10 Things You Need To Avoid If You Want To Be Happy Again

Isn’t it about time you were happy again?

A woman with curly blonde hair smiles joyfully while standing in a lush, green field. She is wearing a gray cardigan and a beige top. The background features trees and a slightly overcast sky, creating a serene, natural setting.

You’ve been asking the same thing for a while. But something has been standing in your way.

You just can’t seem to find your way back to happiness.

Now, it’s true that no one can be happy all the time. That’s just unrealistic.

What you can aim for is a life that contains regular happy moments amongst the more mundane and even downbeat times.

How do you do this? Start by eliminating these 10 behaviors and notice the glimmers of hope and happiness appear.

1. Ignoring the root cause of your unhappiness.

An older woman with short blond hair is sitting on a couch, resting her chin on her hand, and gazing thoughtfully out of a window. She is wearing a light blue sweater and appears contemplative. A blurred vase with flowers is in the background.

If you want to be happy again, it suggests that you were happy at some point in the past. The first step to finding that happiness again is to ask when and why you stopped feeling happy.

Was it a particular event that jolted your mind out of a relatively upbeat mindset? Did you experience a loss of some sort?

The death of a loved one, a breakup, finding yourself out of work – these are just some of the things that can steal happiness away and make it hard to find again.

On the other hand, have you found that your level of happiness has been on the slide for some time? Were you once a happy individual who spent many moments enjoying their life and the people and things in it? Do you now struggle to experience these feelings? Can you identify a time when you first noticed yourself becoming less happy?

Sometimes it’s the repetition and drudgery of day-to-day life that wears you down. Time moves forward, but nothing seems to change and you become less content with how your life is. Maybe the aging process brings your ultimate end into focus and you find yourself longing for more.

Whatever the cause, if you can figure out when you started to lose your happiness, it can help you discover the right ways to get it back again.

2. Chasing happiness too hard.

A woman with long blonde hair rests her chin on her hand, looking pensive, at a bar. In the background, a man and a woman with curly hair are engaged in conversation. Two mugs of beer are on the bar counter in front of them.

In order to be happy again, it’s vital that you don’t make it your only meaningful goal. Whilst there are things you can do to create more moments of happiness, you cannot and will not always succeed.

If you focus too much on happiness as an outcome, you will often find it harder to achieve that outcome. Happiness erupts spontaneously when the conditions are right.

If you try to force it, you’ll be too caught up in your mind. And whilst your thoughts can help encourage the right conditions for happiness, they are just as likely to prevent it from happening.

Sometimes the very act of striving to be happy is what stands in the way of happiness.

3. Expecting happiness to be constant throughout life.

A portrait of an older man with short gray hair, a beard, and mustache. He is wearing a blue collared shirt under a gray sweater. The background is softly blurred, placing emphasis on his contemplative expression.

One of the reasons why it might seem as though you are not as happy as you once were is because the feeling of happiness is not constant throughout life. Happiness is made up of many distinct emotions and the ingredients of yours might change as you get older.

If you don’t know what your current recipe for happiness is, you might not do the things that make you happy. And if you don’t equate those individual emotions as being a part of your overall happiness, you won’t think of yourself as being happy.

For example, when you are young, the excitement and stimulation provided by new experiences can show itself as happiness both at the time and when you think back on it later. As you grow older, you might begin to appreciate the sharing of tradition with those who are important to you. That’s not to say that new things can’t make you happy in your later years or that you can’t enjoy tradition when you are younger, but the way you feel about things often changes throughout life.

So in order to be happy again, you must first figure out what happiness means to you now and what it feels like.

4. Doing things that no longer make you happy.

Two men are seated at a bar, raising their beer glasses toward each other in a toast. One is wearing a white shirt, and the other has a checkered shirt. The bar counter has a white, hexagonal tile design while sunlight filters through the windows in the background.

As we just alluded to, what once made you happy might no longer leave you feeling the same way. You have to identify what things you currently enjoy and what you might potentially enjoy given the opportunity. You can’t assume that these things will be the same things you used to enjoy.

One good way to identify what you do and do not enjoy right now is to spend 5 minutes at the end of each day thinking about what you’ve done during that day. For each thing that you’ve done, ask yourself whether you’d want to do it again tomorrow. If you would, it’s something that has provided at least some level of happiness. If you would not, perhaps you can avoid doing this thing again in future.

This can involve asking whether you would wish to spend time with a person again tomorrow having seen them today. If, after spending time with someone, you feel drained or sad or angry or some other negative emotion, you should ask whether this person is someone you need to see so often or at all.

5. Trying to control everything in your life.

A man with a beard is talking on the phone. He is wearing a dark t-shirt and standing near a window with blinds, allowing soft light to illuminate the room. The background features a white cabinet and dark walls.

