7 Habits That Separate Truly Happy People from Everyone Else

Everyone seems unhappy right now, but the happiest people you know aren't lucky; they're intentional about seven specific daily practices. You've probably been taught that happiness is something you stumble into or find out there somewhere, but the truth is more empowering than that. These seven habits aren't complicated or require massive life changes; they're small, consistent choices that compound over time. You can start building one today and watch it pull every other area of your life in the right direction, because when you show up for yourself with these practices, joy becomes something you create instead of something you chase. Make Money Easy: Create Financial Freedom and Live a Richer LifeThe Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life TodayThe Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest LivesThe School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a LegacyIn this episode you will:Master the art of curating your circle intentionally, shifting from quantity of connections to quality of relationships that actually lift you up and reflect your best selfTransform your daily experience through gratitude practice that goes beyond surface positivity, learning how to bridge morning and evening with appreciation that compounds into genuine abundanceDiscover why taking full responsibility for your joy is the single most powerful shift you can make, and how to stop giving your emotional power away to circumstances and other peopleBreak through people-pleasing patterns by setting boundaries that protect your peace, and develop the courage to disappoint others without abandoning your self-respectUncover the connection between physical movement and mental clarity, understanding why you can't think your way out of stress but you can move your way through itFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1867For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:SadhguruKen HondaMatthew McConaughey Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Is it just me or is everyone really unhappy in the world right now? Everywhere I seem to look, I see sadness and stress. I've spent years sitting across from the world's leading psychologists, neuroscientists, spiritual leaders, teachers, athletes, billionaires, and some of the happiest, most fulfilled people on the planet. And do you know what I've learned? Happiness isn't an accident. It's not something you stumble into. It's a practice. And the people who seem the most genuinely joyful, they're not lucky. They're intentional. So today, I want to break down the seven habits of truly happy people. The habits that have transformed my own life and I want to share these with you. Let's dive in.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  Habit number one, they take responsibility for their life. Happy people don't hand their power to someone else. They don't wait for a partner or a job or a circumstance to make them feel okay. They say, "My joy is my job." And they show up for it every single day. So the lesson I want to share with you is that agency is everything. And the moment you stop seeing yourself as the victim and start seeing yourself as the author, your life begins to change. When you start seeing yourself as writing the words on the page of the book of your life, instead of someone that is reacting to what other people want for you, everything in your life starts to change.

• 1:28Lewis Howes?

  And for years, I would just blame people. I would blame coaches, teachers, you know, partners that I was in relationships with, friends, parents. I was blaming everyone. I thought blame would protect my pride. But it only made me angry, resentful, more guarded, a people pleaser, and honestly, just feeling stuck in my life. And the day I started taking responsibility, my confidence started to return. I could feel a weight emotionally, physically, literally lifting off my chest. There was like a ball of pain that sometimes would come and go. And it's almost like it just disappeared. It wasn't about how everyone else was affecting my life. It was about actively choosing to not let them.

• 2:12Lewis Howes?

  And an action step I want for you is to pick one area where you feel stuck in your life. Maybe it's in your finances, or a relationship, or your health, or whatever it might be. And I want you to ask, what can I do today to take ownership of this situation? And then I want you to take one brave step in actually taking that ownership. It might be having the conversation, it might be discerning something and not taking action on something you know is not good for you. It might be doing something, making a change. I want you to take that brave step today. And that is the end of habit one. They take responsibility for their life. They don't react to it. Habit number two, it's a big one. They practice gratitude every day. You have probably heard me talk about this over and over again. You

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  might think this is like a broken record. You might have heard me say gratitude, or have me talk about gratitude in my books. It is something that I live by, and here's why. You can't be grateful and miserable at the same time. You just can't. It's almost impossible to be grateful and miserable, or grateful and angry, or grateful and upset at the same time. You can only hold one of those in your hand at that moment. Now, it doesn't mean you might feel grateful for a moment, and then you switch into sadness, but it's so hard to be grateful and miserable at the same exact moment. So the more you focus on gratitude, the more abundant you'll feel. Happy people make gratitude a practice,

