Always asking, “How do I make myself happier?”
You’re not alone — it’s a question Googled every day. Yet, it’s something we’re not taught.
That’s why in today’s blog post I’m sharing:
- What you need to stop focusing on to be happy — and what you MUST focus on instead.
- The 5 most important areas of your life — and which you should focus on first.
- The one thing you need to know about yourself — and how to use it to improve multiple areas of your life.
- What to focus on and do right now to make yourself happier.
- The best way to find out what’s most important to you (plus a free worksheet to help).
- 3 simple ways to improve your mental, emotional and physical health.
- What makes me happy — and the questions I asked to help me get here.
When it comes to happiness, I wish someone had told me sooner what I’m about to share with you.
It would’ve saved me a lot of self-criticism, low-mood days, and constantly wondering what I was doing wrong.
The Truth No One’s Talking About
When it comes to happiness, we’re all focusing on the wrong things first — without realising it of course — but still thanks to Society, cultural norms, and never feeling enough, we’re all focusing on things like:
- What others think of us (even people we don’t like or know).
- Our job title (rather than who we want to be as a person).
- Making as much money as possible (without knowing what for or why).
- What we’re wearing and if it’s “cool” (over if we like it and if it feels good).
- Having the “perfect” home, car and family (even though we know deep down there’s no such thing as perfect).
- Wishing other people would change (but not be willing to change ourselves).
- How we look in photos or how many likes we get on Instagram (rather than focusing on how we feel and doing the work to love ourselves).
- Having a life similar to those around us or who we admire (rather than discovering exactly what it is we want).
- Being productive, organised and “ticking off” our to-do list (instead of doing things truly important to us and those we love).
- Having a clean home and keeping on top of everything (over putting ourselves and what we enjoy most, first).
- Getting “caught up” on email (rather than keeping in touch with those we care about most).
- Buying things (rather than experiencing things).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these things aren’t important or we shouldn’t be doing them. I’m suggesting we’re putting them before other things that would make us much happier.
Put another way, when it comes to happiness, everything listed above would make you feel much lighter and more in control if it was secondary to what I’m about to share.
The Foundations of Happiness
With that said, what should you focus on first to be truly happy?
What’s the answer to: “How do I make myself happier?”
It’s to focus on and master 5 key areas of your life first.
The 5 Keys of Life to Make Yourself Happier
These are the 5 most important areas of life and based on my experience, the order you should focus on them too.
- YOU and your mental, emotional and physical health.
- Your personal life.
- Your key relationships.
- Your professional life.
- Your money.
When I started making time every week for these 5 areas, I became a much better version of myself — and felt I’d finally discovered the secret to making myself happier.
Once you start focusing on these 5 areas too, I know you’ll feel the same.
This list is one of the reasons I offer 1:1 Health Coaching. Because when you prioritise you and your health, it automatically improves your happiness in the other 4 other areas. (Learn more about what health coaching can do for you by clicking here).
It’s also why my Lose Weight Program focuses on your mental, emotional and physical health — not just your weight.
How to Make Yourself Happier
Now you know focusing on YOU and your health is the first step to making yourself happier, we’ll talk about it for the rest of this post.
Your Values
Focusing on YOU means knowing and understanding yourself better.
It’s asking yourself questions, like:
- What’s most important to you?
- What do you value most?
- What makes you feel good?
Why not take 10 minutes to answer these questions now? Just grab your notebook and pen, and jot down anything that comes to mind. (Jump to the bottom of this post for your free worksheet to help with this.)
Your answers to these questions give you the #1 thing you need to know about yourself to start being truly happy. Because, once you know what’s most important to YOU, you can apply that self-knowledge to all areas of your life to make yourself happier both now and in future.
For example, because health, growth and love are important to me, I now make time daily to journal, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, and walk with my partner Phil and our cute Cockerpoo, Baylee. And, each week, I now aim to do part of a course or book for my self-development and spend time with family and friends.
Now you know what you value most, what changes will you make in your life?
Improve Your Life
Now you’ve discovered what’s most important to you, use your values to decide what you need more of in your life to be happier.
One way to do this is to make time to answer more questions about yourself.
Questions like:
- How would you describe yourself — how would you like others to describe you?
- Who are you in your heart — how would you like to be remembered?
