Activities to Increase Happiness: Review the Happiness Challenge and Find What Works for You
Congratulations, my amazing friend! You’ve reached the end of our year-long happiness journey, and I couldn’t be prouder of you. After 52 weeks of exploring science-backed activities to increase happiness, you’ve learned tools and techniques that can transform your well-being. But here’s the thing: not every happiness hack works the same for everyone. While your best friend might swear by morning runs, you might find that meditation or spending quality time with loved ones gives you that happiness boost you’re craving. This week is all about reflection and personalization. It’s time to identify which activities to increase happiness have made the biggest difference in your life and create a sustainable plan that helps you choose happiness every single day.
Looking Back at Your Happiness Challenge
Through our yearly happiness challenge, you’ve experimented with dozens of proven strategies for how to be happy. From gratitude practices to acts of kindness, from exercise routines to mindfulness meditation, you’ve tried activities backed by positive psychology research. And here’s what science tells us: these happiness hacks work. Studies consistently show that people who engage in intentional happiness-boosting behaviors experience increased well-being, more positive emotions, and greater life satisfaction.
But (and this is crucial) we’re all wonderfully different. What works beautifully for one person might feel forced or ineffective for another. Maybe you discovered that writing gratitude lists every morning transformed your outlook, while your partner found that weekly nature walks provided the same benefit. The beauty of this happiness challenge wasn’t just learning about these tools; it was discovering through direct experience which activities to increase happiness resonate with your unique personality, lifestyle, and values. Now it’s time to find what works for you specifically.
The Science of Personal Fit: Why Different Activities Work for Different People
Research in positive psychology reveals fascinating insights about why certain activities to increase happiness work better for specific individuals. Sonja Lyubomirsky and Kristin Layous (2013) conducted groundbreaking research examining how simple positive activities increase well-being. Their findings show that success depends on much more than just doing the activities. It depends on finding the right match between the activity and the person doing it.
Personality Matters When You Choose Happiness
Your personality plays a significant role in determining which happiness hacks will teach you how to become the best version of yourself. Consider whether you’re more self-oriented or other-oriented. If you’re naturally collectivistic and gain energy from helping others, other-oriented activities like expressing gratitude or performing acts of kindness might give you the biggest happiness boost. On the other hand, if you’re more individualistic, self-focused practices like optimistic thinking or personal goal-setting might resonate more deeply with how to be happy.
Some of us are naturally social and behavioral in our approach to life, while others are more reflective and cognitive. If you’re someone who feels lonely or craves connection, social-behavioral activities could be transformative. But if you’re someone who feels frazzled and overwhelmed, reflective practices like savoring happy moments or meditation might provide the calm you need.
Your time orientation also matters when you find what works for you. Are you someone who loves reminiscing about good times? Past-focused activities like gratitude journaling might be your sweet spot. Do you live fully in the present moment? Then mindfulness could be your go-to practice. Or are you a future-oriented dreamer? Visualization exercises might help you choose happiness daily.
Your Starting Point Influences Your Journey
Research shows that your initial emotional state when beginning these practices affects how much you’ll benefit. Some studies suggest that people with lower positive affect or moderate depressive symptoms have more room to improve and therefore see bigger gains. However, other research indicates that individuals with moderate depression might struggle with complex reflective activities and benefit more from simple, pleasant actions.
The key takeaway? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how to be happy. Your current emotional baseline, your personality traits, and your life circumstances all influence which happiness hacks will help you thrive and teach you how to become the best version of yourself.
Demographics and Other Personal Factors
Age can influence which so-called ‘activities to increase happiness’ work best. Older adults tend to benefit more from positive activities than younger people, possibly because they commit more time and engage more effortfully. Cultural background matters too, as research shows that Westerners tend to gain more from certain practices like expressing gratitude and optimism.
Other personal factors affect success as well. People who are either extraverted or open to experience seem especially predisposed to benefit from these activities. Your effort level, motivation to become happier, and belief that your efforts will pay off all predict how much you’ll improve. When people deliberately choose their happiness practices and put genuine effort into them, they experience significantly greater well-being gains.