• 3:40Lewis Howes?

  not a reaction to something. They look for what's working, even on the hard days, even when they're struggling, even when things are not working their way. They look for what's working. Because when you train your mind to recognize the good, you create more of it. Gratitude shifts your focus from what's missing to what is actually in your life, what's present, what is fueling you, something in your environment, someone in your life that's bringing you joy. Gratitude shifts your focus from what is missing in your life to what is present. And when you focus on what is present, the good, more good will start to happen. I always say that gratitude and generosity are the gateway to abundance.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  And when you lean into being generous, with your time, with your attention, with your words of affirmation to people, with your resources, More good things, more joy, more happiness will come to you. Every morning, I start my day with gratitude. I wake up and I say, "Thank you, God, for another day. Thank you for another day of life." Because 150,000 people die every single day, and I'm not one of them. Thank you, God, for another moment. Thank you, God, for another opportunity to see the people I love. Thank you, God, for another opportunity to express myself, to be artistic, creative, to be loving, to be generous. Thank you, God, for the blessings that I get to receive today. Thank you, God, for getting to live this long with a healthy body and a conscious mind.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, thank you, thank you. Man, you wake up every day and you start praising the things that you're grateful for. You start intentionally speaking those things. You create more of those things in your life. It's just how things work. And it is so powerful. When you start to do this, everything starts to shift. You will be one of the happiest people you know if you do this every single day. And every night, my wife Martha and I share three things that we are grateful for and appreciate from that day with each other. We talk about it and we reflect on them. So we start the day in gratitude and appreciation, and we end the day in gratitude and appreciation.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  And throughout the day, I'm stringing those two things together. I'm tying them together and pulling the morning and the evening together and connecting them. And they're more of a bridge of gratitude I have from morning to night. And you repeat that bridge every single day and night. It compounds over time. It is so powerful. You will be so happy if you do these simple acts. The simple practice breaks through the emotional armor that so many people carry, that so many people hold on to. The weight that you can let go, let yourself be, and let yourself actually be happy because you deserve it.

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  An action step for you is to write down three things that you're grateful for every day for the next seven days. That's it. Just keep it simple. Just write them down. What are three things every day that you're grateful for? You will notice your mind will shift, your heart will shift, your energy will shift, and you'll start to see opportunities of why life is beautiful, even when there's challenge and even when there's stress and even when there's heartbreak and all these unfortunate things that happen. But we have an opportunity to create happiness and it starts with gratitude. Habit number three is they set boundaries that protect their peace. Oh my goodness, I wish I learned this habit earlier because man,

• 7:14Lewis Howes?

  that idea was so much unhappiness because I was not willing to have the courage to set boundaries to protect my peace. If you're always making everyone else happy, when are you doing it for yourself? When are you doing it for yourself if you're always pleasing other people by discounting yourself, by doing things that maybe you don't want to do? I'm not saying you shouldn't be of service and also find ways to make others happy. But if you're doing it to people, please, man, you are discounting yourself in such a big way. You're doing yourself a disservice. Happy people know their limits. They protect their energy from negativity, from drama, and from things that drain their emotional bandwidth.

• 7:57Lewis Howes?

  Peace isn't a luxury, it's a strategy. You have to be focusing on this. Happy people create healthy relationships and they have boundaries in those relationships. Let me say this again for you. Happy people create healthy relationships and they have boundaries in those relationships. A big part of being happy is respecting yourself. And I want you to ask the question right now. And you can put this in the comments, you can send me a DM somewhere. You can even just reflect on this yourself. On a scale of one to 10, how much self-respect do you have for yourself? 10 being you have the ultimate self-respect.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  One being you have very little self-respect. Where are you on this spectrum? And I'm going to give you context here. For most of my life, I thought I had self-respect. I was like, no, I'm going after what I want. But I wasn't able to create boundaries. I people pleased everyone. I would beat myself up. I would sabotage things. I would cheat, lie and steal. I would do things that wasn't showing my self-respect in my, you know, eight to 16 year old self. My early twenties, I was doing things that I wasn't respecting myself. And I was letting ego drive my life rather than joy drive my life. Part of being happy is respecting yourself.

