Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 573 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I’m Heidi. I’ve recently started telling you my name because I realized that not everyone knows it! If you’ve been here a while of course you do, but if youre new, you would have no idea. That kind of just hit me one day. So now you know. I am however genuinely happy you’re here, whether it’s your first time or your 573rd! That is one little thing that makes me happy!
I was reading a story the other day. And in the story there was a woman who was a busy doctor and mother of two kids, she was divorced which makes things harder because she is a single mother. In the story though, she was having a little battle with herself because she had had a fight with her teenage daughter and during the fight her daughter said to her “at least I haven’t forgotten to be happy”. The mom didn’t know how to respond to that so she just didn’t. But now of course as we do, she’s replaying it over in her head and wondering “have I forgotten to be happy? Is she right?”
With our busy lives, it’s so easy to forget that life is supposed to feel good and we really are supposed to be having fun and yeah sometimes we forget to be happy. But the even bigger problem I see is I think sometimes we have a skewed idea of what happiness is. We create these ideas of happiness in our head like “happiness is the beach or happiness is a 5 star resort, a new grenadier suv, if you don’t know what those are look it up, but we get these ideas in our head of how happiness looks and then when that isn’t our current reality, we just think, well I’ll be happy when, yeah I’m miserable now but soon I’ll be happy when I’m on the beach or I’m driving that car. And our brain fuels that thought, it takes that thought and runs with it!
Our brains left to their own will, want to expand and highlight and focus on the negatives. That’s why I talk about our thoughts so much. We do basically live and die by them.
When life gets hard we have to be especially mindful. And sometimes we have to be creative. My yoga instructor said the other day that her summer hasn’t been the easiest, she’s had some illness in her family and has been having to travel quite a bit to take care of family. It’s taken a toll on her but she is still finding ways to feel happy. She said she’s been wearing Victoria secret scents and she even bought a pair of jelly shoes because that all reminds her of simpler times. She’s using nostalgia as her reminder to find joy where you can.
For me, I find that when life is stressful, finding peace in one way or another is a way to keep myself grounded. I had a really busy stressful week last week, several times I noticed myself having “the world’s gonna end if this happens or doesn’t happen” thoughts. Do you ever do that? Like I’ll think this is finally the project where everyone finds out I’m not really good at design after all . Or I will create thoughts of a client not paying me in the end. You know the thoughts that are not even close to happening but our mind left on autopilot will absolutely throw our way. It’s in those moments of noticing I’m having those thoughts that I remind myself number one “I’m creating this thought”, it’s not a thing and number two that if this isn’t going to be a problem I am thinking about in a year or even a couple months, then it’s manageable and I need to just buckle up and ride it out and guess what it’s a week later and none of those problems are even a problem now.
The project was beautiful, the client was over the moon and yes, they paid me. It’s crazy how we let our mind do that. And I say “let our mind do that” because we don’t have to let it do that. Once I realized I was doing that to myself, that I was I was creating problems that weren’t there, I decided to think better thoughts right then. I have the power to do that. If I can create thoughts that make me miserable, I am equally capable of creating thoughts that make me happy. I have that power. I just have to decide what that looks like for me. At one stressful point I went for a run to just clear my head and that worked like a charm. Another time I ran some of my thoughts by Eric, my husband because I knew he would tell me I was being ridiculous, in a very loving way of course and that conversation made me feel a lot better too. I was finding a way to feel peace in a stressful time. Peace for me in that moment equaled happiness. I wasn’t giddy, I wasn’t on the beach and I wasn’t driving a grenadier but I felt at peace and that for me was happiness. So happiness doesn’t always look like giddiness or laying on the beach with pina colada or whatever other ideas society has planted in our head as to how happiness looks.
Sometimes happiness looks like just peace wherever you can find it. Think about it if you’ve ever been super stressed but you or someone else gave you a thought that made you feel a little sense of peace, in that moment, that feels like happiness. Sometimes it looks like allowing a good cry which means you are feeling your feelings which helps to get on the other side of them. And maybe it’s a walk on a sunny day feeling the sun on your face.
Because things happen in life that are not joyful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have peace which allows us to maintain a certain level of happiness even amongst the chaos. I mean it’s not always gonna be chaotic. This too shall pass, right? Sometimes that little thought alone can bring about peace, which in a way gives us a little sense of happiness..
So maybe we need to evaluate what it is that we consider being happy.
What if our idea of happiness can look like a hot cup of coffee on a chili morning. Or your dog greeting you like you’re his favorite person in the world, what if happiness is driving alone in a quiet car, finding a moment of peace amongst the chaos. We would be finding happiness all day long if we decided to really look for the little moments that bring us peace or a little bit of joy. And that’s not Pollyanna stuff. It’s remembering to look for moments to be happy or at peace instead of looking for what’s not going well.
You know, this isn’t just feel-good advice—there’s real science behind why our brains default to the negative and how we can shift that. Research shows that we’re wired with something called negativity bias, where we not only notice bad stuff more quickly but also hang onto it longer than the good. It’s like our ancestors needed that to spot dangers in the wild, but today it just means we replay that one critical comment from a meeting while ignoring ten compliments. Studies even confirm that negative emotions linger longer, and we spend more brainpower mulling them over. But the cool part? We can override it. Experts in positive psychology say that by intentionally focusing on positive experiences, we can rewire those neural pathways over time. It’s not about ignoring the hard stuff; it’s about balancing the scale.
And when it comes to redefining happiness, Happiness experts emphasize that true joy isn’t about grand vacations or material wins—it’s about curating your own version of happiness in the everyday. One tip that really resonates with me is embracing self-care like really focusing on good sleep, movement, and nourishing food, because when your body feels good, your mind follows. Another good tip is building positive relationships—think telling your partner or a friend one thing you appreciate about them every day, which creates this ripple of connection and joy. And don’t sleep on nature; even a short walk outside can boost your mood by reducing stress hormones and sparking that sense of peace we were chatting about.
So if you want to redefine happiness in a powerful way, Grab a journal and list out five things that bring you peace or a quiet smile—not the big, flashy stuff, but the small ones like that first sip of tea or hearing your favorite song on shuffle. Then, commit to noticing one of them each day this week. It’s like training your brain to look for the good rather than focus on the negative which it will do naturally if you don’t train it.
But you can combat that negativity bias with a quick daily practice: At the end of your day, you could just quickly jot down three positives and one lesson from a challenge. This isn’t just fluff—science backs that gratitude shifts your focus and even helps negative emotions fade faster. I actually start my day with this. I ask myself what did I do well the day before and then what could I do better today?
Then I sent an intention for today, so I will say “this is how my meeting is going to go” and these are the ways I’m going to feel good today.” Creating my day rather than allowing whatever to happen, happen.
My favorite one though, is thinking a better thought. I talk about this a lot. Experts say when a negative thought pops up, acknowledge it, then actively redirect—like I did with my run or chatting with Eric. Don’t fight it; just say, “Okay, noted, now what’s one good thing right here?” It might feel awkward at first, but it builds that happiness muscle. Brooke Castillo always used to say “there is always a better feeling thought!” And I couldn’t agree more.
So you see, Happiness isn’t a far-off “when”—it’s now, in the peace you cultivate amid the mess. You’ve got the power to redefine it, with a little intention and a little mindfulness. My challenge for you today is to choose peace over perfection and don’t forget to be happy. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
