What will make you happy (and it isn’t what you think)

What would make you happy right now?

If you could snap your fingers and have anything to make you happy what would that be?

When you ask people what would make them happy they’ll typically tell you that they need a holiday, or they need a new car, or they want to win the lottery.

And yes, getting away from it all, travelling more comfortably or losing your financial issues would definitely help improve your happiness…for a while.

But are those bigger, short term things what are really going to make the difference to your life as a whole?

I guess by the tone of this you can already tell that I’m going to answer that with the word no.

Here’s why.

Happiness Spikes and a Lack of Gratitude

I think more so than ever given the whole “covid ruining everything” situation, people talk about their need to get away and get some sunshine or lose their responsibilities for a while.

And of course that’s going to be great, of course it is going to be enjoyable – let’s say it take your happiness level from a 6/10 up to 9/10.

That’s brilliant.

But how many times have you had a friend or work colleague return from being away and telling you how they need a holiday to get over that holiday?

The week-long bliss has dissolved and reality that they still have a job that they tolerate, they used their savings on the holiday and nothing else has changed slaps them in the face like a cold wet fish.

This spike in happiness is great if you truly appreciate that it was able to happen, how fortunate you are that you can be in that situation – if not then you can feel as if you’ve lost something upon your return rather than banking it as a treasured experience.

The same thing with the car, maybe it’ll be prettier, faster, more comfortable etc but what does it really change with regards to your life?

What happens when a different, prettier, faster car comes out? As happens on a regular basis? Does the lust for a new way of travelling get shifted? Can you continue to enjoy what you have knowing there is something better available?

This spike in happiness again dissipates as the new and exciting quickly becomes the normal again.

I want to be clear, I’m not saying “don’t buy the car” or “don’t have the holiday” what I am saying is that unless you are fundamentally very good at being grateful in life then those things will actually make very little difference to how happy you feel.

Frequency, not Scarcity

I’m fairly certain you’ve heard people say “if I just had THIS, then I’d be happy” and sometimes that thing is literally impossible so they remain miserable, or when they do get it, lo-and-behold they still aren’t happy because they were wrong, it didn’t make them happy.

To become happier and more content in life we shouldn’t be seeking out individual events/objects which feel scarce or are our treats for going through the mundanity of the rest of our lives.

That means that our overall happiness is low; we just have the happiness spikes which I mentioned earlier.

What if, instead of looking at the things that we think would make us happy we look at improving the things that make us unhappy.

What if we looked at which things in our life happened the most frequently to make us unhappy and addressed them?

If your job feels like you get given money at the expense of your own happiness then something needs to change.

Perhaps, every time you get home your partner barely even acknowledges your existence whereas you want a hug or a passionate embrace.

Maybe your social life has been downgraded to the point where your social interactions consist of a few whatsapp group chats?

It is these things which happen day in day out that will be grinding you down, these are the things that will be having the bigger impact on your life.

They are the things that you dread coming back to once the holiday is over, they are the things that a luxury car can’t change, they are the things that money can’t buy.

Sweat the Small Stuff

The first step in becoming happier is to actually identify what these small grievances are in your life, what are the tiny things, the “one percenters” which happen throughout every week that drag you down or that could be different?

I appreciate that happiness is not a numbers game but bare with me with this unquantifiable thing.

Let’s say that your partner leaves their dirty clothes next to the washing basket rather than in it, this isn’t a big deal for you but it irks you slightly, it makes you 1% less happy.

Now 1% isn’t a lot, but if this happens every single day for a week that’s 7%, it’s 7% happiness that you have to find from somewhere just to be as happy as you could be if that little thing didn’t happen.

But maybe this isn’t the only thing, maybe someone does something stupidly annoying at work, maybe they have a “fun” nickname they call you, I don’t know, I’m spitballing here!

If they call you that 10 times a day then that all adds up.

If you want to be happier then start by writing down all of the little things that bug you throughout your day/week/month/life.
As I mentioned several times already, we’re not looking at the big life changes or the short term fixes, we’re looking for the small things which could very easily be different.

Write them all down, that in itself might be a cathartic exercise for you.

Once we know what these things are we’re going to deal with them with GRACE

Gratitude

Resilience

Acceptance

Control

Endeavouring

I have gone into depth with some of these topics in previous blogs/videos/podcasts so I will link in some further reading if you are interested to dive into any of the areas that little bit more.

I’ve listed it as GRACE because it spells a nice word, however it isn’t the order in which I’d tackle things but

CAGRE isn’t a great acronym, either way, we start with control.

