The 10 Joy Sources to Prioritize in 2026
A Christmas Eve Message from the Welsh Coast
TL;DR
We've been living backwards. The lives we've been taught to build, rooted in achievement, consumption, and productivity, keep pushing us away from what creates lasting joy. In this Christmas Eve episode, I share the 10 Joy Codes: research-backed sources of joy fundamental to human thriving.
From growth and vitality to connection and pleasure, these codes are your emotional DNA: the building blocks of a life that actually feels good to live. Plus, I reveal my simple 2025 joy practice (complete with phone alarms!) that you can steal. Because choosing joy first isn't selfish: it's liberation work disguised as the most basic and essential form of self-care.
Key Takeaway: Almost half of our happiness is determined by our own attitudes and actions. The happiest people are 35% less likely to die in the next five years. Joy isn't a nice-to-have; it's an actual lifeline.
Important Links
- Listen to the Episode: on iTunes and Spotify
- Listen to last week's episode: S3 E14 'The Great Grey-down'
- Join our Community: Joy First Founder's Circle
- Connect: Instagram | LinkedIn
A Christmas Morning Gift
I'm sitting here watching the sunrise by the sea, wrapped in this fluffy shag yellow blanket with the sounds of a house full of family, including four kids six and under, echoing all around me. You can probably hear it.
There's just been a knock on the front door downstairs and an eruption of hurrays and clapping because the Christmas turkey has just arrived.
This was not guaranteed because this turkey has had a harrowing journey being sent to the wrong house five hours away and the fate of our Christmas dinner has been hanging in the balance. And while we were fully prepared to make do with something not turkey, everyone is very pleased that this massive bird has arrived and won't be wasted sitting lonely on Uncle Robbie's doorstep for the next six days while we're on holiday in Wales.
I'm recording a podcast while technically on holiday because I've discovered since having kids that having a concrete reason to sneak away and steal some creative time to be alone in the quiet, if I can find any, with my thoughts and ideas and words is an absolutely essential part of my joy. This is not work for me. And prioritizing this has become even more true during time away with family and not less true because I'm "off work."
And of course, joy is something that is always on my mind these days since I'm writing a book on the topic. But this time of year, I feel like many of us, most of us probably really start thinking more about joy as we navigate the holidays, as we move into winter, as we step into looking at a new year.
And this contemplation is not around that manufactured fake laugh, Instagram perfect kind of joy. It's not that "don't I look happy" curated euphoria. It's the real thing, the way it feels and moves and sounds and tastes and what it looks like. What joy really is beyond the way that it's sold to us. The way we can find it and fight for it and cling to it when the world feels dark and cruel and the hard can feel quite relentless.
We've Been Living Backwards
What continues to feel truer and truer to me as I've done research for the Joy First book is that we have been living a bit backwards. The lives that we've been taught to build, rooted in achievement and consumption and constant productivity, keeps pushing us further and further away from what actually allows us to create and especially notice and appreciate lasting joy.
There is so much science here. We know what creates joy. We've known it for decades, but there's not many corporations or economies or employers yet who see the benefit of peddling or spreading joy because it's much harder to profit from us when we are loved up and connected and joyful than when we are steeped in not enoughness and comparison and 67 other varieties of fear.
So today on Christmas Eve, whether Christmas is a holiday you celebrate or not, I wanted to set aside a few moments to give you a little gift. Direct from my research, from the book, I want to share with you what I call the joy codes. These 10 major sources of human joy that I've discovered and distilled through my research over the last several years. These are fundamental to human thriving. They are reliable sources of joy and perhaps even the building blocks of a life that actually feels good to live and definitely a good place to look if you're a New Year's resolutions person.
So I thought it might be helpful as you do your contemplations over this period. So let's dive in and explore these 10 joy codes in no particular order. And then I have one simple action for you to start integrating them into your life and work.
