Are There Different Types of Happiness?

By
Elizabeth Scott, PhD
Elizabeth Scott, MS
Elizabeth Scott, PhD

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Learn about our editorial process
Updated on April 08, 2024
Fact checked
Verywell Mind content is rigorously reviewed by a team of qualified and experienced fact checkers. Fact checkers review articles for factual accuracy, relevance, and timeliness. We rely on the most current and reputable sources, which are cited in the text and listed at the bottom of each article. Content is fact checked after it has been edited and before publication. Learn more.
 by
Adah Chung
Adah Chung
Fact checked by Adah Chung

Adah Chung is a fact checker, writer, researcher, and occupational therapist. 

Learn about our editorial process
Table of Contents
View All
Table of Contents

Happiness can take different forms and represents a spectrum of satisfying emotions that contribute to emotional and physical well-being. When you think of happiness, it might stem from joy, excitement, gratitude, pride, optimism, contentment, or love.

Pursuing happiness is one of the most common human searches, but it tends to be an elusive goal. Luckily for us, the experience of "happiness" can take many forms and result from various behaviors and life circumstances. Research can now point us to concrete ways to find or develop these various forms of happiness in our lives.

At a Glance

Happiness is a broad concept that can stem from a variety of positive emotions. It might come in the form of joy or excitement when we experience particularly fun moments in life. It can also come from feeling grateful for the things we have, proud of the things we have accomplished, or optimistic about what it still to come. Or it can be a feeling we find in moments of contentment or love for the people around us. Keep reading to learn more about the complex emotions involved in happiness and what you can do to bring more of this feeling into your own life.

Press Play for Advice on Being Happy

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares a way to boost your mood when you're feeling down. Click below to listen now.

Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts

types of happiness
Illustration by Brianna Gilmartin, Verywell

Joy

The feeling of joy comes from losing yourself in the present moment and appreciating what you have. It's fleeting in that it can sneak up on you and sometimes can disappear if you try to analyze it too much. It can also be found in many things if you have the right attitude and perspective, so it's a relatively accessible form of happiness to seek.

How to Find Joy

The easiest way to find joy is to engage in activities you know usually bring you joy. This can be anything from yoga to amusement parks to your favorite music. It's also important to try some new things to find novel avenues of joy.

Excitement

Though it can last longer than joy, this emotion is still somewhat fleeting—it dissipates rather quickly and can turn into ennui. However, it can be a motivating factor.

For example, excitement about a new job can motivate you to work harder, and excitement about a new relationship can motivate you to put more effort into working through difficulties.

Excitement can also help you to get through jitters. Feeling nervous about certain experiences is normal, but shifting how you view those situations can help you feel more excited than scared.

If you tell yourself you are excited rather than anxious or nervous, studies have found, you can channel that potentially uncomfortable energy into more constructive activity.

Excitement can also extend the positive feelings you get from an activity. If you focus on your excited feelings of anticipation, the fun of a vacation can extend into the days and weeks before you even leave.

How to Cultivate Excitement

Excitement isn't too difficult to come by, either, so this is an easy one to pursue. Take on new challenges. Keep a bucket list. Let yourself revel in anticipation when you have something big coming up.

Gratitude

Gratitude can disappear if you don't actively focus on it, but it's also an important form of happiness. According to research, those who feel gratitude regularly tend to be happier and healthier than those who are less prone to these feelings.

Cultivating these feelings of gratitude has been shown to ward off feelings of depression, among other things. It may be less obvious, but this type of happiness can be brought to mind again and again.

How to Feel More Grateful

Fortunately, cultivating gratitude isn't difficult. You can use a gratitude journal, loving-kindness meditation, or even simply tell people in your life that you appreciate them, and do it often.

Arrival Fallacy: Will Reaching a Goal Make You Happy?

Pride

While smug or competitive pride can be negative, feelings of pride in your accomplishments can be a happiness-boosting form of gratitude. You can take pride in your work, your family, your home, yourself, and in anything you put effort, care, and love into.

You can cultivate a healthy sense of pride by including personal accomplishments in your gratitude journal or keeping a list of "wins" at the end of each day. This isn't the same as bragging or being "full of yourself." You're not saying that you're better than others because of your accomplishments. Instead, you're showing that you're a better form of yourself, and you're appreciating this fact.