• 9:23Lewis Howes?

  I was probably at a two out of a 10 out of self-respect because I was discounting myself. I was sabotaging myself. I was people pleasing to try to gain attention. This is huge. If you could start to say, I'm going to go from a two to an eight, nine or 10 of self-respect, everything will change for you. Everything will change in your life when you start to respect yourself differently. This doesn't mean you have to be a jerk to someone, but it does mean you have to have courage and be willing to disappoint or let people down. And that's okay. Respecting yourself means saying no. Happy people know how to do this. It's uncomfortable at first. Trust me, it took me months to practice saying no to people

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  and then have them react to me being frustrated or upset or hurt. Ah, why can't you do this for me, Lewis? Well, I just can't do it right now. And learning to be with people's upset was one of the most challenging things that I've ever had to do. Comment below, leave a like, let me know if that resonates or speaks to you in any way. That being with someone's upset was something that's been hard for me. If you know what that feels like, let me know. But happy people, they understand this simple truth. That every yes to something draining you is a no to the life you actually want. And when you set boundaries, you are creating breathing room in your life. You're creating space.

• 10:50Lewis Howes?

  You're creating the ability to be creative, to imagine, to dream.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  And that's what we need. We need that space. But if you're just over committing, saying yes to everyone, pleasing everyone, you're not respecting yourself. You're doing your future self a disservice. When you set boundaries, you create breathing room. And in that space, you rediscover your energy. You reimagine your creativity and your joy comes back to life. Boundaries aren't walls. They're filters that allow the right things in and keep the wrong things out. And there's an important distinction here. A big action step for you is to choose one area of your life where you feel drained, where you feel exhausted from.

• 11:38Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it's a person, a relationship, maybe it's a behavior, a commitment, or a pattern that you've created. And then I want you to ask yourself, what is one boundary that I can set this week that would protect my peace? Your peace is so important. And you can't buy peace, but you can create a boundary and have courage to speak up, to create a boundary of peace, to create a safe space within yourself. And I want you to keep it simple, make it small and specific, like not answering work texts after a certain time, like limiting conversations with a draining person to only a few minutes as opposed to waiting until they're done with the conversation.

• 12:24Lewis Howes?

  Like saying something like, I can't commit to that right now, instead of over explaining why you can't commit to something. I know I've done that for a long time. Another example is taking one evening a week for yourself with no obligations.

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  No over commitments, just one evening for you every week. Then communicate it calmly and clearly once and honor yourself. Boundaries become powerful the moment you follow through on them. If you say you're going to do something and you don't do it, again, you're going back to disrespecting yourself. You're limiting yourself on that scale of one to 10 on the self-respect scale. So if you want to gain self-respect, you need to honor the commitments you make to yourself. Habit number four, they move their body daily.

• 13:15Lewis Howes?

  You can't think your way out of stress. You have to move your way out of it. And Harvard researchers show that just 20 minutes of physical activity can reduce depression by up to 40%. A strong body creates a strong mind and movement is medicine. Happy people don't wait to feel motivated. They move first and the motivation follows. And during some of the hardest moments of my life, when I was depressed, when I was broke, when I was broken on my sister's couch for about a year and a half, trying to figure out what do I do with my life? How do I get out of this credit card debt? How do I pay off the student loans when I have no money coming in? How do I get healthy? How do I do all these things? I was just like broken, right?