One obstacle to happiness is the need to control every detail of your life. Yes, you need to take responsibility for your actions, but you also need to understand that many things are out of your hands.

By holding on to the idea of control, you give yourself a reason to be unhappy when things don’t pan out exactly how you intended. You blame yourself when things go wrong and you overlook all that went right.

If you could only accept that you guide the outcome, but cannot dictate it, you will be better placed to celebrate all the positive things that happen. You will find happiness again where now you only find disappointment.

Your mind can be positive or it can be negative. It’s hard to experience both feelings at the same time. Seeking full control leads to a negative outlook. Relaxing into how things turn out encourages a more positive outlook.

6. Striving for perfection.

A man in a suit sits on the ground, leaning against a wall, looking upwards in an urban setting. The background is blurred, suggesting a modern building exterior.

There is no perfect moment in which to be happy.

This relates back to the need for control because perfectionism is merely taking control to its absolute limits. Perfection is unattainable.

No person, no event, no thing is ever perfect. If you expect perfection, you simply don’t allow yourself to be happy when something good – even something very good – occurs. Imagine that. A positive outcome and you still can’t be fully happy.

There’s always that nagging doubt that you didn’t achieve the ideal outcome you wished for. So if you want to be able to rejoice in a job well done, you need to overcome your perfectionist tendencies. Be okay with good. Be okay with satisfactory. After all, the word satisfactory implies that you could experience satisfaction, which is often a part of happiness.

7. Neglecting “flow” activities.

A woman plays an electric piano in a cozy, sunlit room with plants and soft furnishings. She wears a light blouse and a watch, with her hair tied back.

One of the biggest signs that you are enjoying yourself is that time fades away and you are not aware of how fast or slow it is passing. This is what happens when you enter a flow state – a condition in which you are fully engaged in something.

This could occur while playing a musical instrument, engaging in a sport, reading a book, or speaking with friends. It can even happen in a work situation if you get so immersed in the task at hand that you find time flying by.

If we jump back to earlier on in the article where we discussed what happiness actually feels like, you’ll now understand that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a state of euphoria.

Happiness can be the fulfillment felt from a job well done. It can be losing yourself in an activity that doesn’t necessarily invoke constant joy. It can be the realization after the fact that your troubles had melted away as you participated in a social occasion with others.

Reaching a point where your mind is wholly occupied with the here and now of life opens a doorway to happiness and contentment.

8. Isolating yourself.

A young woman with short blonde hair and a burgundy top gazes out of a window with a contemplative expression. The background shows a blurred view of greenery and a balcony railing.

Another potential obstacle to feeling happy again is the belief that you are not an important part of society. When we feel isolated or unable to change the world for the better, it can lead to hopelessness. And hopelessness is not compatible with happiness.

To combat this, you must reach out and touch the lives of other people. By helping others in any way you can, you prove your worth and show that your contribution matters. Being there to support people – those already in your life or complete strangers – helps provide a sense of purpose.

If your happiness is held back because you perceive a lack of meaning in your life, helping people could be an effective solution.

9. Focusing on goals, not progress.

A woman with long dark hair and a yellow sweater sits at a desk typing on a laptop in a classroom. Open notebooks and papers are on the desk in front of her. Rows of empty chairs and desks are visible in the background.

Having something to work toward is a smart way to see a more positive future. This optimism affects your mood in the present.

But to get the real benefits of a goal, you should focus on the progress you are making toward it, not the end result itself. This idea – dubbed the progress principle – states that people experience greater well-being when they are taking meaningful steps toward an outcome that is important to them.

This could be in your work (indeed, this idea was pioneered in the world of managerial best practices), your personal life, your relationships, or something else entirely. Every tiny step, every little win provides a sense of satisfaction and keeps us motivated to finish the task at hand.

And, remember, that happiness is not a single feeling – it’s made up of a number of emotions that might vary between people and over time.

Satisfaction and the feeling of being motivated may be a part of the happiness puzzle for you.

10. Believing you have no power over your happiness.

A person with short dark hair sits on a couch, wearing a gray sweater and blue jeans, looking directly at the camera with a serious expression. They are hugging their knees, with natural light coming from a window behind them.

Believing that you have some say over your feelings can give you a positive experience. Yes, we must accept where our control has its limits, but we must also remind ourselves that we are not helpless creatures who simply take what is given.

Empower yourself. Take action. Don’t wait for good things to happen, but do something to create them. Be proactive and follow some of the advice in this article, for starters.

You can be happy again.

It might not happen overnight, but it will happen sooner than you think if you commit yourself to understanding your happiness and doing the things that lead to it.