The 10 Joy Codes
1. Growth
This is not the hustle culture kind of growth, but the kind where you exit your comfort zone and learn something new. Research shows us that growth tracking links to 28% higher resilience. So when we are growing, we're getting even stronger and more able to handle growth and change, and we feel more fully alive.
The other thing that has been very impactful on me as I've done this research on joy is discovering that our big, most lasting joy often comes on the other side of great challenge or long waiting. So joy is not just about hedonism. We'll talk about that later, but oftentimes joy is not even about comfort. It's about getting uncomfortable. And this is so directly tied to our growth.
There's a lot of people in my world who talk about the fact that there is no failure. There's either winning or lessons. Sometimes the point is to fail. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Yes, we don't enjoy it. But growth is such a fundamental part of our joy. And I think that can feel quite surprising when we've been told or maybe pursued our whole life, this sense of comfort and control, which growth often requires us to let go of.
2. Vitality
That aliveness in your body and spirit. This one is probably obvious because we know in our lived experience that when we don't feel well in ourselves, joy is the hardest to find.
And there is endless research all over this about our nutrition, our movement, what's going on in our body. Now we're talking about gut health and sleep has emerged as something so important, but our vitality is such a baseline ingredient for our joy. And this isn't about the aesthetics of our body. This is about how it feels to be in our body.
Many of us are at this age where we're starting to really think about our mortality. We're starting to think about how do we live longer? How do we live longer in healthier bodies and minds? And vitality, looking towards those major factors that help us feel vital and help us be fully active and alive is so important.
3. Creativity and Flow
In this one, I kind of lumped chasing curiosity as well. That's something that has come up repeatedly in a lot of the Why Finding sessions I've done, which I've coded and looked at for data when it comes to writing this book. I'm looking at research that's available, but I'm also looking at the, at this point, hundreds of Why Finding sessions I've done and what comes up for people in terms of what they really value, what brings them joy and creativity. But in particular, curiosity has come up a lot.
As human beings, chasing our curiosity is a deep joy. And the other thing I think is essential in this conversation around creativity is this idea of flow and being in flow. Because when we are in flow state, we're 31% more likely to report a sense of life purpose.
Being in flow, whether that is doing something physical like a sport or something creative like writing or painting, it's a really almost ecstatic place for us to be. Also, when we are experiencing creativity, we are not experiencing anxiety. So having more creative projects or prioritizing being in creativity more often is a really essential part of navigating difficult times with less stress.
And I feel it's important to say here, creativity isn't just for artists. It's for all humans. It's how we solve problems, how we see possibilities, how we explore ideas, and how we stay engaged with life.
4. Purpose
Connection to something bigger than ourselves. Meaning. Hope. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running study on happiness that followed a large cohort of adults for 85 years, found that people with a strong sense of purpose lived longer, healthier lives.
And this sense of purpose is deeply connected to our joy because it helps us understand the why behind what we do. And when we have that sense of clarity around our why, it becomes much easier to make decisions that support our joy rather than detract from it.
5. Freedom
Autonomy, flexibility, choice. When we feel trapped, joy is impossible. But when we feel we have agency, everything shifts.
This is one of the joy codes that really resonates with me personally because I have structured my entire life and business around the pursuit of freedom. And what I've learned is that freedom isn't just about having no commitments or responsibilities. It's about having the ability to make choices that align with who you are and what you value. It's about not being trapped by fear or by systems that don't serve you.
6. Faith and Hope
Not necessarily religious, though it can be, but the belief that things can get better, that you're not alone in this, that there's something worth trusting beyond what you can see.
This one has become increasingly important to me as I've gotten older and as the world has felt increasingly chaotic and uncertain. Having some sense of faith, whether that's in a higher power, in humanity, in the arc of history bending toward justice, in nature's cycles, or simply in your own resilience—this gives us something to anchor to when everything else feels like it's shifting.
7. Nature
Being around animals, natural elements, the outdoors. We are mammals. We evolved outside. Our nervous systems literally calm when we're in nature. The research on eco-psychology is staggering.
