Finding joy doesn’t have to be about making drastic changes to your life; it could just be a matter of making little tweaks. The more good habits you build up, the higher your level of wellbeing is going to rise. Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before, points out that turning something into a habit removes the need to make individual decisions all day, every day. “If we avoid decision making then we don’t have to use our self control. You don’t want to go through your day making choices, because every time you’re choosing, you have the opportunity to make the wrong choice. You want to make one choice, and then stop choosing.”
Following that line, decide in advance the habits you want to develop: when you get up; how you will get more exercise into your life; how many coffees you drink; how much screen time is too much screen time, and so on.
This frees you to get more joyful experiences and habits into your daily routine. Paul Dolan, professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics and author of Happiness By Design, says you have to organise your life to make happiness possible. “The key to finding happiness” he writes, “is to find the ways in which going with the grain of your human nature makes it easier to be happier.”
Good habits benefit from some time spent planning. Imagine that you want to read more books. Just buying the odd hardback won’t make reading an ongoing habit, but if you were to join a book group, subscribe to some review blogs or a literary magazine, or have a regular meet-up with a friend in a bookshop with a cafe, you may achieve your goal and stick to it. It’s the same with eating well, getting time in the outdoors, staying in regular touch with friends – all good ideas for building a happy life, but sometimes hard to stick to.
Habits sometimes get bad press – they can be seen as compulsions – but a good habit is a bonus. You’ve found something that makes you feel good, and you do it without feeling guilty or distracted. Out of such everyday actions you can find happiness.
Louise Chunn is the founder of welldoing.org which matches you with the therapist or counsellor most suited to your needs
Joy will take you further
Inspired by a specially commissioned paper by psychologist and happiness expert Dr Matt Killingsworth, Johnnie Walker, along with global ambassadors including actor Jude Law and Jenson Button, is embracing the idea that it is the pursuit of joy, rather than money or status alone, which will take you further.
Discover more about Johnnie Walker and how embracing joy will take you further at johnniewalker.com or head to Johnnie Walker on Facebook