Control

Throughout my various blogs, vlogs, and podcast episodes I’ve probably spoken about the subject of control more than anything else.

I’m going to simplify this greatly, listen here if you want to find out more about control.

In life things fall into 2 categories – things that we can control and things that we can’t control.

We can control our thoughts and our actions, nothing else.

We cannot control literally everything else.

When it comes to these 1% things that steal our happiness or that we think we can change we need to examine and ask whether this is something we are directly in control of.

Is it our thoughts? Is it our actions?

If it isn’t then we do not actual control whether this thing continues to happen or not.

We can attempt to exert our influence on the situation but we can’t actually change it if it isn’t in our control.

If your one percenter is something which can’t be changed at all then you just have to let it go (see acceptance below).

But if it is a habit or action another person is taking then all you can do is have an honest conversation with them about it and ask them to stop or change what they’re doing – but it doesn’t mean that they will – if this happens then once again see the section below on acceptance.

If someone continues a behaviour after you’ve asked them not to then it is up to you to set a boundary to prevent yourself from further annoyance by this – listen here.

Acceptance

Unfortunately some things are just shit, it might not be anything that anyone has done wrong or it might be that someone has done something awful to you – regardless of how or why something might be shit…it is shit.

If you’ve understood from earlier on what level of control you have over situations you might perhaps already know that with some one percenters there isn’t actually anything that can be done about them.

This leaves you with a choice, you can either accept that it can’t be changed or you can waste your energy feeling annoyed about it – go more in depth on this topic here

Wouldn’t that energy be better placed into something positive that you can change?

Gratitude

The very concept of gratitude utterly changed my life and my outlook on everything, it wasn’t quite an overnight change in terms of implement into my life but it was an instant change in terms of how I chose to try and live.

I think it’s incredibly easy to be ungrateful in life, we are often guilty of chasing after the next big thing in life rather than realising how good what we have is.

The stuff that we complain about is frequently something that other people, or even our past selves would snap someone’s arm off for.

Complaining that your car is rubbish? At least you have a car to complain about.

Frustrated by your partner leaving dirty laundry by the basket? Isn’t it wonderful to have a partner, to have a washing basket, to even have washing facilities? 

Annoyed by a work colleague for whatever reason? You have a job, so you have income, would you rather have nothing.

Looking at your list where can you find gratitude in these situations, gratitude alone might change how you view it and it may cease to be a source of unhappiness.

Even if it doesn’t there is never a downside to feeling more grateful.

Resilience

You quite possibly know people who fall apart at the slightest inconvenience, perhaps even things where you wonder why on earth they aren’t able to deal with it.

The more that people go through the more resilient they tend to become, yes, some people have never managed to develop coping mechanisms and still fall apart at everything but most people grow.

Often we also forget just how much we’ve gone through and when we recount to ourselves all of it we almost take a step back and say “holy shit, I’ve been through all of that”.

It can be pretty empowering to remind ourselves of our successes and our forgotten strengths.

With this strength in mind when we look at these one percenters we can almost laugh at their insignificance, ask ourselves why we’re letting these little things bother us when we’ve already overcome much bigger tougher obstacles in life.

Endeavouring

If change was really simple then everything would be evolving much quicker but that’s typically not what happens.

If things don’t change then they stay the same, kinda obvious but one of my Dad’s favourite expressions.

Invoking change, change that actually lasts in life, can be tough and above everything else it takes patience.

If you’ve asked your partner not to leave dirty socks NEXT to the washing basket 10 times and he still keeps forgetting then you have to ask again and again and again.

But why do you have to keep asking? 

Well because like I said typically things don’t change so you have to endeavour to keep pushing for that change to happen, you have to be stronger than the will for things to stay the same.

It definitely won’t change if you give up so patience and endeavour are your very closest allies.

Changing the one-percenters

One of the hidden benefits of tackling these low lying niggles in life in this was is that it creates an environment around you which will help you overcome the bigger things in life which bother you.

And the beauty of it is that being more grateful is always going to be beneficial, as is remembering your resilience, the same with understanding control, appreciating acceptance and the importance of endeavouring.

Levelling up your happiness 1% at a time by looking at the more frequent yet smaller inconveniences and annoyances will mean you are at a lower risk of being set off but the smallest of things.

If you’ve ever heard of a couple breaking up over “the washing up” because that was the final straw for one of them then you’ll understand exactly what I’m on about.

Luxury holidays are always going to bring you a sense of happiness but you’d trade that in a heartbeat for that daily kiss on the cheek as you leave or return from work every day that makes you feel cherished, important and loved.