How to Be Happy: What a Happiness Economist Knows That Most Advice Gets Wrong

When I began my doctorate on the economics of happiness, I drove myself literally crazy with happiness. I devoured books on positive psychology and questioned all my friends and acquaintances: “Are you happy? On a scale from 1 to 5, how happy are you?” It had become my obsession.

Years later, after workshops, seminars and media appearances, people started asking me the opposite question: what is the magic formula? My honest answer is the one I wrote at the very beginning of my book: there is no recipe that can quickly and effortlessly teach you how to be happy, because that is impossible. What does exist is a short list of things research keeps confirming, and a way to live them on an ordinary Tuesday.

In my book Courage on the Journey of Happiness, I describe happiness as a journey, not a destination. This article is the map I wish I'd had at the start.

What does it really mean to be happy?

Researchers separate two layers: how you feel in the moment, and how you judge your life as a whole. I explore that difference in happiness vs joy. Here, being happy means both: more good moments, and a life you would choose again.

What most happiness advice gets wrong

Search for how to be happy and you'll find lists of 12, 25 or 28 habits. Most are well meant, but as an economist I notice the same mistakes:

• It sells happiness as a product. As I wrote in my book, happiness is packed into almost every product and service: buy this and you'll be younger and happier.
• It promises big effects from small tricks. A gratitude list won't undo a life that exhausts you.
• It puts all the weight on you. Genes and circumstances matter too, which is why is happiness a choice is a fairer question than it sounds.
• It adds to your to-do list. For a woman who already carries too much, ten new habits can feel like ten new ways to fail.

Why haven't happiness tips made me happier?

Usually because they are piled on top of a life with no room for them. You can't gratitude-journal your way out of a calendar that belongs to everyone but you. Small habits work best when the bigger picture moves too: who you spend your time with, and whose expectations you live by.

And sometimes it isn't about tips at all. If you have lost interest in things you used to enjoy, or have felt low for weeks, please talk to a doctor or a mental health professional. That isn't a failure at happiness. It is taking yourself seriously.

Happiness is a journey you work on, not a formula you find

When I told a friend I was writing a book about happiness, he asked me, please, not to write another story about someone who travels the whole world looking for peace, only to come home and realise it was within all along. He had a point. But within is not the same as effortless. In my book I ask readers to accept happiness as a state of mind that needs working on, and to stay open to correcting beliefs that no longer help them grow.

One pattern I see everywhere as an economist is a quiet trade we make without noticing. In the book I put it like this: we spend health to gain money, and then spend money to gain health. A happier life often begins when you stop making trades you never chose.

Make the decision and start believing that it is possible to live differently.

What happiness research says about how to be happy

As an economist who has spent many years studying happiness, I trust findings that keep coming back. The strongest is about people. When Ed Diener and Martin Seligman compared the happiest 10% of students with average and unhappy ones, the very happy were highly social and had stronger relationships; good relationships were necessary but not sufficient¹. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed its participants since 1938 and is directed by Robert Waldinger, points the same way: close relationships, more than money or fame, keep people happy². In one of their studies, Waldinger and Marc Schulz asked older married couples to keep an eight-day diary. Time with a partner went together with happier days much more strongly for those who were satisfied in their marriage³. Quality, not just quantity.

Meaning is the second thread, and it isn't the same as feeling good. In a large survey, Roy Baumeister and his colleagues found that happiness was linked more to getting what you need and want, while meaning was linked to giving, to connecting past, present and future, and even to more stress and worry⁴. Caring for a teenager or an ageing parent can be exhausting and deeply meaningful on the same day.

Then money, my own field. Rigorous experiments show that financial support improves happiness for people who don't have enough⁵. Beyond that, your relationship with money matters. Ashley Whillans and her colleagues found that people who tend to prioritise time over money report greater well-being, even when income is taken into account⁶, and that spending money on time-saving services went together with greater life satisfaction in four countries⁷.

Presence and togetherness complete the picture. Using a smartphone app, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert found that people's minds wandered nearly half the time, and that people were less happy when they did⁸. The World Happiness Report 2025 found that people who share more meals with others report higher life satisfaction, while roughly one in four Americans ate all their meals alone the previous day⁹.

And gratitude? It helps, but modestly. A meta-analysis led by Don Davis found that gratitude exercises raised well-being a little compared with doing nothing special, but no more than other positive activities¹⁰. Looking only at rigorous, preregistered experiments, Dunigan Folk and Elizabeth Dunn found surprisingly little support for many popular strategies, such as random acts of kindness, while being more sociable may reliably help. So by all means write down what you're thankful for, but don't expect a list to do the work of a life.

How to be happy: seven small steps for an ordinary day

None of this needs a new life by Monday. Here is how the research translates into a normal weekday.

1. Protect one real conversation. Ten minutes with your partner, a friend or your child, phone face down. Relationships are the strongest finding we have.
2. Share one meal properly. At a table, with someone, without screens, even if only a few times a week.
3. Notice the meaning in what you already carry. On a heavy day, ask: who is this for, and why does it matter to me? Meaning doesn't remove tiredness, but it can make the day feel like yours.
4. Let money buy you time. If you can afford it, ask of the next purchase: will this give me time, or just more things? An hour of help at home may do more for you than another thing for the cupboard.
5. Come back to the moment you're in. Your mind will wander. Gently bring it back to the person or task in front of you; more in how to live in the present moment.
6. Keep gratitude light. A few honest lines when you feel like it, not another daily duty you can fail at.
7. Say no to one thing that isn't yours. Every yes to someone else's expectations takes time from your own life. If that feels impossible, start with how to stop people pleasing.

How to be happy in life, not just today

Small steps make better days. A happy life asks a bigger question: is the life you are living actually yours? Many women I work with have done everything right on paper and still feel that something is missing. No habit can answer that for you. What helps is permission: to look honestly at your life, keep what is yours and change what isn't, one challenge at a time.

Happiness research has many more branches: money, the hedonic treadmill that makes us get used to good things, being happy alone, daily habits. They all lead back to the same place. If you no longer know what you want, how to find yourself again is a good next step.

Happiness isn't a formula you find once. You build it in ordinary days, ideally with people who are building it too. That is the work we do together in my programme Permission for Life. For now, start with one conversation, one meal and one honest no.