I heard a podcast bit from Alex Hormozi where he shared the idea of,

“The more you chase happiness the more you reaffirm that happiness is outside of yourself”

A couple ways to go about this.
One hand, the words you choose have meaning.
“I just want to be happy”, will forsure lead you to a path of finding it for a moment, then chasing it once again. It’s fleeing.

You buy a purse, happy.
You skip the gym, happy.
Then you want a great dinner, happy.
Then you get your favorite dessert, happy.
But in the coming weeks of doing that, you’ll look in the mirror and go deeper and feel as though “happiness” broadening the gap between you and happy.

On the other hand, you can take that as “Happiness therefore doesn’t exist”, you simply go about actions, for the pure sake of doing it. No, I do this because-Nope.. Do this so that-Nope.. Stick to the plan and the goals will take care of itself-Nope.. The goal is still the desire.
What can happen is you become someone who simply doesn’t care.
That’s a bad outcome.

Then there’s people who will create and formulate happiness.
Understand that the execution of moving the needle, towards a long term goal, allows for happiness for the day to come about.
I workout before work, and this is as of recent, because it allows me to show up to work happier.
I read and get my learning in before my workout, well for no real reason.. Haha

Either way, I do all of this because it makes me feel happy that in a way, I’ve “earned” my day. The secondary effect is that it allows me to slide down the slope of good decision. Which makes me happy.

Check out the little episode here