do with work.

Pursue balance in your lifestyle.

15

Surround yourself with people who make you feel elevated.

The people around you can make all the difference in your experience of life.

People’s presence can influence you such that their attitude, mood, and outlook becomes your attitude, mood, and outlook.

You can have the same life circumstances but have a completely different mood or attitude just because of the people you choose to surround yourself with.

So choose wisely.

16

Do something–anything–purely for the fun of it.

Life is not just about striving and gaining.

Because money is key to the quality of our lives, and is also an easy metric to indicate progress or success, we often get caught up in only putting time and energy into things we think will give us a financial return.

But we’re not just here to work.

We’re here to enjoy life.

We’re not just here to do.

We’re here to be.

Be deliberate about spending time on things you enjoy, just for the simple reason that you enjoy them.

Let your joy be a worthy enough exchange for your time.

17

Make someone else smile.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own circumstances, and get stuck on our evaluation of how our lives are going in comparison to how we think they should be going.

When we get stuck too long in this self-centered place, self-centeredness turns to self-pity, and we start to feel like things are worse and more hopeless than they actually are.

Take the focus off yourself sometimes.

This can change your perspective, and it can provide you happiness by way of the satisfaction of helping someone else find happiness.

18

Work on projects you assign to yourself instead of solely working on projects assigned to you by others.

Purpose and sovereignty are key to happiness.

You cannot be happy or fulfilled in the long term by just doing assignments that build other people’s visions.

We are created to be independent.

We are created to be creators.

We are created to be independent creators–to craft and actualize visions that are unique to our personal gifts and desires.

When people find themselves for prolonged periods of time in roles within their careers, relationships, or personal lives that they do not explicitly want, they have a hard time being truly happy.

A job cannot fulfill you the way a purpose can.

Something someone else decided you should do does not feel the same as something you decided to do.

Happiness is not a given.

It is something we have to work for.

Happiness is not permanent.

It is fleeting.

Happiness is not always natural.

But it is attainable.

Happiness is something that we can invite and prolong by our actions.

I hope these habits of happy people help you find a little more sunshine in your times of darkness.