- What are your strengths?
- What do you love doing?
- What gets you up every day?
- If you had to create a reason for being here, what would it be? What’s your purpose or mission? What’s your why?
- What do you dream of your life looking like?
- What feelings do you dream of experiencing (e.g. energy, peace, confidence, joy)?
- Who do you want to be?
- What does your ideal day or ideal week look like?
Knowing your values, and using them to guide your answers to the questions above will help you discover what truly makes you happy. And, over time, will help you learn:
- Why you do certain things the way you do.
- What goals to set next personally and professionally.
- What you most want to do with your days, evenings and weekends.
- How much time or money to spend on certain things.
- Decide who you want to spend more or less time with.
- If a new job or company would be a good fit for you.
- What to do next in your career.
- What will cheer you up when feeling down.
- What books, Netflix series and podcasts you’ll enjoy most!
- Plus, so much more.
For example, over time, I used my values and the questions above to dig deep and discover that I love helping women transform their health so they can become as happy, confident and successful as possible.
After spending a lot of time with these questions, I ultimately realised my purpose is to inspire, motivate and help others be happy, healthy and successful — on their terms.
Believe it or not, I also used these questions to manage and enjoy my money more. For example, I now give myself a monthly budget for health stuff (e.g. green drinks, online exercise classes and meditation apps), self-development (e.g. books, courses and coaching) and relationships (e.g. meals and days away with my favourite people).
Your Turn
To make yourself happier, you have to take action.
So, why not take time now to think about these questions and see what comes up for you? Grab a coffee, and your favourite notebook, and set a timer for 15 minutes. Then write down everything that comes to mind for the questions below — your answers might surprise you :).
- What’s most important to you?
- What do you value most?
- What makes you feel good?
- How would you describe yourself — how would you like others to describe you?
- Who are you in your heart — how would you like to be remembered?
- What are your strengths?
- What do you love doing?
- What gets you up every day?
- If you had to create a reason for being here, what would it be? What’s your purpose or mission? What’s your why?
- What do you dream of your life looking like?
- What feelings do you dream of experiencing (e.g. energy, peace, confidence, joy)?
- Who do you want to be?
- What does your ideal day or ideal week look like?
This isn’t a one-and-done activity. Over time, your answers will change.
And, at first, they might not come easily to you, but with time, effort and patience, I promise you’ll discover what makes you happiest.
Your Health
Now you know more about yourself and what YOU truly want, let’s focus on your health. Because without your mental, emotional and physical health, it’s hard to feel happy.
As the saying goes:
“Happiness starts with good health.”
With that said, I recommend starting with small steps, like those below.
Holistic Health
To increase both your health and happiness:
- Start strengthening your mental and emotional health through daily journalling or meditation. Start with 2 to 5 minutes and build up from there. Click here to learn more step-by-step ways to improve your mental health.
- Start improving your physical health with some stretching or a short walk in nature for 5 minutes each day. Click here to learn more simple and easy ways to exercise regularly.
- Lastly, start improving your nutritional health with a quick healthy breakfast or some fruit with your lunch. Click here to learn more ways to eat healthier with dieting, rules or deprivation.
When you make time daily for all aspects of your health — just 5 minutes to begin with — you’ll notice such a difference in your happiness and mood, that you’ll never go back.
Once you’re doing 5 minutes a day consistently (consistency is key btw, it’s why I always suggest starting small), then start doing more — 10 minutes, then 20 and so on, until you reach a time that works best for you.
For 5 more ways to improve your health in 5 minutes a day or less, click here to download your Free Health Guide.
FREE Values Workbook
As with many things in life, discovering your values is a lot easier said than done. So, to help you uncover yours, I’ve created a free worksheet for you. Get instant access by entering your name and email below.
Health Coaching
Looking for more support? Through 1:1 personalised health coaching, I help women like you create a healthy mind and body so they finally feel happy, confident and successful.
If you’d like my help to feel happier and healthier, register your interest in personalised coaching by clicking here now. Since places are limited, you’ll be first to know when a spot opens :).
I know the work to make yourself happier and healthier can be hard — but please know you don’t have to do it alone. With that said, if you have any questions at all, please feel free to email me at becky@beckyholliday.com.
With love,
Becky x