“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice.
Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice.
Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
– Roy T. Bennett
This Week’s Challenge: Identify Your Keepers
Now comes the exciting part! This week, your assignment is to review all the weekly activities from our happiness challenge and identify your keepers, i.e., those practices that truly moved the needle on your well-being. This isn’t about what should work or what worked for someone else. This is about honest self-reflection on what actually made you feel better and helped you find what works for you.
The Complete List of Happiness Activities
Here are all the activities to increase happiness we explored together:
- Gratitude practices
- Gratitude visits
- Regular exercise
- Quality sleep
- Healthy, mood-boosting nutrition
- Relaxation techniques
- Meditation
- Mindfulness
- Savoring positive experiences
- Hygge and coziness
- Using your signature strengths
- Acts of kindness
- Compassion practices
- Generosity and giving
- Living your purpose and core values
- Investing in experiences over things
- Music and art appreciation
- Self-care and treating yourself
- Avoiding stress and breaking bad habits
- Emotional regulation
- Actively improving your circumstances
- Visualization
- Self-love practices
- Nurturing romantic love
- Social connection
- Spending time with animals
- Time in nature
- Doing activities you love
- Rest and creating time affluence
- Gaining perspective
- Practicing humility
- Cultivating humor
- Acceptance
- Cherishing happy memories
- Forgiveness
- Personal growth
- Spirituality
- Positive affirmations
- Shifting your language patterns
- Using positive body language
- Laughter and play
- Keeping the big picture in mind
Your Action Steps
Take some quiet time this week to reflect deeply on your happiness challenge. Which activities consistently lifted your mood? Which happiness hacks felt natural and sustainable rather than forced? Write down your top five to ten keepers. These are your personalized happiness toolkit that will teach you how to become the best version of yourself.
Be honest with yourself. If meditation felt like torture, but a walk in nature cleared your head beautifully, that’s valuable information. The goal is to find what works for you, not to force yourself into practices that don’t resonate.
Once you’ve identified your keepers, create a concrete plan for how you’ll incorporate them into your daily or weekly routine. Specificity matters here. Instead of “I’ll exercise more,” try “I’ll go for a 30-minute walk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.” Instead of “I’ll be more grateful,” commit to “I’ll write three things I’m grateful for every night before bed.”
Why Is This Important and the Alternative
Now, you might be wondering whether you should repeat the entire yearly happiness challenge again or simply focus on your keepers. Both approaches have merit, and the choice is entirely yours.
If you repeat the full challenge next year, you’ll benefit from doing all of the amazing joy-boosting activities again, receiving ongoing guidance, support, and accountability. There’s real value in this approach. Repetition deepens habits; you might discover new favorites as your life circumstances change, and the structured program keeps you engaged and motivated throughout the year.
However, focusing on your keepers offers a different kind of power. By identifying the activities that had the biggest impact on your well-being and concentrating your energy there, you create a sustainable, personalized practice that feels natural rather than prescribed. This streamlined approach prevents burnout, saves time, and allows you to go deeper with the practices that truly resonate with you. Instead of spreading your efforts across 42 different activities, you can master the handful that move the needle most for your unique personality and life situation.
Think of it this way: the yearly challenge was your exploration phase, where you tested different paths. Now you’re entering the mastery phase, where you focus on the paths that lead you home. Both phases are valuable, and you can always return to the full challenge in future years if you want to refresh your practice or rediscover activities you might have overlooked. We’ll always be here for you.
Making Your Happiness Practices Stick
Knowing which activities to increase happiness work for you is only half the battle. The real transformation happens when these practices become habits; automatic behaviors you do without thinking. Here’s how to make that happen and truly choose happiness consistently.
The Power of Frequency and Dosage
Research on the happiness challenge reveals that timing matters enormously. In one study, people who performed five kind acts in one day each week saw bigger well-being increases than those who spread five acts throughout the week. However, with other happiness hacks like counting blessings, doing them three times per week was actually less effective than once per week.