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  During one of those hardest moments, movement literally saved me. The gym became a sanctuary, a happy place. And it wasn't about getting a six pack or looking good. It was about feeling grounded, moving the energy that was stressing me out, out of my body, regaining confidence, creating structure in my life, creating boundaries in my life and gaining control. And it was a powerful shift. The action step for you is move today. Move your body. We sit so much. Move, walk, do a workout, stretch. I don't care. Throw your hands in the air a few times. Do something where you're just getting energy out of you. Moving it is going to make you feel better.

• 14:41Lewis Howes?

  Do something and do it consistently because that builds confidence and confidence builds happiness so big. Habit number five, they surround themselves with supportive people. Oh my gosh, is this a lesson I needed to learn the hard way over and over and over again? I wish I'd learned it sooner. The happiest people in the room are not the most popular. Happy people choose their circle intentionally. They spend time with people who lift them up, who challenge them and empower them, and reflect the best in them. They see the best in them. Joy is amplified in the right community that you have.

• 15:25Lewis Howes?

  But again, if you're surrounding yourself with people that make you feel miserable, and you're just familiar with that feeling, they're not friends. They're just holding you back, or you haven't had the courage to speak up yet to create a new agreement with those friends. A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still gently allows you to grow. The story that I share is it's not about having the most friends. I've had all the friends in the world, thousands of connections, relationships all over the world and industries. I had all these connections that I thought were friends. It's not about having the most friends. That doesn't work.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  It's about having the best friends, best for motivating you, listening to you, and best to help you get to that next level. That's what it's about. I had to learn this the hard way. I tried to please everyone, tons of people, getting back to everyone constantly, helping everyone, but not helping myself. And my current circle now, man, I have had to create boundaries and structure and, you know, hold people to the side and not be able to be there for everyone all the time. And I've really curated a small circle now. I've really learned this about the quality of people in your life, not the quantity of people in your life. And it doesn't mean I don't have relationships of a lot of people,

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  but my core circle is just a few people. It's really a few people that I show up for and they show up for me consistently. And sure, there's different levels of relationships and, you know, people can come and go in that circle from time to time, but really it's been a core for a while now. And that core is people that I can rely on, that I can be myself, that I hold them accountable, and they hold me accountable. And we can be honest with each other. We can be honest about what's working, what's not working, and not take offense to it. So an action step for you is to take a few minutes and make a simple two-column list, column one and column two. And in column one at the top, put people who energize you. And in column two at the top, put people who drain you.

• 17:38Lewis Howes?

  Write this down. Then choose one small shift that you can make this week to upgrade your environment. And I want you to be thinking about the people in your life. Just write down the names in those columns. For example, you can spend an extra 10 minutes with someone who inspires you in that good column. You can schedule a coffee with a supportive friend and then you can reduce time with someone who constantly drains your energy in that other column. It doesn't mean they're a bad person. It doesn't mean you have to kick them out of your life forever. It just means you want to notice who brings you more joy. Who do you feel anxious when you see? And how can you start communicating to those people in a calm, loving, conscious way about how you want to shift your relationship with them? But how you want to talk about things differently? But how you want to hold each other accountable?

• 18:22Lewis Howes?

  Empower each other in a beautiful way, accept one another, et cetera. You can also join a group or class or community aligned with your personal growth. There's lots of them out there. The School of Greatness community is all about people who want to have a conscious mindset, be around people who are empowering and joyful. So if you connect with people in the comments of YouTube, my social media posts, you're going to find other people in a community that think and act like you. Because you don't have to overhaul your entire circle of friends overnight. Just tilt your environment 1% towards the people who lift you up. Because that 1% will compound pretty fast. And that's the end of habit number five. They surround themselves with supportive people.

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  If you find a happy person, they are not surrounding themselves with a circle of miserable people trying to pull them down. They just won't put up with it. They only surround themselves with people that are supportive. Or they create boundaries with those in their life who aren't and communicate clearly. Habit number six, they have a vision and life fulfilling goals. Purpose doesn't make life easier, it makes life clearer and clarity is where happiness begins. And the only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision. I love that quote by Helen Keller. Man, happy people don't just wake up and drift and say, oh, I'll see where the day takes me.