Other Ways to Develop Pride

  • Notice the things you do well
  • Celebrate your successes
  • Enjoy the learning process
  • Set goals and appreciate new challenges
  • Try new things
  • Appreciate what others have to offer

Optimism

Studies also connect optimism with greater outcomes in life. Optimists tend to focus on possibilities and have a combination of gratitude and pride.

They're grateful for all of the possibilities life presents, proud of their abilities to harness these resources, and have a strong belief in themselves and their ability to make their attempts at whatever goals they pursue success.

Optimists, when faced with disappointment, tend to minimize it, pinpoint how they can do better next time, and see mitigating factors that led to their negative outcomes. When they succeed, they give themselves credit and take it as a sign of better things to come. Optimism tends to be an overall way of being, so it's less fleeting than other forms of happiness.

Become More Optimistic

  • Notice when good things happen
  • Reframe negative thoughts
  • Forgive yourself for your mistakes
  • Cultivate positive self-talk
  • Show gratitude
  • Take credit for your successes
  • Remind yourself that setbacks are temporary
  • Find positive sources of inspiration
Being Optimistic When the World Around You Isn't

Contentment

Contentment means being happy with what you have. Those who are content are less disappointed by life's drawbacks and feel lucky to have what they have in their lives already.

People strive to feel this form of happiness, and it can come with a focus of gratitude on what you have as well as a feeling that you have climbed high and deserve to enjoy the rewards that come with the effort. Reveling in your accomplishments and in everything you have can bring contentment, so focusing on what you have is a great way to stay content.

How to Increase Contentment

Strategies that can help increase contentment include avoiding comparing yourself to others and practicing self-acceptance.

Subjective Well-Being—A Way to Measure Your Own Happiness

Love

Love and happiness are sometimes said to be interchangeable, that love is an infinite source of happiness, and happiness itself is a form of love. However you look at it, both are vital to have in your life.

True love is fabled to be extremely difficult to come by, but in actuality, love can be found all around you. Family, friends, romantic partners, and even pets can all be sources of love, and focusing on all of these relationships can greatly enrich your life. This is a form of happiness that can come in endless supply.

Finding Love in Your Life

Even though stressful relationships can sap us of happiness, healthy and supportive relationships can bring great and lasting happiness. Focusing on relationship skills, spending time with loved ones, and, in other ways, cultivating these relationships can help you to keep this form of happiness in your life.

The 6 Types of Basic Emotions and Their Effect on Human Behavior

Keep in Mind

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to finding happiness in life. You'll never find a secret recipe or step-by-step guide that can lead to lasting happiness. Instead, happiness is a continual process that ebbs and flows naturally as you encounter different experiences, events, stresses, and relationships. Look for ways to bring different positive emotions into your daily life, including joy, excitement, pride, gratitude, contentment, and love.

10 Common Positive Emotions Beyond Happiness
5 Sources
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

  1. Catalino LI, Algoe SB, Fredrickson BL. Prioritizing positivity: An effective approach to pursuing happiness? Emotion. 2014;14(6):1155-1161. doi:10.1037/a0038029

  2. Brooks AW. Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2014;143(3):1144-1158. doi:10.1037/a0035325

  3. Jans-Beken L, Jacobs N, Janssens M, et al. Gratitude and health: An updated review. J Posit Psychol. 2019. doi:10.1080/17439760.2019.1651888

  4. Diniz G, Korkes L, Tristão LS, Pelegrini R, Bellodi PL, Bernardo WM. The effects of gratitude interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Einstein (Sao Paulo). 2023;21:eRW0371. doi:10.31744/einstein_journal/2023RW0371

  5. Kleiman EM, Chiara AM, Liu RT, Jager-Hyman SG, Choi JY, Alloy LB. Optimism and well-being: a prospective multi-method and multi-dimensional examination of optimism as a resilience factor following the occurrence of stressful life events. Cogn Emot. 2017;31(2):269-283. doi:10.1080/02699931.2015.1108284

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD
Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

See Our Editorial Process
Meet Our Review Board