Many situations in life are beyond our immediate control Some things are unpredictable and unavoidable, like the cost of living and the weather. However, your mindset is something that you can absolutely learn to control 100%.
With practice, your mindset can be whatever you choose it to be. This is a powerful realisation and an important skill to possess. You can overcome nearly any situation with a positive mindset and some patience.
A negative mindset practically guarantees you a lot of challenges in life. A positive mindset doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing; however, it helps you to find creative solutions and it’s a tremendous help!
What is Joy?
Joy is an emotion and because of this, it is possible for anyone to experience it. You experience joy when we experience an enduring, deep delight in what holds the most significance to you. “Joy is more complex than a feeling or an emotion. It is something one can practice, cultivate, or make a habit,” according to Pamela Ebstyne King, Ph.D.
According to the research carried out by Pamela Ebstyne King, there are three areas that deeply inform joy. They are:
1. growing in authenticity and living more into one’s strengths,
2. growing in depth of relationships and contributing to others, and
3. living more aligned with one’s ethical and spiritual ideals.
Therefore, joy is not solely an individual pursuit but rather the combination of your own pursuits in connecting with others.
Does everyone experience the same joy?
Your capacity to experience joy is ever-present. You may have not experienced it for some time, but it’s there. It may be deeply buried to protect you from being disappointed or hurt, but it is still within you.
As with all emotions, your individual experience of them is subjective. Research does show that everyone has their own threshold for experiencing joy. Some have a lower threshold than others making it easier for them to experience joy. Those with a lower threshold tend to experience joy in more things, and experience joy more frequently.
Joy can be experienced along a continuum, on the one end, an intense emotion, involving high energy (excited joy) or it can be experienced as a quieter and calmer experience, giving feelings of harmony and unity (serene joy) at the other.
Excited joy & serene joy
Excited joy is often what many people associate joy with, associated with a dopamine rush and goal pursuit. Serene joy is not passive or withdrawn, but rather a state that is prepared to engage should the opportunity present itself.
A client who had taught himself to run became ‘hooked on’ the dopamine rush from his experience of running. He found himself chasing the dopamine rush from running and ran further and further distances because he loved that excited joy feeling so much. Unfortunately, in his pursuit, he ignored his body, and it gave out. His body could no longer sustain the amount of running he was doing, and he suffered an Achilles heel injury and was forced to rest his body for nearly 3 months.
The experience of not running was almost torture for him because he hadn’t figured out a way to experience as much joy in other experiences.
In preparation for when his ankle healed, my client researched a running program to help him prepare for a half marathon. He put a plan together that he felt was achievable and provided real steps of progression. This plan provided structure and support for his body to keep up with his mind. When he did start running, he had to trust the plan and be disciplined to only execute the plan he had put together. That was tough for him. This experience helped him to recognise there was a continuum of joy he could experience with his running.
The pursuit of excited joy at the expense of everything else can be harmful. If this is you, adopt a mindful approach to the activities where you experience excited joy. The goal of excited joy is to motivate you towards pursuing your goals. Once the discipline or habit towards achieving your goal is in place, it is likely you will need to experience more excited joy to feel that feeling you once had. By being mindful you will be more able to recognise when the pursuit of excited joy is becoming unhelpful, and you can make some changes.
It is also suggested that there may be moods that inhibit the experience of joy.
How to experience more joy in your life
Try these 9 techniques to experience more joy in your life
- Look for a solution. No matter your situation, looking for a solution is an optimistic perspective. People who look for solutions expect to find a solution to their situation. Focusing on the challenge only drags down your mindset and your ability to experience joy.
- Remember that your mindset is a choice you make. You get to choose how you feel. While you might have a tendency to view the world in a certain way right now, you can choose to reframe your situation more positively and experience more joy.
- Be willing and able to laugh at all times. Life is short. There’s humour to be found in many situations. By experiencing humour you open yourself up to experiencing joy.
- Use your self-talk to your advantage. How can you connect and affirm what you do to what you truly believe? The stories you tell yourself influence your thoughts and mindset. Providing the links for joy helps you to experience more joy.
- Share your positive experiences with others. Without being boastful share your experiences of good news or joy. Research shows it has a positive impact on the storyteller and could provide hope for others.
- Practice gratitude. Gratitude is a big part of experiencing joy, both excited joy and serene joy. To get started, list things that make you feel grateful at the end of each day.
- Stay present. Keep your focus on making progress in this very moment. Avoid worrying about the future or feeling helpless about your past.
- Volunteer. Volunteering provides perspective. Putting your attention on someone else is a nice break from your own challenges. Volunteering is also a good way to feel gratitude, too.
- Let go of the pressure to feel joy. Joy exists within all of us and will come forward when the situation presents itself. Be mindful in your day-to-day and you’ll start to experience glimpses of joy. Don’t put pressure on yourself to experience joy or to hold on to it when you do feel it. Joy can be fleeting but it will return. Let the moment be what it is.
Your mindset is one of the things fully under your control. All that is required is to make a conscious effort to seize control of your thoughts and some practice. Mental habits can be challenging to break they’re not fixed. We become addicted and habituated to certain thought processes. We’re wired to be more reactive rather than responsive.
You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can control your reaction to the things that happen to you. By opening yourself up to the prospect of experiencing joy, you gain far more control over your destiny. You’ll experience more joy and enjoy your days more, let alone your life!
If you are keen to experience more joy in your life, book in a free discovery call where we can discuss your experience of joy and what might be getting in the way of you experiencing more of it.
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