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  They wake up with direction, with a purpose, with a plan. And that direction comes with clarity. Clarity of what steps they're taking that day, where they're going, where they're headed. They're not just saying, ah, la di da, why is life not working out for me? They are clear on the direction. It doesn't mean that it's always a straight line. They might have to go all around the place to get to the destination, but they're clear on where they're heading, where they're going, and they allow that direction to guide them from a purpose. And purpose doesn't have to be some giant world changing mission. I'm going to cure cancer, I'm going to heal the world. It doesn't have to be that. And it doesn't have to be something flashy also. It doesn't have to be public or perfectly defined all at the same time.

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  Purpose is simply knowing why you do what you do. Why do I do what I'm doing? Because I care about making a difference. Why am I showing up this way? Because it's helpful for me to make today matter, whatever it might be. It might be showing up for your family in a beautiful way. It might be serving your community, building something meaningful, being an artist, writing music. It might be expressing your creativity in a unique expression that only you can do. It might be I'm on a spiritual path and I'm growing every day spiritually. It might be helping others heal, mastering a skill or becoming the most authentic version of yourself and actually showing up authentic daily and making that your purpose. Purpose just gives you a north star.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  It just shows you where you're heading, which direction you're trying to get to. And when you have a north star, you make decisions differently. You're clear, there's a yes or no. When there's an opportunity in front of you, a decision you need to make, you know where you're heading. And so if that opportunity, thing, relationship doesn't serve your North Star, it's a no. If it does serve it, maybe it's a yes. It all depends on what works for you in this moment. Again, you make decisions differently when you're clear. And happy people are clear about where they're heading. You stop chasing every distraction or saying yes to everything that's pulling your energy.

• 21:58Lewis Howes?

  You stop comparing your life to others because you're focused on your vision, your goals, your dreams. You're not thinking about, ah, what is everyone else doing? And comparing yourself and putting yourself lower than them, that will make you very unhappy. You stop letting the world pull you in thousands of different directions and distracting you all over the place. Happy people live intentionally, not reactively. And they ask themselves, does this align with the life I'm trying to build? Does taking this action, being in a relationship with this person, eating these types of foods, living in this city, being in this environment, taking this class, learning this skill, does this align with the life I'm trying to build?

• 22:43Lewis Howes?

  And if the answer is no, then they let it go. And if the answer is yes, then they go all in. And man, it doesn't mean it's always gonna be perfect, but they're gonna be happier from the decision they're making out of alignment. Purpose simplifies your life. It calms your mind. It makes even the challenging seasons feel more meaningful and more manageable. Because when you know why you're here, the how becomes much easier to navigate. When my football career ended, I broke my wrist playing arena football. And I just felt broken because that was my purpose. It was like, I am an athlete. I'm gonna go play professional football. This was my whole life's mission to be a professional athlete.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  So imagine you spend 15 years from the moment you can remember the dream of being a professional athlete. You spend your life wanting something. You get a small taste of it. I didn't play in the NFL. I played in the Arena Football League, but I got paid to catch a football. And I was like, Man, I'm living the dream. Even though I was only making 250 bucks a week, I was so happy because I was doing what I felt I was meant to do. So when I broke my wrist and I was in a cast for six months, full arm cast in this position, sleeping on my sister's couch for a year and a half with no money, three credit cards, student loan debt, and unsure of who I was in the world or the future I was creating.

• 24:14Lewis Howes?

