What to do, when you're already doing everything

Rather than ticking off a happiness to-do list, follow the path to wellness by welcoming in difficult feelings and wallowing in them awhile, writes Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald

I’m leading a wellbeing webinar and, although Stacie* is a small square on my screen, her frustration fills the room. ‘I cycle to work, I eat healthily, I get enough sleep. So why am I not happy? What else do I have to do?!’ she asks.

Stacie, like many of us, feels she is doing everything right. On paper, she is ticking all the wellbeing boxes – and yet she’s not feeling any better for it. What’s going wrong?

‘Nothing’, says Helen Russell, bestselling author and happiness researcher. ‘Many people nowadays assume that if they’re not happy, they must be broken in some way, or doing life wrong.’

In my own clinical experience, it is the pursuit of happiness itself that is the problem. Happiness and wellness are not the same, but we can get so caught up in our happiness to-do lists that we lose sight of what we actually need to support our wellbeing.

Our activities can become our own bargaining chip. We tell ourselves, ‘If I do all the things then I won’t get sad or feel stressed or overwhelmed.’ Then we feel cheated when, despite our best efforts, we still can’t avoid negative emotions.

Keeping yourself busy by engaging in activities solely to boost happiness doesn’t work, and sets you up to fail. But if you are not happy, you are not failing: you’re being human. It is normal for your mood to fluctuate. It doesn’t render what you are doing useless, meaningless or unnecessary, but your activities cannot guarantee happiness. If you’ve had a stressful day at work and you hit the gym, you may leave feeling better, less stressed, and lighter in mood – but you may not. There are no guarantees. That workout will still benefit your wellbeing overall, and it is worth doing, but you need to drop your expectation of instant happiness.