How To Have A Happy Family Life

A happy family life is achievable! These are a few of my favorite things that promote greater happiness each day: practicing gratitude, relying on the Lord, choosing to learn, breathing through hard times, honoring my values, and protecting my resources.

Family life is fraught with challenges.

Where the definition of stress is encountering demands greater than your resources, parenthood steps up to deliver. ha ha (I’m laughing so I don’t cry. just kidding. kind of. 🫠)

But even though stress, difficulty, and even heartache might persist, there are a lot of ways to build a happy life at home.

In this post I’m happy (should we count how many times I use the word happy today? I’m willing it to be a subliminal message to our brains!) to share 6 of my top tips for enjoying family life more (and I’m happy to record them to remember them for myself–so that I can be happy! lol!!).

I am by no means attempting to create an exhaustive list with this post, so please comment your best practices for a happier family life below!! I’d love to learn from you!

Tip #1: Practice gratitude

You’d better believe I’m starting right here.

This is the EASIEST tip to implement with the GREATEST quick gains.

As I’ve been starting to interact more with social media for this website, it’s been interesting to watch how various activities impact my well-being.

Some scrolling or posting can be a life-suck that leaves me feeling drained, but never when I’m taking a moment to share what I am grateful for.

I don’t care if I flood the internet with a deluge of gratitude posts (Come find me on instagram! sibling.fusion), gratitude will always stay.

Gratitude makes me happy both immediately and long-term. Gratitude reminds me of my blessings.

Gratitude turns what you have into enough.

One of the key components to include in your gratitude practices for gratitude to have a grand impact is to imprint how it feels.

Take a moment to stay in that grateful feeling.

What is your face doing?

How are your insides responding?

Gratitude is a delicious feeling, and if we tell our brains what to focus on by observing what it feels like, our brains will gravitate towards it more.

Savoring the feeling of gratitude will produce more gratitude which will produce more happiness.

Tip #2: Don’t go it alone

I read a blog post this morning that encouraged readers to begin their day with God. I loved that so much. You can wake up in the morning feeling defeated, worn down, sick, etc, but as soon as you sync up with heaven, you will be doing much better. The fruit of the spirit is joy, which is even greater than happiness. For that reason, the Beings I rely on most in this challenging mortal journey are the Godhead–Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

On occasion I do try to go it alone, usually when I’m feeling pressured to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN NOW. Those are not happy times…and unfortunately they’re never as productive as I needed them to be. I have learned to stop in the middle of the frantic and reach out for support, or remind myself of the support I already have.

A favorite scripture story of mine illustrates this point in a way that I love.

Enter the story of Jehoshaphat (yep–Jehoshaphat. I love to say it in an extreme western old man drawl. Jeeeehoshaphat! 🤠)

Jehoshaphat is reigning as king when some messengers come to warn him that a great multitude is come up to battle. They are close enough that they will arrive, murdering, the next day. What Jehoshaphat does next is one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever read:

And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.

(2 Chronicles 20:3-4)

First he was afraid (makes sense). But then, instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, barking orders, building defenses, sharpening spears, etc, he sets himself to seek the Lord. He gathers Judah together and they pray, and fast.

And what happens next?? Is all well? Could you say that they end up happy in this time of extreme danger? Yes. They pray, and Jahaziel who is there receives a revelation:

And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.

(2 Chronicles 20:15)

In the morning they go forth. They appoint singers to sing praises to the Lord, to help them keep courage. While the singers sing, the Lord sets up ambushments, and the entire army that came to destroy them ends up fighting amongst themselves and killing each other off. All while the singers sing. I can’t even handle it–I love this story. 💗 When the battle THEY DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO FIGHT was over, they went through to gather the spoil. What once was an emergency, a disaster, an urgent, terrifying need, became a blessing.

I don’t know what battle you’re facing, but I could guess its maybe smaller in scope than this one. Don’t go it alone. The Lord is willing to fight with you.

Tip #3: Keep learning!!

Guess what happens often when raising children–the realization that you have no idea what you’re doing. 😅 It’s ok not to know, it’s ok not to have all of the answers…but I am going to plead with you right here right now not to stay there for WEEKS, MONTHS, and YEARS. You don’t know what to do?? Go find some answers!! You don’t have to keep running into the same family problems over and over and over because you don’t know what to do. You can learn what to do.

So many adults get stuck in day-to-day motions and never resolve painful issues. It doesn’t have to be this way. Find some instagram accounts, read some books, brainstorm your own solutions, reach out to a friend for ideas…just don’t remain stagnant. Keep learning.

One time I happened across a quick line of advice for when a child is throwing a tantrum. The advice was to lean down to them and whisper, “Do you want a hug?”