  It was a scary, daunting time for me. At moments I pretended to be happy. I pretended to be a happy person and told people, I'll figure it out, it'll be okay. But inside, I felt like I was disappearing. I felt like I was losing myself. I felt like there was no point, there was no purpose, there was no, why am I even alive? And the moment I created a vision, boom, a spark, a new dream emerged. The moment I created a new vision in my life, I had to grieve the loss of an identity and a vision that was no longer there. And that took some time. That was challenging. And the moment, boom, I created a new vision, a mission rooted in servant,

• 24:56Lewis Howes?

  in being grateful and being happy and being joyful and being curious about other people and finding a way to help other people, learning and growing and developing as a human being and overcoming my fears. My life began to shift and I became that happy person that I was wanting to be. I became that. And so there's an action step for you today is to set three goals today. One for three months away, one for six months away, and one for 12 months away. Just write down, one, two, three. What are these three goals for yourself? It can be something simple, it can be small, it can be something big. It doesn't matter to me. Look at them every morning.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  Let your vision pull you forward. The more clear you are on what you're trying to create, the more joyful you'll be. And here's the thing, even if they don't happen, even if they don't come true or you don't make them happen, you are working towards something that excites you, that's interesting for you. And you're going to build skills, you're going to build emotional resilience, you're going to build confidence in working on something every single day, three, six, and 12 months. That's going to bring you closer to the vision you have for your life. That's the end of habit number six. Happy people. They have a vision and life fulfilling goals. What are those goals for you? What is that vision for you? Write those down.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  And if you haven't gotten my New York Times bestselling book, The Greatness Mindset, I have so many exercises and examples from some of the top minds in the world about how to create this clear vision, about how to set goals, about how to structure your life, about how to heal the things that have held you back from trying to please other people most of your life. So you can reclaim your power. If you were looking to have a clear path in your life, get the greatness mindset right now and check it out. I'm telling you what you will go through in here will help you overcome so many challenges in your life. This is the book that I wish I had early on. This is the book that I wrote for my younger self to help me overcome those challenges that I faced for so many years.

• 27:07Lewis Howes?

  So check out that if you're looking to improve. Habit number seven of happy people is they practice emotional honesty. Oh, my gosh.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  They practice emotional honesty. Happy people aren't always positive. They're not always positive. It's hard to live a full life when you can't be your true self. I love this quote from Dr. Mark Brackett, who came on the show. He said, it's hard to live a full life when you can't be your true self. A lesson is that happy people feel everything. They feel the wide range of emotions. This is not about positive by spiritual bypassing and not feeling your emotions. Happy people feel everything from sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment. They feel them. They don't just hide from their emotions or let them control their lives.

• 28:04Lewis Howes?

  And they don't bypass their emotions and just say, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy. You're not if you're bypassing. They practice something called emotional honesty. They tell themselves the truth, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's scary. They say, I'm overwhelmed, I'm hurting, I'm scared, I need support, I need help, I need rest, whatever it is, they practice that emotional honesty, because that honesty is powerful, because it becomes the doorway to healing. To clarity, to connection, to releasing the emotions, right? So it doesn't stay in your body or on your mind. And when you suppress emotions, they don't disappear. They expand, they grow. But when you acknowledge your emotions, they lose their grip on you.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  Literally, the moment I just say, ah, I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. I start to feel less overwhelmed just by getting it out. That's why moving your body every day also helps you get your emotions out. If you've ever worked out feeling stressed and you're like, oh, man, I feel so much better after I worked out for 30 minutes. Yeah, because you're moving that energy, that emotion inside of you. And that's what you need to do. Speak your emotion, write it down, move your body, acknowledge them, don't hold on to them. Feel them, let them go and recommit to your vision. Happy people give themselves permission to experience the full range of being a human being. I'm not saying you dump your emotions on every person around you and you just unload on people and say, I feel better.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  That's not consciousness, but it's finding a way to consciously communicate your emotions. So that you can express them and let them go. They process emotions instead of numbing them or instead of just drinking or drugs to just like numb the emotions. They process emotions, they find ways to do things consciously. And instead of numbing themselves, they talk about what they're going through with people that they trust. But they do it in a conscious way and they choose expression over repression. And that's a big one. That's why they feel lighter. That's where they're like, man, I feel so happy. There's no weight on my shoulders. I don't feel stressed. They feel way more grounded. And this is why they feel more authentic. And this is huge.

