How To Find and Create Joy In Your Life

*This is a photo of me experiencing a moment of joy: enjoying a glass of red wine, looking out at a beautiful landscape, and getting ready to enjoy an evening with good friends and conversation. It was not posed—the person who took the photo saw me staring out at the evening sky and decided to capture it on camera…and I’m so glad she did. It’s a reminder to stop, take in moments of life with all of my senses, and truly find joy in the present.

“You were happy, right?”

I’ll never forget when a friend asked me this question after I had made some changes to my health and wellness. Her question was in reference to what my life was like before I made some necessary shifts in my priorities that led me down a path toward improved wellness.

Her question made me pause and ask myself, ‘Was I happy before I made these healthy changes?’

My answer was a resounding, “Yes, I was”…I was happy during many moments of my life. I can say with certainty that I experienced great joy and content in early marriage, motherhood, and throughout my career as an educator. I have clear memories of feeling joyful when watching my children play, spending quality time with my husband, family and friends, creating experiences for my students, and traveling.

“But”…

You see, there was a “but” that came after “Yes, I was…” 

But….at a certain point I started to feel the weight of the world, stress, frustration, and I had a lack of clarity around goals and the purpose behind what I was doing every day. The mental load of everything on my “to-do” list kept growing and growing. I developed negative self-talk and toxic feelings of resentment. And my physical body began to hurt due to the extra weight I was carrying, poor eating habits, and the amount of alcohol I drank during a week (thanks to COVID, it became socially acceptable and appropriate to start drinking earlier in the evening and more often than I ever had).

I attempted to burn stress and counteract my poor eating/drinking habits with intense cardio workouts that only exhausted me even more. Combine all of that with a lack of education around how I needed to appropriately fuel my body with food, water, and rest for my activity level, and the cycle just kept going and going. I felt like I was a hamster on a wheel that I couldn’t control. I just kept spinning and spinning.

You see, I kept doing more of the things that exhausted me and less of the things that would actually improve my health and mindset. At times, it felt like insanity. 

This all led to more frustration, stress, exhaustion, and eventually an emotional and mental state where I felt so lost and hopeless. I saw my 40th birthday coming and I absolutely dreaded the thought of entering a decade in such poor health. 

Yet, I had a healthy family. I had friends that I enjoyed. I had a comfortable home. I was grateful for so many people, experiences, and things in my life. I had finished my doctoral program, completed research and teaching that was professionally fulfilling, and finally found a job in higher education that at the time made me think that “I had made it.” But I started to realize that my professional responsibilities were taking me away from the people and things that mattered the most in my life-- my children, my husband, my family, and my wellness. 

Was I happy? Was I miserable? Was I grateful? Was I incredibly stressed? Was I proud of what I had accomplished? Was I frustrated?

Yes….to all of it. 

That combination led to such a state of resentment toward myself. How could I have felt like “I made it” but in the meantime, I had sacrificed so much of my health, my time, my mindset, and my overall feelings of who I was. I no longer recognized myself.

How I felt on a daily basis was so misaligned with how I wanted to feel. I woke up with a groan, not looking forward to my day, with my physical body hurting and my mind already spinning with the mental load of my day ahead. Instead, I wanted to feel more energized, more alive, and more at peace on a daily basis. I wanted to feel joy every single day. And most importantly, I wanted to be happy with myself and who I was as a mom, as a wife, as a professional, and as a human in this world. 

And that’s when I knew I needed to start to make some necessary changes in my life…changes that would lead me toward more joy and peace every single day. 

The Definition of Joy

Before we get to the dictionary definition of joy, I want you to take a moment to think about what “joy” means to you. How would you define joy? What experiences have you had today, yesterday, this week, this month, or in the past year(s) that have been truly joyful? Can you identify them? What makes you distinguish them as joyful moments? What emotions come up for you when you think about those experiences? 

As humans, we experience joy in so many ways. You can feel joy in the highest of highs, in the lowest of lows, and in the most normal moments of life. 

For me, while I was experiencing such low moments and negative emotions in my daily life, I was also capable of experiencing moments of joy as well. But my goal was to start to feel more of those moments of joy and less of the moments of stress, frustration, and exhaustion.

Here are a few definitions of joy for us to consider:

  • The dictionary definition of joy is “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying” (dictionary.com). 

  • “True joy is a limitless, life-defining, transformative reservoir waiting to be tapped into. It requires the utmost surrender and, like love, is a choice to be made. Joy is not simply a feeling that happens” (compassion.com).

