The wellbeing industry has always been fertile ground for bad advice – after all, it’s where the saying ‘snake oil salesman’ originates. And when wellness moves online in the form of social media trends and quick tips, happiness ends up feeling more overwhelming and elusive than ever.
One quick search for ‘wellbeing’ or ‘happiness’ instantly shows you the latest ‘must do’ trend if you want to live a happy life. You’re told to plunge into ice baths, sit in saunas, create a vision board, chug matcha, or in a trend that completely blew my mind, literally expose your bare bum to direct sunlight (it’s called perineum sunning apparently and, for what it’s worth, has zero scientifically supported benefits).
As a happiness researcher who has spent more than a decade studying, practising, and teaching wellbeing science, I can tell you the unsexy truth: happiness is not the outcome of a quick fix or wellness trend. I’m not saying all these trends are inherently bad (though you might want to consult a dermatologist about the long-term UV risks of sunning your bum). But none of these trends on their own will ever lead to genuine, long-term happiness.
I prefer to think of happiness as a skillset. Skills like emotional intelligence, self awareness, and introspection are known to support long-term wellbeing. Like any other skill, these skills take time, effort, and perseverance.
But saying things like “genuine happiness requires experimentation, consistency, and effort over a long time period” doesn’t trend well on TikTok. It isn’t nearly as marketable as promising that your entire life will magically change if you just chant affirmations in the mirror, count backwards from five when you lack motivation, or say ‘let them’ whenever something happens that you don’t like.
Human flourishing simply doesn’t work the way that wellness trends tell people. If you want to take a more evidence-informed approach to happiness you need to abandon the quick fixes and stop making these three mistakes:
1. Stop expecting things to pay off immediately
Any psychological or behavioural change takes far longer than most social media videos imply. Expecting a single mindfulness session or a weekend wellness retreat to permanently cure your burnout is the equivalent of going to the gym once and expecting to walk out remarkably fit.
When my team and I work with clients at our happiness college, we advise giving any new happiness practice at least three months of consistent application before assessing how well it has worked. Be patient with the process.
Learn more in the book How to be Happy by Declan Edwards.
2. Stop judging yourself for being imperfect
In the influencer space, happiness is frequently treated as a perfect performance. Nearly every trend says that you must do something every single day for it to work.
The problem is, you will eventually drop the ball. You’ll fail to meditate, you’ll forget to write in your wellbeing journal, and you’ll skip a session of guided breathwork or yoga because the day got busy. Then a toxic spiral of self-judgement and shame shows up because you ‘didn’t try hard enough’.
As far as I’m concerned, if you practise something to support your happiness, about 80 per cent of the time you’re succeeding. Normalise being an imperfect human. Despite what social media might have us believe, you don’t need to nail it every day to live a good life.
3. Stop trying to do this solo
In my opinion, the greatest flaw in modern influencer wellness is the implication that happiness is something you do on your own. It’s marketed as a checklist of tasks you execute entirely in isolation.
But look at some of the gold-standard data on wellbeing and you’ll see a very different story. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest running study on human happiness ever conducted, has a clear conclusion: our relationships are the single greatest predictors of our long-term health and happiness. Loneliness, on the other hand, is horrible for our happiness and wellbeing.
Again, this isn’t appealing for social media algorithms. The things that actually make a real difference to human happiness aren’t easy. They’re not a quick fix. And they certainly don’t look good on social media. They require effort and inconvenience. Practising happiness skills such as cultivating deep relationships, navigating complex emotions, and getting to know yourself simply cannot be solved with a trendy wellness hack.
I’m grateful to be referred to as a happiness expert. But nobody is an expert on your happiness, except you. There is no single, one-size-fits-all blueprint to a happy life. So please don’t blindly follow the advice of wellbeing influencers and TikTok trends. Learn what the research says, experiment with different happiness skills, and be patient.
Most importantly, remember that you can’t force happiness but there are a lot of skills you can practise that make happiness more likely.
