Happiness: How to Use Habits to Change Your Life

Welcome to How to Find Happiness, Lesson 9, Happiness: How to Use Habits to Change Your Life.

If you would like to start this series from the beginning, go to How to Find Happiness: 10 Lessons to Change Your Life.

This week, we focus on the connections between habits and happiness. More specifically, we are going to explore how to use our natural tendency to develop habits to our best advantage by identifying and reinforcing some triggers that we will begin to associate with happiness. 

It’s easy to do and doesn’t take much time or energy, just a little imagination. 

Let’s get started.

Habits: How to Use Them to Boost Happiness

Habit development happens in three parts.  First, there’s a trigger. The trigger leads to the second component, which is a behavior.  And the last part is the reward – that which motivates us to continue our habit.  An example that helped me get my head around this is the following:  We wake up and our teeth feel yucky (trigger); we brush our teeth (behavior); our mouth then feels “minty fresh” (reward).  And we brush our teeth every morning or night, or after every meal – without thinking about it. It’s a habit.

Habits and Happiness: What does happiness look like?

Ask yourself: what does happiness look like? Is it a color? A bright yellow or maybe a soft robin’s egg blue or a pastel pink?

There’s no right answer – we can each choose our answer to this question.

And then decide that every time we see this color (trigger), this will be our cue to smile (behavior); the act of smiling, and soon the color itself, will become a cue that results in our own mood shifting toward the positive (reward). 

Let’s say we choose pastel pink as our happiness color. 

We can start by choosing a day of the week to actively look for pastel pink around us.

The next day, we can do something more proactive, like purchasing something we need/want in our happiness color: a T-shirt, pajamas, socks, sticky notes, a notebook, anything works. 

How about a pastel pink baseball hat for those bed-head mornings?

On day three, let’s use or wear the new item in our happiness color.

Everyday going forward, let’s revel in each moment we notice the color and what it’s doing to elevate our mood.

How about this: we can decide our happiness color is the same color as our walking shoes. And then get a happiness boost every time we go for a walk as we reinforce two behaviors at once.

Habits and Happiness: What does happiness smell like?

Freshly brewed coffee, cocoa butter, baking brownies are some of my favorites. How about your laundry detergent or bath soap? A freshly mowed lawn or cut flowers? Take a few minutes to think about some distinct smells that occur throughout your day. 

Mine is my perfume (it is even called “Happy”). On a gloomy day, all I need is a quick spritz to remember I want my face to naturally fall into a smile as my “default” position.

Habits and Happiness: What does happiness sound like?

My happiness sounds include seagulls and the sound of metal hardware banging on a boat mast. 

We have a flagpole, and every time I hear the attachments to the flag chink against the pole, it transports me to the beach.

Wind chimes also do it for me. 

Some of my other auditory triggers include classic rock songs and other types of music.

One piece that brings back especially happy memories is The Nutcracker because my son would nap to it when he was a baby. 

Something we hear all the time can be our happiness trigger. 

I love the sound my phone makes when I get a text. It’s a sweet soft chime and I smile every time I hear it.

Habits and Happiness: What does happiness feel like?

Think of the various textures in our lives.  A baby’s cheek or a particularly warm and cozy blanket. A freshly washed T-shirt or the feel of a pet’s coat.  The texture of ivory keys or the tension of guitar strings.

Habits and Happiness: What does happiness taste like?

This one is easy for me – it is a bite of dark chocolate.  I wish I could reprogram myself to decide that my go-to taste is carrots, but no-can-do on that one! 

I also associate a juicy hamburger with some of the happiest times in my life.

As with all our other senses, it can be anything we decide it is.  Do you have a breakfast ritual? How about making your morning banana or strawberry smoothie your happiness taste?

One Last Idea

Are there symbols that you can use as happiness triggers?  An emoji that often appears on your phone? Hearts? A thumbs up? 

Mine is stars (one reason I wear star earrings and a star necklace so often) and a star is only a second away for me, because I can draw them anywhere, and then make an immediate association to all the other blessings in my life and the wonderful people I love and have come to know. 

Stars have become my own personal “gratitude trigger” – they remind me to have a quiet moment with myself to say thank you.

Habits: Making the Right Choices

Thinking these thoughts, making these choices, doing what’s in our power to make us happier, spending our time wisely – it’s all up to us. We must decide we are worthy and deserving and do it as often as we can because it’s a change worth making and a chance worth taking.

Have some fun with this. Here’s an idea.  Is there something that really irritates you?

For example, does it really annoy you when your kids (or significant other) leave their shoes in the middle of the kitchen? 

How about when someone doesn’t replace the toilet roll?

Decide that from now on these will be happiness triggers instead – and think of something silly to associate with the image, something that will surely make you smile.

Use habits to your advantage to turn your mood upside down. 

Let’s Wrap It Up!

The table below includes questions to help us identify more ways to reinforce happiness through habits. Before we tackle them, pull out your notebook and review notes from the last few weeks.

• Which areas of well-being did you decide to focus on and what kind of energy do you need most?
• Are there areas of shame and blame you are working to address?
• Or relationship challenges you wish to overcome?
• Do you see connections among these topics that relate to your feelings about money?

Are you beginning to see any themes that will help you develop a more holistic strategy to achieve future happiness and contentment?

Write about what you are learning in your notebook.

Now, are you ready to establish some new mental connections that will cue a smile?

Let’s agree to embrace the connection between habits and happiness and start to boost your mood in new ways today.

The questions below may help us figure out other ways to harness the power of habits to improve our well-being.

So, what do you think about Week 9?

Did you learn about connections between habits and happiness? Discover ways to capitalize on our tendency to form habits to reinforce and boost our own joy? Are there good habits you have that you would like to double down on? This post will help you find the will power to stick with healthy behaviors.

Please leave a comment and share what you are learning with all the rest of us.

Ready to move onto Lesson 10? It’s waiting for you: Generosity and Gratitude: How to Take It to the Next Level.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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Joan Senio is the founder of KindCompassCoach.  Joan’s career includes clinical healthcare plus 20+ years as an executive in a nationwide health care system and 15 years as a consultant. The common threads throughout Joan’s personal and professional life are a commitment to non-profit organizations, mental health, compassionate coaching, professional development and servant leadership. Joan has had the privilege of mentoring early and mid-career professionals as well as current and future executives and leaders. She is a member of the International Organization of Life Coaches, serves as a thought-leader for KuelLife.com and is also a regular contributor to PsychReg and Sixty and Me. You can read more about Joan here: Joan Senio.