I Choose Joy

Categories Inspiration, Lifestyle, Random Posts, , 45 Comments on I Choose Joy

The holiday’s are now officially over. What is there to look forward to, a freezing cold winter?

Let me ask you a question. Are you happy? Like really, are you happy? Or are you like the person above, who is a total pessimist.

What if there was a better option to trying to find things that made you happy all the time?

You see, some people spend there entire life trying to find the next best thing that will make them happy. They buy new phones, clothes, cars, beauty products, cruises, and anything else that they think will make them “happy.”

And the truth is those things will make you happy but only temporarily. 

Once the next i-phone comes out, yours is suddenly outdated, once the next new fashion trend comes out, you will suddenly be out of the trends. You’ll go through the cycle of using things (and people) to try to make you happy.

What if you woke up every morning like, “Yes! It’s morning!” instead of, “Ugh, another long day. Nothing exciting happening today. Who stinkin’ cares about even waking up.” and you hit snooze on your alarm.

Which person do you want to be?

Do you want to choose joy? Or do you want to constantly be looking for things to make you happy temporarily?

Even if there is nothing good that is going to happen that day, you can choose joy. Even if you’re pukin’ up this morning’s cereal – you can choose joy!

But how?

So often I see posts about how you should change your life – but they don’t give you the *how to* on how to change your life – they tell you how it will impact you, but they don’t tell you how.

Here are 5 tips for choosing joy every single day.

1. Keep a gratitude journal.

When you wake up, in the dead of night, so stinkin’ tired, wishing with all your life your alarm was broken (okay, maybe that was a little dramatic???) So anyway, every morning (or night) write something in your gratitude journal, and try to remember it when it’s hard to choose joy. 🙂

2. Find a way to give.

So often when we look outside of ourselves, we find true, lasting joy. I’m absolutely 100% sure there is someone in your life you can bless. Actually no, I’m not 100% sure, I’m 1000% sure. 😛

3. Don’t waste your time – you only have so much of it.

This seems super obvious, but actually when you are in a bad mood, it’s super easy. There are so many (time-wasting) activity’s that we all do. (example. checking our phone every 5 minutes. scrolling meaninglessly through pinterest. watching every YouTube video that looks at least somewhat interesting. DON’T DO THIS. Find something that’s actually going to impact you (or others) in the long run. How long are you going to remember that YouTube video? You’ll probably remember it tomorrow, and the name of the channel for the next few weeks. Then it’ll all go into distant memory. In ten years will you remember the name of that channel? No. (unless it’s your best friends channel, or a channel you watch often, or even – heck, your own channel.)

But what if you did something that brought both you and someone else joy? Wait. is that even possible?!?

In 5 years will you remember that time when you invited the weird person to come sit with you? **nods head** Actually, you probably will – sure, it won’t be the first thing on your mind, but yeah, you probably will remember it.

4. Find something to do with your time.

If you are a professional Netflix watcher and Cheetos eater, then friend, you seriously need to get a life. I wrote an entire post on goal planning so go CHECK IT OUT.

If you just watch netflix/youtube all the time, then you’re wasting your life away. When you think about being joyful when all you have to do is watch youtube then likely you won’t be a super joyful person. Why? Because as I said earlier, often we don’t find joy in only pleasing ourselves. Watching YouTube (yes you are supporting other people’s channels, I get ya) isn’t super beneficiary for even yourself. Most YouTube videos are about people’s **amazing** lives, or just gossip. Bake cookies for you neighbor, be intentional and actually go visit your friend. Do something in person for somebody. I promise, you will be a more joyful person because of it.

5. Hang around encouraging people, and be an encouraging person yourself.

Have you ever heard the saying: Want to know who you’ll be in ten years? Look at your friends.

Here’s a fact: Encouraging friends, want to be around other encouraging friends.

Be an encouragement. This doesn’t mean caving to their ever wish, or or saying you love everything they love. It does however mean not being a downer every time you guys talk.

I hope these tips are helpful! Also, I’m planning a super exciting surprise soon, and I really want to know if you guys like these types of posts.

Just let me know in the comments!

Have a wonderful day my friends!

-Hannah

45 thoughts on “I Choose Joy”

  3. Hannahhhhh 😭💖🙌🏼 This is such a beautiful post!!! I can tell it’s going to help so many people – it’s already encouraged me immensely. 💓
    “Often we don’t find joy in only pleasing ourselves.” That is so very true – when we give, we get so much more back than we would’ve ever dreamed possible! I’ve always loved the thought of a gratitude journal, and I’m really thinking about keeping up with one this year 😊 It would help me to focus on the positive, no matter how small!

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  4. Wow. This is so good Hannah! I struggle with choosing joy a lot. But most of the time when I am I just pray, but this post is awesome too! Love reading your posts. They are always so encouraging! ❤️ Keep up the good writing. 😘

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  5. I admit that I can be very pessimistic at times, yes. But, thanks to how stressful and not so very good 2018 was, I’m going to be trying to make 2019 the best year yet! Thank you for the tips, I’m sure they’re going to help me out a lot! 😀

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  6. I really enjoyed this! 😀 I think that after the rush of the holidays you are suddenly thrown back into real life with nothing to exciting going on, so I bet it is really easy to become sad. I think that you did a really good job describing this and your ideas where awesome! 😀 Thanks! 🙂

    -Laura ❤ 😉

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  9. LOVED this Hannah! Great post, thanks so much for sharing… it’s SOOO true, joy isn’t always easy, but it’s such a necessary part of the daily Christian walk that we have… Thanks for the encouragement!!

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  11. *claps*
    Okay first Hannah-
    OUCH.
    I was reading fanfic last night and doing the exact opposite of these tips. Ahem.
    Good reminder. *nods* I’ll get out and do something XD

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  14. Ahh, this is so good, Hannah! I definitely notice I’m so much happier when I’m productive and being interested in others. And I’ve found out by experience that things don’t make you happy. I’ve been working, and I have enough money now to buy anything I wanted…but that wouldn’t make me any happier. True joy is rare, I think, but unparalleled. Thanks for being an inspiration!

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  17. This is sooo true, Hannah. It is good to at least act joyful at all times, even when you’re not inside, because when you’re down everyone else gets down too. Thanks for the good post! Now I’d better get off the computer and do something productive XD.

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  18. Yeah, social media can be such a time waster and I just end up getting drained most of the time after being online for so long. I think it’s best we have a set time for being online and stick to it so we can get other beneficial things done

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