Last week I mentioned the 52-week Strategic Happiness Plan project, and for those of you who want to do this for yourself, I’ll be going through the 52 sessions here, in this column. The question I left you with last week was, “What is happiness to you?” A lot of people have discovered that they really don’t have a clear idea of what being happy should or might look like, so we’re starting with that.

There are quite a few words and phrases that people use as expressions of happiness, but which can mean different things. Some that might come to mind for you are joy, contentment, a lack of conflict, lots of friends, a good social status, feeling positive, or feeling successful. All of these things, though, are actually elements and situations in life that can help us reach our goal of happiness, but most of these things, on their own, probably aren’t going to fully create real, deep happiness.

Have you found that there’s really more to this happiness thing than just “having” something you wanted? Picture yourself in the future, saying, “I am a happy person. I have happiness, and I am living a happy life.” When you picture that future you, what are the things that you see being the source, or the cause, of your happiness? What does your life look like as you picture the happier version of yourself?

Feeling happy is a positive emotion. Most of us are able to feel happy when something positive happens in our life, but that emotion usually only lasts temporarily, because it is based on that life event or that experience that happened at that particular time. Once the experience is over, the happiness feeling often goes with it. So real happiness, genuine long-lasting happiness as a way of life, has to be much more than just a temporary emotion. To say, “I feel happy,” could mean… right this minute, because it’s based on something outside of ourselves that has happened. The goal is to join enough moments of the happy emotion that your overall life is one of being able to say that you have a happy life, without it being dependent on an outside event or thing. We want to focus less on the momentary feeling of happy, and focus more on an overall happy life.

You probably know someone who just always seems happy, and who is always smiling. This is the kind of person that tends to look at the bright side of everything, even when things are going wrong. Usually this is a decision someone makes, to just not let things get them down, and to try to find the positives in situations. This happiness is coming from within and is not changing based on what’s going on outside the person or around the person. They’re choosing to have happiness, and that is fully within themselves, dependent on nothing else. This kind of happiness is the goal for this plan, but you still need to figure out what it is within you that gives you that emotion and that feeling.

For some people, accomplishment makes them feel happy. Being successful in something, achieving something, or even crossing things off a list can bring about a happy emotion. Others feel happiest when they’re surrounded by people, getting feedback from others, interacting with others, or taking care of others. Some people feel happy when they have peace in their life, with very little conflict. Again, all of these are external influences, but they are also goals that help us feel better about ourselves and our lives, which will be part of the plan toward real inside happiness.

So what is it for you, that causes those happy feelings? At what points in your life do you feel the best? If you start out with a general idea of what has made you feel unhappy, and what has made you feel happy, up to this point, it will give you a good start at setting your happiness goals. Next week – Stress/Anxiety and how they interfere with happiness.