  • Brene Brown writes in Atlas of the Heart,  “I define joy as an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.”

  • The Oxford Companion to Emotion and the Affective Sciences defines joy this way:

Joy is a pleasant state that shares conceptual space with other positive emotions such as gladness, elation, happiness, and, to a lesser extent, amusement. Feelings of joy arise in circumstances appraised as safe, familiar, and requiring little personal effort. 

Joy is the pleasant state experienced when people have made progress toward important personal goals, especially when that progress is better than expected (Lazarus, 1991). 

Phenomenologically, joy feels bright and light. Colors seem more vivid. Physical movements become more fluid. Smiles become difficult to suppress. Joy broadens people’s attention and thinking. Such broadened thinking is thought to support the playful ‘do anything’ action. (Fredrickson, 2009, p. 230).

From all of these definitions, we can see that joy is complex. 

We can feel joy as a state of being. We can create it for ourselves and others. And it can be created for us by other people, experiences, and circumstances beyond our control. 

Finding More Joy In Your Life

So, if joy is in fact something we can control and create, then we have the ability to bring more of it into our lives.

I can say with certainty that I now experience way more joy in my daily life than I ever have. Because I am clear about how I want to feel, I can be intentional about creating more moments that bring me joy on a daily basis. And if this is something you want too, then I am here to tell you that you can find joy more often as well. 

Mayo Clinic provides these tips for embracing joy in our daily lives:

  • Focus on what you can control.

  • Express gratitude.

  • Assume good intent.

  • Concentrate on building relationships.

  • Keep perspective.

I also appreciate these suggestions in the Forbes article, “How to Find Joy In Everyday Life, According to Psychologists”: 

  • Don't dismiss bad feelings.

  • Embrace yourself with compassion. 

  • Forge meaningful connections.

  • Be 'un-you.'

    • “Who we think we are can get in the way of growth and genuine happiness. I encourage patients to expand how they think about themselves by behaving in ways that may seem out of character for them. Simply put, doing things that are unlike you can get you closer to the version of yourself you would ultimately like to be." (Dr. Boardman)

  • Watch your thoughts.

  • Balance hassles with uplifts.

    • "These small moments of grace or goodness are the essence of finding happiness in everyday life. I make a point of cultivating or noticing at least two ordinary moments each day that are uplifting. If I’m not deliberate about seeking delight, I might miss it." ( Dr. Boardman)

  • Don't wait until you figure everything out.

I love the advice to “be ‘un-you’...it’s something I’ve practiced over the recent years as I’ve started to act in alignment with who I want to be compared to who I am now. 

For example, if I want to be more at peace, I need to do more things that bring me peace. If I want to be more mindful, I need to practice mindfulness throughout my day. If I want to limit--or eliminate--negative self-talk, then I need to pay attention to my self talk and actively change it. If I want to feel more joy, then I really need to do things within my control that bring me joy. 

You see, I have control. And by having control, it means that I don’t have to “wait until I figure everything out.” Instead, I can take control of this very moment and think and behave in ways that lead me toward who I want to be and how I want to feel each and every day. This knowledge has been so empowering in my personal journey. And, I hope it is for you too.

Reflect and Create More Joy

Take time to reflect on what currently brings you joy. Go back to the questions I asked you at the beginning about when you recently experienced moments of joy. Then, decide how you can bring more of those moments of joy into your life. There may be things you can easily incorporate into your daily life that will bring you more joy. 

For example, if you feel joy when you watch your children play, then find uninterrupted time in your day to sit and watch them play. If you find joy in reading a good book, build in time to read in the morning, during your lunch break, or before bed. If you find joy in getting fresh air, observing nature, and walking outdoors, build in time for quiet, daily walks. If you find joy in connecting with certain individuals, reach out to them via text or phone call, or invite them to spend time with you in the near future. The list goes on.

And a quick note, if your current life sounds similar to my previous experiences of being in a constant state of overwhelm, frustration, stress, and feeling multiple negative emotions throughout your day, then I encourage you to start to work on daily habits that can lead you toward more of what you do want versus what you don’t want. Take some time to reflect on your current situation and what you can control. Then, begin to work on small changes each day that will lead you toward what you envision and desire for your life. 

I’m here cheering you on, and wishing you moments of joy so you can feel more alive and present each and every day.

Additional Reading: If you want to dig into more resources, feel free to check out the ones below

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