Interestingly, many effective practices work best when done weekly, possibly because our lives naturally organize around weekly rhythms. When choosing how often to practice your keepers, weekly might be your sweet spot. However, if you genuinely love your practice and choose it freely, you might happily do it more frequently without it feeling burdensome.
Keep It Fresh with Variety
One of the biggest mistakes you may make when trying to learn how to become the best version of yourself is getting stuck in a rut. Research clearly shows that positive changes are more likely to promote sustained happiness boosts when they’re varied. For example, people who performed varied acts of kindness every week increased their well-being more than those who repeated the same kind acts.
This means if acts of kindness are one of your keepers, don’t just bring coffee to your coworker every Tuesday. Mix it up; bring coffee one week, leave an encouraging note another week, offer to help with a project the next week. The variety keeps the practice fresh and prevents it from losing its power.
Variety also matters across multiple activities. You don’t need to choose just one keeper. People who practice several activities to increase happiness simultaneously often see the best results. Studies show that practicing two to four positive activities concurrently yields bigger benefits than focusing on just one.
The Right Sequence Matters
If you’re combining multiple happiness hacks, the order in which you introduce them can make a difference. Research suggests certain activities work well as “starters.” For example, people who began a six-week program by writing gratitude letters experienced greater increases in well-being than those who started with acts of kindness.
Think about which of your keepers might serve as a gateway practice. If you’ve identified five activities you want to incorporate, which one feels most accessible and energizing right now? Start there, establish that habit, and then layer in others over time. This approach helps you find what works for you through gradual experimentation.
Leverage Social Support
You’re much more likely to succeed at how to be happy when you have social support. Even virtual support through social media can boost the benefits of positive activities. Studies show that people who received autonomy-supporting messages from peers while performing kind acts saw larger happiness improvements than those without support.
If you’re learning how to become the best version of yourself, think about how you can build social support into your happiness practices. Could you find an accountability partner who’s also pursuing personal growth? Could you join a meditation group, exercise class, or book club? The degree to which you perceive support from your social network will affect your ability to reap rewards from your chosen activities.
“HAPPINESS is a habit – CULTIVATE it.” – Elbert Hubbard
Creating Lasting Habits: Practical Strategies
Knowing what to do isn’t enough to actually do it. Here are proven strategies to help you choose happiness consistently and turn your keepers into automatic habits that support how to be happy long-term.
Design Your Environment for Success
Your surroundings powerfully influence your behaviors. Create situation support by eliminating temptations and promoting positive actions. If exercise is one of your keepers, lay out your workout clothes the night before. If meditation matters to you, create a dedicated meditation corner. If social connection is key, put friend dates in your calendar with the same priority you’d give work meetings.
Write your weekly affirmations where you’ll see them: on your bathroom mirror, computer desktop, or phone screen. Keep a gratitude journal on your nightstand. Make your happiness practices visible, convenient, and attractive. Proximity and visibility play huge roles in decision-making.
Harness the WOOP Method
WOOP stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, and Plan. It’s a visualization technique that dramatically increases success rates. First, identify your wish as specifically as possible. Second, visualize the best possible outcome and imagine how it will make you happier. Third, visualize potential obstacles realistically. Fourth, create an if-then plan for each obstacle.
This mental contrasting helps you prepare for challenges rather than being blindsided by them. You’re programming your brain with solutions before problems even arise, making it easier to find what works for you and stick with it.
Schedule Everything
What gets scheduled gets done. Treat your activities to increase happiness with the same respect you give to work appointments. Block time in your calendar for exercise, meditation, social connection, or whatever your keepers are. When something is scheduled, it transitions from a vague intention to a concrete commitment.
The Five-Second Rule for Procrastination
Mel Robbins developed a brilliant technique to outsmart your brain when you’re procrastinating. When you know what you should do but can’t seem to start, count backward from five to one, then take immediate action. This simple countdown interrupts bad habit patterns and rewires your brain. It works because it doesn’t give your mind time to talk you out of these happiness hacks.
Monitor Your Progress
Research consistently shows that tracking behavior for six weeks or more makes it much more likely to become permanent. Find a tracking system that works for you; whether that’s a planner, a phone app, or a simple notebook. Record when you do your happiness practices, how long you do them, and how they make you feel.
