The New Happy, San Francisco, CA (2026)

01/14/2026

Imagine this: an email pops up in your inbox with a tricky, stressful problem that needs to be solved. How do you respond? Do you…

1) Read it through and then ask yourself, “Okay, what is in my control here?” or say to yourself, “This isn't great, but I’m going to figure this out.”

2) Scan through the email quickly, immediately feel overwhelmed and close the email, telling yourself, “I’ll think about this later.”

These are examples of two different coping strategies. The former is called ‘problem-focused.’ In this strategy, you try to approach the challenge from different angles, look for information about how to address it, or break it into manageable pieces.

The latter is called ‘avoidance-focused.’ The problem stirs up uncomfortable emotions within you, and because they feel so overwhelming, it compels you to avoid the problem, pretend it’s not happening, or personally blame yourself for it.

The strategy we choose when facing our own discomfort has major implications: problem-focused is related to well-being, while avoidance-focused is related to depression, anxiety, and overall ill-being. That’s why, if you are more of an avoidant coper, it’s important to learn how to become a problem-focused coper.

Click the link to learn how to do it: https://www.thenewhappy.com/blog/break-avoidance-pattern

01/09/2026

Old Happy culture tells us that we need to achieve in order to be worthy. With that message deeply ingrained into our minds, we push and push and push ourselves to achieve more and more. We burn ourselves out and we ignore our needs and we disconnect from our relationships.

And then when we finally achieve it, the happy feeling doesn’t last. We decide it’s our fault, that we chose the wrong goal, that we need to do more to prove that we are worthy. So we set our sights on the next achievement... and the next... and on and on it goes.

But worthiness isn’t something you have to earn. You are always worthy — not because of what you achieve or do not achieve, but because you are a human being. Because you are you.

(If you’d like help learning how to believe this, you might enjoy our bestselling book, NEW HAPPY, which helps you to understand where this belief comes from and how to overcome it. Available at www.thenewhappy.com/book)

01/08/2026

One of the most helpful ways to approach your emotions is to label them, by saying, “I am feeling sad,” or “This emotion I’m experiencing is anger.”

And one of the least helpful ways to approach your emotions is to categorize them as “good” or “bad.”

The former helps you to learn more about yourself and your needs; the latter distances you from yourself and your needs.

Every emotion matters. You need each one of them to live a happy, meaningful, and fulfilling life. Whatever emotion you’re experiencing has something important to teach you. Describe them; don’t categorize them.

For more help with understanding your emotions, you can download our free Feelings Wheel tool, linked in stories or thenewhappy.com/feelings-wheel

01/06/2026

Extensive research has found that labeling your emotions is one of the best things you can do to improve your mental health. Putting your feelings into words makes them easier to cope with. For example:
— Rating your anger on a scale of 1-5 reduces your heart rate, a measure of distress.
— Describing your emotions when dealing with a phobia increases your courage in facing it.
— Adding a label to an emotion (like “that’s sadness” or “this is fear”) decreases the activity in your amygdala, which is where your fight-or-flight response comes from.

The next time that you’re feeling overwhelmed by your emotions, try using the New Happy feelings wheel (link below). You can get it for free, along with a full guide on how to use it and helpful tips for understanding and managing your emotions. Learning how to treat yourself with greater compassion — no matter what you’re feeling — is one of the most important happiness skills there is.

Get the feelings wheel at: www.thenewhappy.com/feelings-wheel

01/05/2026

If you’re looking for a 2026 intention that will really make a difference, here’s one I’d recommend: meet your pain with compassion.

Imagine you’re at a party, looking to make new friends. What do you think is going to be more successful: going up to people and openly judging them, or going up to them and being kind to them?

We all know that it’s the latter. It’s an ironclad rule: being kind to others is always the best way to build a relationship.

Yet, for some reason, we expect that rule to be invalid for the relationship we have with ourselves. We believe that we can criticize and hurt ourselves into the self that we want to be. All this does, though, is harm our relationship with that self — because while you can walk away from a judgmental stranger at a party, you can’t walk away from the judgmental self that you have to live with.

01/04/2026

If you’re struggling to achieve your goal, it doesn’t mean that you’re not capable or worthy of it. It means that you don’t have the help that you need.

One of Old Happy culture’s most pervasive messages is that we need to do everything by ourselves. As a result, you might start to believe that asking for help means you’re “giving up” or “failing.” But asking for help actually shows you’re committed to persevering, improving, and growing!

When you’re struggling, consider who in your life has done what you’re trying to do and what type of support you need. Then reach out and ask for it. We wildly underestimate how much other people want to help us. And since performing acts of kindness makes people happier, you’re giving someone a chance to experience happiness, too.

01/02/2026

One change can change everything. What will yours be?

We created a free tool to help you track your growth this year: The New Happy 2026 Tracker! Fill it out each day to reflect on your experiences and emotions in 2026. It comes with a guide, community inspiration, and a little extra bonus gift!