• 30:16Lewis Howes?

  If you're not being authentic to yourself, you're not going to be a happy person. You're just not. Because emotional honesty builds self-trust. It builds self-respect. It's huge. And self-trust is one of the deepest foundations of lasting happiness. Because when you trust yourself to handle your feelings, to handle your emotions, you stop fearing them. You stop running from life. You stop running from everything that's scaring you and you start actually living life to the fullest. So the action step for you right now is once a day, once a day, morning or night,

• 30:57Lewis Howes?

  take a few minutes to ask yourself three honest questions. This might be one of the most powerful things you do because you'll actually be speaking something out loud, naming it or writing it down. Number one, what am I feeling right now?

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  Now, listen, you know, I come from the world of, of being a guy growing up, you know, playing sports where we didn't talk about feelings. We didn't talk about these things. It wasn't manly. It was just kind of like, don't be a wuss, don't be lame, just like, whatever, man, just suck it up. Don't cry. Like this was a conditioning of, don't cry, you're fine, everything's okay, toughen up, who cares what you're feeling, move on, but just find a way to write it down if you need to. Here's what I'm feeling. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling hurt. I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling misunderstood. I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I'm feeling like nothing I do is ever enough. I'm feeling, whatever the emotion is, write it down.

• 31:57Lewis Howes?

  Name the emotion, write it down, but do it without judging yourself. Do it without making yourself wrong or saying, ah, I should be doing better. No, none of these shoulds, no blame, no judgment, just write it down. The second thing to write down is why might I be feeling this way? So I start to identify the trigger, the situation, the thought, the relationship, whatever it is. Identify the trigger of the feeling. And the third thing is, what do I need to do? Do I need to rest more? Do I need a boundary? Do I need a conscious conversation where I create a new agreement with someone? Do I need to move my body? Do I need to eat differently? Do I need some type of support? Do I need therapy? Whatever it is, what do I need? These three steps, these three questions will help you in such a big way.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  What am I feeling right now? Why might I be feeling this way? And what do I need? Write the answers down or say them out loud. You can just say them out loud to yourself or someone else that you trust, or just write them down in your journal. This tiny practice is going to build emotional awareness. It's going to reduce your stress. And it teaches your nervous system that it's safe to feel. It's safe to express. It's safe to be authentic. And over time, you'll notice you're calmer, you're clearer, you're more grounded, because you're no longer running from your emotions. You're listening to them and you're processing them. Huh? To feel free, to feel authentic, to be yourself is a gift, but it takes courage sometimes.

• 33:27Lewis Howes?

  And these seven habits aren't just ideas, they're practices. They're the small choices that happy people make every single day. And the truth is, you don't need to master all seven all at once overnight. You just need to start with one. Because happiness isn't something you find out there. It's something you build in here through responsibility, through gratitude, boundaries, movement, community, purpose, and emotional honesty. The happiest people I've ever met, they're not perfect. They're not fearless all the time. They're not always confident every single moment, but they're consistent.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  They show up for themselves even on the days when they don't feel like it. They choose habits that support the life they want, not the life they're trying to escape, or not the life to please other people. So my challenge for you is simple. Pick one habit today, one shift, one pattern that you're ready to start building, to start strengthening. And I want you to practice it for the next week. Then I want you to be consistent the week after that. Because when you build one habit of happiness, it starts to pull every other part of your life in the right direction. It starts to compound and build this, this energy of just goodness and richness and joy. Where people notice like, huh, what's different about you? What are you doing differently? Something that's about you is amazing.

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  What are you doing? Because most people in the world are not happy. They haven't figured this out. You can be the one to create that energetic shift in the community and friend group around you and be the leader of happiness in your life. And I want you to remember this. You deserve to feel joy. You deserve to feel peace. You deserve to feel proud of the life that you're creating. And I want to thank you for being here and investing in your growth and for choosing a path of intention. And I want to remind you, no one's told you lately that you were loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.