Do you know the secret to lasting happiness?

If I had the absolute answer, I’d be rich. Or maybe not – we all know that money can’t buy happiness. Rent it, maybe, but not outright buy it.

All of us have happiness enter our lives and it’s also perfectly for that happiness to flow out of our lives just as easily. The big question is, how do we make it stay?

Researchers in psychology and other fields have been interested in this question for a long time. But rather than looking for ways to keep happiness around, they look at people who stay happy and try to decode their behavior.

They want to find out just what these people are doing to stay happy and how that differs from what less happy people are doing. Unsurprisingly, they’ve found some interesting answers about what makes a life happy and keeps it that way.

People who stay happy have these seven habits in common, according to psychology. If you can cultivate these habits in your life, you might just find that you’ve discovered the secret to your own lasting happiness, too!

1) Being kind

Most people think of being kind as a character trait. However, psychologists see everyone as having a capacity for performing acts of kindness.

It’s simply that some perform more than others and that’s what helps us define them as a kind person.

Kind acts can include pretty much anything you do that has a benefit for others. Things like helping a friend move, giving a server a great tip, adopting an abandoned puppy, and giving away your vast fortune all count.

So, what does research on kindness show us?

According to a research article titled “Happy people become happier through kindness”, this is exactly what happens. 

The researchers found that happier people are more motivated to perform acts of kindness and do more of them than less happy people. In fact, by actively counting the kind acts they do, people become subjectively happier and more kind and generous.

So, while happiness might motivate kindness, it’s a feedback loop where doing kind things for others builds more happiness. 

How can you use this information to produce lasting happiness? Perform more and more kind acts and then reflect on them each day.

2) Staying optimistic and purposeful

Happy people repel negativity like water off a duck’s back.

If you don’t know much about ducks, their feathers are kind of oily and waterproof – this is a good thing!

This also makes perfect sense to anyone who has negative people in their life.  Someone who’s always moaning and complaining, expressing pessimistic predictions, and having a generally negative outlook doesn’t sound too happy, right?

According to psychology, happiness is often a very ephemeral and difficult thing to measure. They prefer to use a term like “subjective well-being,” which can include many factors considered positive in life, like flourishing, optimism, and having a purpose.

Sustainable happiness is composed of these factors, while just having fun can produce temporary happiness.

That’s why consistently happy people cultivate positivity and optimism in their daily lives. They habitually reject negativity and try to engage in meaningful activities that improve their lives and those of the people close to them.

3) Being generous

One important habit that promotes long-term happiness is practicing generosity.

We might see this as one specific form of kindness that we already know can make people subjectively happier.

But with generosity, we see specific acts like donating money or giving one’s time to help others in need as real ways to promote happiness daily.

You might think that being generous is obviously going to make people happier, but for researchers, it wasn’t so obvious. They wanted to know if happy people are more generous or if generosity makes people happier.

What they found is a little of both.

In one study, researchers asked participants to make pledges to spend money on themselves or others while in an MRI machine. The brain scans of the people who promised to spend money on others showed greater activation in regions associated with happiness. 

So if you think going shopping for yourself is a good way to beat the blues, there’s a much better option – spending your time or money on others instead!

4) Connecting with others

These days, psychologists recommend connecting with others as an intervention to help promote happiness in people’s lives.

And it’s no wonder, considering how much time we spend with our heads down looking at our phones or isolated at home with our Netflix and social media apps. 

While we’re more interconnected than ever before, these connections seem to be a lot less meaningful than direct connections with real people. Real conversations and face-to-face interactions seem to be one of the biggest factors in promoting happiness the world over.

Other research has shown that “the one feature that distinguished the most from the least happy people is that the former group had supportive, trusting, and rewarding social relationships.”

Clearly, getting out and spending time with people you’re close to is critical for sustaining happiness in your life.

People who stay happy know this and practice social happiness as a habit. They don’t text when they could call, and they don’t call for a chat when they could meet in person.

They make the people close to them a priority, and by doing so, they also prioritize their own happiness.

5) Keeping fit and healthy

If you feel like you are not your body, psychology has some news for you.

While you don’t need to let your body define everything that you are, your physical health and fitness still have an intimate relationship with your mood and personality.

Researchers have found clear evidence that being healthy is good for mental health. According to one study, “Women with moderate and higher (versus lower) happiness levels were more likely to report sustaining healthy lifestyles.”

These healthy lifestyles included exercise, good nutrition, and avoidance of smoking or excessive drinking.

Another study on young, middle-aged, and older adults found that “Physical activity was significantly related to life satisfaction and happiness.” This effect also increases as people get older.

Physical activity can be intense, like digging holes or carrying heavy loads; moderate, like running or playing sports; or low-intensity, like walking. More time and intensity means more physical activity, and this translates to higher life satisfaction.

It’s funny, isn’t it? Most people in history have tried to move away from labor-intensive jobs to sit behind desks in comfortable, climate-controlled offices. And yet, according to this study, that’s contributing to unhappiness.

Once again, all this makes sense.

If you’re in bad health, it’s hard to feel happy and positive. And if you’re never up and moving around, it’s hard to feel lithe, limber, and motivated.

Happy people know that it’s important to take care of the bodies they’re in if they want that happiness to continue.

6) Keeping pets

If you have a pet, you probably have it for one main reason alone – it makes you feel good.

I’ve always liked animals, but never really knew the power of pets until I finally got one a little more personable than a hamster.

My dog is a constant companion who’s full of life and vitality. Every morning, she greets the day with so much energy and positivity that it reminds me to do the same.

I know she needs physical activity to keep her happy and healthy, so I take her for a walk or a run nearly every day. Or is she taking me?

One interesting study on dog-owner relationships found that owners tend to create an idea of what their pets need that reflects their own needs. In other words, they seem to use the dog as an excuse to get themselves up and out of the house.

As we saw earlier, exercise and physical activity can make us happier. So, if you have a dog that needs to go for a walk, it can motivate you to do the same and, therefore, improve your physical and emotional health.

Another study found that pet owners had higher life satisfaction than non-owners, and that’s an important element of happiness. And since you must know, though I love cats as well as dogs, dog owners had more life satisfaction than cat owners.

7) Experiencing emotions

One last finding about the habits of happy people is perhaps the most surprising.

Researchers found that people were happier when they experienced emotions that they wanted to feel, whether they were positive or negative. In other words, experiencing emotions that feel right and appropriate more often is more important to happiness than just feeling good!

Final thoughts

People who stay happy have at least some of these seven habits in common, according to psychology.

They either naturally have these habits or work to cultivate them so they can improve their own happiness. And it works, so there are great lessons here for anyone looking for sustained happiness in their life.