There's so much evidence now that shows that even small amounts of time in nature, even looking at pictures of nature, can reduce our stress hormones, lower our blood pressure, improve our mood. And yet we live in a world where most of us spend the majority of our time indoors, disconnected from the natural rhythms and cycles that we evolved alongside.
8. Awe and Wonder
Those moments that take your breath away. Research shows these experiences expand our visual field, make us more generous, and connect us to something transcendent.
Awe is this beautiful emotion that happens when we encounter something vast that challenges our understanding of the world. It could be standing at the edge of the ocean, looking up at the stars, watching a child figure something out for the first time, or experiencing a piece of art or music that moves you deeply. And what's so powerful about awe is that it literally makes us feel smaller in the best possible way. It reminds us that we're part of something much bigger than ourselves.
9. Connection and Community
This is the big one. The Harvard study found that the number one predictor of a long, healthy, happy life wasn't money, fame, or even genetics. It was the quality of our relationships. Social support was the greatest predictor of happiness during high stress, with a correlation of 0.71. For context, the correlation between smoking and cancer is just 0.37.
We are pack animals. We are wired for connection. And when we are disconnected, when we are isolated, when we are lonely, we suffer deeply. Not just emotionally, but physically. Loneliness has the same impact on our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
So connection isn't a nice-to-have. It is essential for our survival and our thriving. And this includes connection to ourselves, to other people, to our communities, and to something bigger than ourselves.
10. Pleasure
Savoring, play, heightened sensory experiences, fun. Not guilty pleasures, but pure ones. Joy doesn't cause harm. Real pleasure nourishes us.
Now, I will be completely honest with you. This is one of the joy codes that I have had to work the hardest on because I was raised in a very achievement-oriented, productivity-focused way. Play was not really part of my childhood in the same way that it is for many people. Most of my play was solitary and it was by myself.
So understanding how to play with others, how to play in a physical way like sports or games, things that require other people, it is not a default for me. So there's a whole unlearning and learning process that I'm going through now because I thankfully married someone who we and our family call the ambassador of fun or the ambassador of play. My husband is so playful and he loves to have a good time, he can turn anything into a game, and he is like an absolute godsend for me in terms of learning what it looks like and feels like to prioritize play.
And I hope that this is something that's starting to peek onto your to-do list as well because it is such an important part of being a whole human being.
Why Color Is the Gateway to Joy
Now I wanted to mention that one of the reasons that color is such a powerful tool in our joy is that it can support or expand or help us connect to basically all 10 of these joy codes. It's a tool for getting us out of our comfort zone, to experience growth, for helping us feel more alive and vital, a tool for our creativity to help us find and create flow. Once we experience the freedom it helps us achieve with our self-expression, sharing it and its benefits can give us a sense of purpose.
It's of course rooted in the wonder of nature itself and nature gives us so many daily opportunities to experience the benefits of color. It absolutely can be a source of connection and various types of pleasure, including in our bodies, in our spaces, and as a tool for fun and play.
I call color the gateway to joy because it's so easy, so accessible and everywhere that once you start learning to use it, your curiosity takes over and it's not a to-do list item like meditating or yoga or journaling. It's simply a way of being and seeing that changes you from the inside out.
So this is why I'm so passionate about color. It's the reason I'm writing this book in the first place and making this distinct connection between joy and color, which by the way has confounded editors, publishers, book packagers. Finding the threading the needle of how to explain all of this in one book is a challenge, which is why it's taken me quite a long time to pull all of this together. But color is the most wonderful tool.
So if you're hearing this list today of all these things I've just rattled off and it's feeling a little overwhelming, remember there are some very simple things like color that can help you do all 10 in an instant, in a day, certainly.
The Systems Working Against Your Joy
But as we can plainly see, the world and the systems that most of us live and operate in right now, rooted in capitalism, diet culture, hustle culture, comparison culture, and as I've mentioned and continue to mention, that good old patriarchy, these actively pull us away from these joy codes.