This tiny piece of advice changed my life. I went from frustrated disconnect wherein I perpetuated problems to connection. The relief in my daughter’s face when I would say it melted my heart. I was so grateful that I learned that.

Imagine everything you’ve yet to learn that you don’t know yet. Skills to help yourself and your kids, perspectives that irrevocably shift your mindset for the better, random ways of doing things that bring a smile to your face (folding fitted sheets anyone?)….please keep learning. I promise if you learn and apply new ways of living and thinking, you will be more happy. I live this one. I know it. New knowledge is always worth the effort.

Tip #4: Breathe through the hard phases

Sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes it breaks your heart with how different it looks from the life you wish you were living, the life you thought you’d be living. In the worst of times it’s helpful to remember that this is just a phase. The nature of life is that it’s always changing. That can be scary at times but mostly, I think it’s nice. I think of that change like a beautifully flowing, healthy river. The gunk that’s stuck choking your path will wash away in time.

A few things help me to breathe through the difficulty:

1. Create. Making something that you’re proud of can help ease the pain and sadness of a hard time.
2. Listen to comforting affirmations. I have an affirmations playlist actually entitled “breathe”.
3. Adapt. Don’t increase your suffering by resisting difficulties.
4. Practice Self-Compassion. Place a hand on your heart and remind yourself that everyone feels this way sometimes. ❤️‍🩹

By slowing down in turbulent times, we can help support ourselves. Embracing the changing nature of life can give you hope for the future and help you be a bit more happy today.

Tip #5: Come back to your values

When you get far away from what’s important to you, it’s hard to be happy. The never-ending necessary tasks of life can start to take over the ideas and activities that are important to you. A drop in happiness is sure to result. It’s useful to occasionally spend some time reflecting on what matters most, and if you could approach things in a way that better reflects your values.

One of my core values is learning (you never could have guessed 😉). When I stop learning new things, I start to shrivel. With the shrinking feeling comes a host of self-doubting thoughts. Spending quality time with an interesting book, sharing something I’ve learned recently with my husband, or watching a helpful training video can help bring me back to life, and it’s not long before I feel like my happy, optimistic self once again.

Coming back to your values can look like a lot of things. If it’s important to you to have a clean, uncluttered space, but life and/or kids seem to make it impossible, come back to your values. Ignoring what you want/need will add misery to your days. You may not be able to have it exactly how you’d like right now, but can you make it 1% better? Is there a simple way your family can support you that gets you a little bit closer to that clean, welcoming space?

A tidy home is important to both my husband and I. We do have a 14-month old at the moment so we try to be flexible 😉. Just the other night I realized that our kitchen floor is rarely clean, and spent a moment thinking about how we could improve it. While pondering I looked at the table, realized we wash off the table several times a day, and that the floor probably needs the same care. The kids were sick, so I let them know that when they were feeling better, we were going to start having each of us clean the floor once a day, and to be please be thinking of a time of day that works for them. My 10-yr old immediately said after school would be best. My 9-yr old said she’d like to do it in the morning. And voila! A plan is in place! Cleaner floors in my future—and that makes me happy.

It’s us coming back to that value of a clean home over and over again that paved the way for the supportive response I got from my 2 oldest kiddos. ❤️ It’s worth it to live according to your values.

Tip #6: Keep careful watch over your resources

There’s only so much of you to go around. It serves your family best if you’re the careful keeper of your main 3 resources of time, energy, and money.

Let’s take energy as an example. The amount of energy you have is dependent on your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual health. If you are intentional, you can do so much to impact your health in each of these areas. You can choose to go to bed even though it’s oh-so-tempting to stay up. You can take a minute to stretch or dance when you’re stressed. You can listen to an uplifting podcast. You can meditate or try EFT tapping. You can pray. You can enjoy a meal or conversation.

If you don’t stop to recharge, It can become a habit to always push through when your energy levels are empty.

Don’t.

If you notice you’re running low, please take a few moments to refill. You could probably keep going with next-to-no energy levels and motivation, but you will not be happy. And happy is what you deserve to be.

I know these 3 resources of time, energy, and money are not easy to manage effectively. It’s a challenge I’m still trying to win at. It IS worth the fight though–I think we can all agree that when our resources are enough and to spare, we feel a LOT happier.

In conclusion

Looks like our happy count for the article is 20 times 🥳. That’s 20X more happiness headed your way! I’m curious to know which tip best resonated with you? I’m grateful to have spent time in this post doing one of the things I love, writing. Now it’s off to bed so I have the energy I need for tomorrow, because after all, there’s only one wife and mom here at home.

May your family bond be unbreakable!

Jess