Get it at thenewhappy.com/newyear

01/01/2026

If you have big dreams for 2026, here’s the exact science-backed process you can use to achieve them—based on over fifty studies of goal-setting:

Step 1: Define Your Dream
What is your purpose? What matters most to you? What hope have you kept hidden inside of you for far too long? Your dreams are yours for a reason — define them, so that you can claim them.

Step 2: Break Your Dream Into Goals
Goals are the achievements that ladder up into the dream. The most effective goals are 1) clearly defined, 2) hard but achievable. List out the different goals that will help you to move towards the dream. If you’re not sure where to start, imagine you’ve achieved your dream and you’re telling someone the story of how you did it. What was the first milestone along the way?

Step 3: Turn Your Goals Into Steps
Now, turn the first goal into the steps you will take to achieve it. Steps should be behaviors, actions or tasks. Think about it like this: what action could you take, today? If you are ever feeling overwhelmed, make the steps smaller. This will help you to stop procrastinating: because 2026 is not a year of procrastination-it’s a year of action. For the greatest likelihood of success, make the steps as enjoyable as you can. Strive, wherever possible, to make it fun, satisfying, or meaningful.

Step 4: Take It One Step At A Time
Finally, take that first step. Once you have, celebrate yourself! Mark it down in some way if that helps you, giving you a visual record of your progress. Pause and say to yourself: “Look what I did. I took that step. And it’s moving me towards my dream.”

We’ve created a free downloadable tool that you can use for this process—The Dreams Square. You can use it to achieve any dream you have for 2026. Get it at thenewhappy.com/dreams-square

12/31/2025

Happy New Year! We hope that your year ahead is filled with joy, fulfillment, and love.

We've turned this piece into a free tool: The New Happy 2026 Tracker. Fill it out each day to reflect on your experiences and emotions in 2026. It comes with a how-to guide, community inspiration, and a little extra bonus gift!

Get it at www.thenewhappy.com/newyear

12/24/2025

The more we practice noticing the rise and fall of our emotions, the better we can see that they’re more like the weather than anything else: ever-changing, blending together, and impermanent. Be kind to yourself and others as we all navigate the ebb and flow of our feelings.

P.S. Our bestselling book NEW HAPPY is the Kindle deal of the day today—you can get it for yourself or a last-minute gift for a loved one for just $1.99! https://www.amazon.com/New-Happy-Getting-Happiness-Right/dp/0593541383

12/23/2025

Think about someone who has had a major impact on your life. It might have been a family member; a friend who was there for you in a difficult time; a coach or mentor who helped you to grow. Even if those people are no longer alive or involved in your life, they are still with you.

Their presence is not a mere memory: their past loving actions are preserved in the person that you have become in this present moment. They left a legacy within you. You have the wonderful power to do the same for other people.

Some researchers have defined that there are three different ways to leave a legacy. The first two are those that probably come most quickly to mind:
• The legacy of your biology — like having and nurturing children
• The legacy of your possessions — like bequeathing your heirlooms or assets

But there’s a third way to leave a legacy:
• The legacy of your values — what you teach someone about living a good life, navigating challenges, and making a positive difference in the world

In one study, almost every single participant ranked this third type as the most important legacy that they could leave for their loved ones. It’s not stuff that matters most. It’s character: the kindness, integrity, courage, patience, and resilience that someone demonstrated. Your legacy isn’t limited to what you physically pass on; it’s also what you embody as a person.

With this new framing in mind, we can see that a legacy is something we’re creating every day, in the ways that we show up for other people. To get more deliberate about your legacy, pause and ask yourself: “How do I want to be remembered in the future?” Then, with that word clearly in mind, you can decide: how will you embody it today? ❤️

12/15/2025

When you feel completely overwhelmed, like there are too many thoughts in your head and you don’t know what on earth you need to do to find peace... try this:

First, simply describe what’s going on inside of you. You are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or agitated. That’s completely okay. We all feel this way from time to time.

Next, acknowledge the content of your thoughts themselves. Remember: they’re just thoughts. They don’t define you, they are not more powerful than you, and they do not dictate what happens in your life. They are just fragments and representations of information bouncing around inside of your brain. Not so scary when we approach them in that way!

Then, write those thoughts down. It’s difficult—if not impossible—to access our inner wisdom when those thoughts are throwing a party inside our brains. Collect all of the thoughts and put them onto paper. Here, you can analyze them, organize them, challenge them, or clarify them.

Finally, talk to someone about them. When you share your thoughts with another, you are helping yourself to get the distance you need. If you don’t have someone to talk to that you trust, it can be worth exploring professional options or finding another way to process them outwardly, whether that’s through movement, speaking out loud, or making a piece of art.

The New Happy

01/14/2026

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12/31/2025

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