They push us towards isolation and consumption instead of connection. They leave us clinging for a need for control instead of trust and surrender. They create this obsession with our own comfort instead of our joy and growth. And sometimes these can be at odds. And they reward productivity and results and achievement and conformity and compliance instead of creativity and experimentation and evolution.
We are being conditioned to be productive, doing members of society, not connected communities of fulfilled and whole human beings. And we know this is making us sick. It's literally killing us.
Happy people have less chance of heart attacks, healthier blood pressure, lower cholesterol, stronger immune systems, and they live longer. So happiness is not a nice-to-have. It is our longevity strategy.
One study found that the happiest people were 35% less likely to die in the next five years.
We Have a Choice
But I want you to know that we have a choice today, in this moment, right now. Almost half of our happiness quotient is determined by our own attitudes and actions. Our ability to reframe situations, practice gratitude, which is a really quick and easy connection to joy, to show kindness, to cultivate humor, and to choose joy even and especially when times are hard because unlike happiness, joy can exist with hardship. It can exist alongside grief. It can exist alongside rage.
And times are not going to get less complicated anytime soon. So we need a way to experience something good alongside what feels hard.
My 2025 Joy Practice (That You Can Steal)
So as we head into 2025, here is my Christmas wish for all of us: that we find clarity and ease and the gumption to actively and intentionally move closer to each of these joy codes in the year ahead.
In my life and business, I always set three kinds of goals. I set a revenue goal, a growth goal, and a joy goal.
And my joy goal for 2025 is really simple. And I've started it already because as soon as it occurred to me, I was like, yes, that is a hard yes. I'm going to start today.
The Daily Joy Journal Practice
I'm going to keep a daily joy journal. Now, I'm not doing this in a journal because there's a lot of barriers for me with that. I do love to journal and I love to do visual journaling, but I'm going to keep this joy journal on my phone.
Here's how it works:
- I've set two alarms: one for noon and one for 8 p.m.
- These remind me to pause and ask myself: What brought me joy today?
- Then I take notes
- I'm also taking photos when I notice I'm having a joy moment (even if it's not perfect or Instagram worthy—this is a photo documentary vibe, not a curated album)
- I also mean to use this as a practice to do some more sketching or painting, maybe do some visual journaling as well
This serves so many purposes:
- It helps me find more joy more intentionally
- It helps me choose joy more consciously
- It creates accountability for my desire to do more art, which brings me joy (photography, sketching, painting, playing with color)
- That's easier for me when I've set the intention ahead of time
It's simple, it's accessible, it doesn't add to my to-do list. It just transforms what's already there.
Join Me in This Practice
So here's what I'd love. If you want to play along with your own joy practice in 2025, let me know. I'll create a space for us to share in the new year, not to perform or compare or compete or make sure that it's perfect for socials, but to witness each other and get inspired by our choosing joy, by our living and working in a joy-first way, to remind each other that this matters and to create that community of people who get it and who are taking small, meaningful steps towards a more joy-first world.
If capitalism wants us isolated, anxious, and consuming, joy-first living and working is like liberation dressed up as the most basic kind of self-care, which is probably on your list anyway.
And interestingly, one of the things we do in the Founder's Circle every year is a year ahead spread using tarot and oracle cards. And it was so funny because the tarot card and the oracle card that we pulled this year both had a strong message around self-care, which I found quite funny. And I feel joy first, these joy codes, this is the most essential ingredients of any self-care practice.
My Christmas Wish for You
So that's my wish for you for this Christmas: that you recognize your joy codes, that you move towards them, and that you give yourself permission to choose them first, not after everything else is done. First.
We can start this week, which will be the hardest challenge of the year, when there's all the crazy, the family, the kids, the presents, or whatever your December rituals look like.
I am wishing you the most joyful of holidays. And if you celebrate, the merriest Christmas. And holding the intention that your year ahead looks and feels like joy.
With so much love from the top corner of Wales, I'll see you next week for a special New Year's episode.