Monitoring serves two crucial purposes: it creates accountability, and it provides data. Over time, you’ll see patterns about which activities consistently improve your mood. This information helps you refine your approach and celebrate your progress as you learn how to become the best version of yourself.
Take Responsibility for Your Happiness
Ultimately, you are accountable for your own well-being. If you genuinely want to choose happiness, don’t let yourself off the hook when you skip practices or fall into negative patterns. This isn’t about self-criticism. It’s about self-respect. You deserve to be happy, and that means showing up for yourself consistently.
At the same time, be patient and compassionate with yourself. Creating lasting change takes time. Some weeks you’ll nail all your practices, and other weeks life will get in the way. That’s okay. What matters is the overall trajectory, not perfection.
Your Happiness Baseline: Measuring Your Progress
As you reflect on this year’s happiness challenge, I encourage you to formally measure your progress. At the beginning of this journey, I hope you have established a happiness baseline using a validated questionnaire like the PERMA assessment or the Authentic Happiness Inventory. Now is the perfect time to retake that survey and compare your scores.
Seeing concrete evidence of your growth can be incredibly motivating. These numbers represent real change – proof that your efforts to find what works for you have paid off.
If you didn’t take a baseline survey at the start, you can still reflect on how you feel now compared to a year ago. Are you generally happier? Do you have more good days than bad? Do you bounce back from setbacks more quickly? These qualitative measures matter just as much as quantitative scores.
Moving Forward: Your Personalized Happiness Plan
As you move into the new year, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re building on a foundation of knowledge, experience, and self-awareness. You’ve completed an entire happiness challenge, tried dozens of activities to increase happiness, and identified your keepers. You know yourself better now.
Your job now is to protect and prioritize those keeper practices. Write them down somewhere you’ll see them regularly. Schedule them into your calendar. Tell supportive people in your life about your commitments. Return to this list when you’re feeling low or lost, as these are your tools for how to be happy even when life gets hard.
Remember, happiness isn’t a destination you reach, and then you’re done. It’s a practice, a choice, a habit you cultivate day by day. Some days will be easier than others. That’s normal. What matters is that you keep coming back to what works and keep choosing happiness.
You’ve done something remarkable this year by committing to this happiness challenge. Not everyone takes their well-being seriously enough to invest time and energy into intentional practices. You did. That speaks volumes about your character and your potential to learn how to become the best version of yourself.
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” – Ben Sweetland
Take the Next Step
If you’ve found this happiness challenge valuable and want more personalized support in your journey, I’d love to work with you one-on-one. Through positive psychotherapy, I help clients develop sustainable strategies to boost well-being and overcome obstacles. Sometimes we need more than self-guided practices. We need someone to help us see our blind spots and create truly personalized plans. If that resonates with you, I invite you to schedule a consultation to explore how we might work together.
As we close out this year and look toward the next, I want you to know how proud I am of you. You showed up, you tried new things, you learned about yourself, and you grew. That’s huge. I hope you feel lighter, happier, and more equipped to handle whatever life brings your way. Here’s to continuing your happiness journey, honoring what works for you, and living as your most joyful, authentic self.
Happy New Year, my amazing friend! May this next chapter be filled with even more joy, growth, and well-being. You deserve all the happiness in the world. Keep practicing your keepers, stay patient with yourself, and trust the process. You’ve got this, and I’m cheering you on every step of the way!
Resources
The information in this article is grounded in scientific research. If you’re interested in specific studies, feel free to reach out to us.
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Za naše bralce v Sloveniji
Če vas zanima več o psihoterapiji in iskanju trajne sreče, preberite naslednje članke: Psihoterapija Obala, 5 ključev do trajne sreče in notranjega miru, Najboljši psihoterapevti v Sloveniji: Kako se hitro spopasti s stresom, Psiholog v Kopru: Kako odpraviti težave s psihoterapijo in RTT terapijo, in Psihoterapija Online: Prednosti in učinkovitost terapije na daljavo.
