Everyone talks about having their dream career from a young age. We all dream about what we’d most likely want to do in adult society, and then we go into something we hate. As we get older, our dream career idea may shift. We may even find that we start to love something we never thought we’d love. 
Whether you dream of becoming an architect, scientist, writer, doctor, or stay-at-home mom, does having your dream career really increase happiness?
Living the Dream
In those who have achieved success after a life of previous success, happiness does not come from a job. Instead, research shows that happiness can actually turn you towards your dream job, not the other way around.
However, for those who have struggled in life and worked hard to get into their dream career, the happiness from the career may last longer. Appreciation is a big factor in this. Someone who has spent their life homeless or poor and finally becomes a major executive in the company of their dreams will appreciate the job much more than someone who comes from a family of big executives and wants a simpler life.
Your upbringing and your opinion of what makes a person successful are going to have a big play in what makes you happy as well. If your dream is to become a full-time traveling nomad, you’ll most likely feel happiest on the road. However, you may not be aware of some of the stresses of nomad life, and you may find it isn’t for you.
Can Happiness Bring You Success?
Now that we know that dream jobs don’t always bring happiness, let’s look at if happiness can bring us our dream jobs.
It has been proven that happiness does cause success. Those who come to work with a smile, spread positivity, and promote happiness tend to do better in school and work. Humans are attracted to happiness, and we often flock to people who seem happy and kind.
You may notice that the super talkative and “overly positive” girl in your university class always seemed to succeed. Maybe she was valedictorian in high school. It’s no surprise that the people we see succeeding are often the people who are most social and appear most happy, even if they’re not necessarily.
How to Be Happier to Gain More Success
If you want to know the secret of that girl in your university class, we don’t have the answer. Some people are given more marbles (so to speak) when they first start out in life. They have a supportive family, a large friend group, the perfect genetics, and a smile that charms anyone. Not everyone can achieve that.
For those who experience depression (which is over 200 million adults), the fight to be “happy” is a lot harder. The best way you can increase happiness in your own life is to understand that happiness is not a state of being but an emotion. We can’t feel it 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It comes and goes, much like sadness, anger, and fear.
Instead, finding ways to increase happiness in your day-to-day life is the best way to increase happiness overall. That might include committing to a daily walk with your dog or deciding to use positive affirmations before school. It may also include learning to not compare yourself to the girl in your university class.
Everyone is different, and learning to be happy and feel comfortable in your own skin comes with learning self-love and perseverance.
Conclusion
You create your future. If you want to learn more about happiness and what causes it (or the other way around), check out BetterHelp. They’ve got tons of articles and advice pages on these topics, which can help you learn more about yourself and land that dream job you’ve been wanting.
About the Author: Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health-related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with BetterHelp.com. With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.
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