Shaking off sadness and cultivating much more happiness in your life is a very real and close possibility. You just have to put in a little work.

Here are proven ways to shake off your sadness and feel happy again:

1. Create better habits

One of the biggest differences between happy and unhappy people are the habits they have. Over 40% of your day isn’t spent on making active decisions but is a result of habit.

The truth about why it’s so hard to break out of old routines is simply the fact that it is a routine. Human beings are creatures of habit. Charles Duhigg explains in his book The Power of Habit how the basic structure of habits consists of a cue (trigger), the routine, and the reward.

If your habits are not making you healthier and happier, that means you may be automatically spending almost half your day doing things that make you more unhappy.

What you can do right now:

Changing your habits is much easier said than done, which is why you also need to modify your environment as much as possible to increase your chances of success. After doing so, try to tackle the routines which will help you to replace the bad habits with good habits.