3 Mindset Shifts That Will Make You Happier
The way we relate to ourselves and to life can deeply shape our experience of happiness, meaning, stress, connection, and emotional well-being. And when I say “mindset,” I’m not talking simply about being positive or negative, but more so the beliefs and perspectives we hold about ourselves, happiness, and life itself — perspectives that can either support or hinder our ability to experience a more grounded and natural sense of joy.
From all the shifts in mindset I’ve explored over the years, there are three in particular that stand out when it comes to creating more space, resilience, self-understanding, hope, and grounded happiness in our lives.
1. Happiness doesn’t mean being happy all the time.
Happiness doesn’t mean being happy all of the time. More than anything, genuine happiness involves building the capacity to stay connected to yourself and to life even during periods of stress, sadness, uncertainty, disappointment, or pain. Ups and downs are a part of life and up doesn’t necessarily need to mean ecstatically happy and down doesn’t need to mean low in despair. You can experience stress, sadness, and worry and be mostly okay amidst it all, which naturally gives you a chance at non-fleeting happiness.
The hedonistic view of happiness as a byproduct of maximum pleasure and avoidance of or minimum pain might help you attain happiness momentarily, but it won’t do you much good in the long term. If you’re seeking simply hedonistic pleasure, you’ll be running around trying your best to have happiness peaks and ultimate highs while running away from unpleasant or painful feelings. And what will happen is that you’ll coincidentally also be running away from sustainable, long-term happiness.
Over time, as we learn how to move through difficult experiences with more support, honesty, self-compassion, and flexibility, painful moments often become less emotionally defining and all-consuming. In fact, the extent of your happiness is only as limited as your ability to tolerate and be okay during periods of discomfort. Over time, many people find that this creates a deeper, steadier, and more sustainable sense of happiness.
The extent of your happiness is only as limited as your ability to tolerate and be okay during periods of discomfort.
Which brings us to number 2…
2. Happiness isn’t a feeling; it’s a skill that you can build and get better at over time.
You may have heard of the set-point theory of happiness that suggests that people’s happiness is pre-determined by their genes and personality traits set early on in life. This theory, if you haven’t yet heard, has been rampantly challenged. Rather than remaining stable, happiness levels can and do change over a person’s lifetime (it’s this fact, by the way, that drew me to this work and career in the first place). And it’s because many of the inner capacities that support happiness and well-being — self-awareness, emotional flexibility, self-compassion, gratitude, mindfulness, connection, and nervous system regulation — can be strengthened and supported over time.
More than a feeling, happiness is a skill that each of us can build and get better at over time.
3. Your current situation is not your final destination.
The third mindset shift that it helps you to consider if genuine happiness is what you’re longing for is to trust that your current situation is not your final destination. Very much related to #2, within this shift lies the possibility of improvement, the feeling of empowerment, and the life-saving essence of hope. No matter what is going on right now and how bad or unpleasant it might be, you’ve got to know that it will change. It’s the nature of life — change— and it’s one thing we can always bank on.
Very painful moments can convince us that nothing will ever shift. But life often continues unfolding in ways we can’t fully imagine while we’re inside the pain itself.
When we’re hurting, it can be incredibly difficult to imagine feeling differently someday. Pain often narrows our perspective and makes the present moment feel permanent.
But many of us can also look back on difficult seasons we once thought might break us and recognize that life continued unfolding afterward — sometimes painfully, sometimes slowly, sometimes unexpectedly.
That doesn’t mean every experience resolves neatly or that hope always feels accessible. But it does mean that difficult moments are not the entirety of our story, even when they feel all-consuming.
And perhaps that’s part of what these mindset shifts are really about — not forcing ourselves to feel happy all the time, but learning how to relate to life with a little more openness, perspective, flexibility, self-compassion, and hope as we move through its inevitable ups and downs.
These are also some of the themes I explore more deeply inside Happy from the Inside Out® — especially the relationship between happiness, emotional honesty, self-compassion, and the ways we learn to stay connected to ourselves through difficult seasons of life. If these reflections resonate, you can learn more about my course Happy from the Inside Out® here.
