Are you looking for ways to protect your joy from being stolen?

If so, this post is for you.

You will learn 22 ways to protect your joy so you don’t let anyone steal your joy.

This is how you do NOT let anyone steal it.

22 Ways to NOT Let Anyone Steal Your Joy

1. Understand What It Means to Have Your Joy Stolen

It sucks to have someone disrespect you SO much.

It’s like a punch in the gut.

And even worse?

The person intentionally disrespects you.

That’s where your happiness is truly broken.

With this in mind, you might be asking yourself:

“Can Someone Steal My Joy?”

The answer to this question is:

Yes, they can.

Why?

Because if it’s a traumatic and unforgiving action, they snatch your happiness like a robber stealing money from an old woman on the sidewalk.

However, you have the power to NOT let these thieves steal your joy like this.

In many cases, only one thing is required to protect your joy.

What is it?

It’s to move on to something YOU can control.

I’ll tell you what you can do now to keep your joy: 

1. Write down on a sheet of paper why you are losing your joy.

2. Write down what you can control and can’t control.

3. Focus on what you CAN control and improve those aspects of the situation to make future outcomes better.

Now if your joy was stolen as a result of losing a loved one or a tragic event like 9/11, your pain will sting forever.

The best action plan I recommend is:

1. Realize it’s NOT your fault.

2. If possible, don’t dwell on the situation or you will worsen every aspect of your life.

3. Seek professional counseling regarding your situation if necessary.

4. Talk to someone who has gone through your situation to obtain valuable insight on how to handle your unique situation.

2.  Assess Who Is Stealing Your Joy  

This is what you do when someone steals your joy.   

1. Understand the importance of identifying who is stealing your joy so you can correctly solve your problem.

2. List people who you suspect are causing you stress and discomfort. This could be a family member, a teacher, a boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.

3. List behaviors these people are doing to steal your joy. These behaviors could be yelling, cursing, gaslighting, making threats, etc. See this list here for more examples of questionable behaviors.

4. Tell a 3rd party about your situation to get a neutral perspective of what’s going on. This 3rd party can be a non-biased family member, a priest, a guidance counselor, a trusted member of the community, etc.

5. Using the information from points A)-D), write down in one sentence who is stealing your joy and why they are stealing it.

This is who is stealing your joy and WHY they are stealing your joy.

These 2 pieces of information are critical in protecting your joy and preventing it from being stolen in the future.

3. Don’t Let Negative Words Hurt You 

Negative words can be crushing, more so than physical abuse in some cases.

The best thing to do is simply focus on your future, what you need to do, and let go of your past.

Dwelling will NOT change what happened. It will make your future worse.

Also, it’s more about the other person being offensive than anything, so don’t take it personally if they give you this attack.

If anything, read this article from Lifehack here if you want more tips on how to not let negative words hurt you.

4. Don’t Let Another Person’s Anger Make You Feel Bad

Listen, another person’s anger is more about them than you.

They want to make you angry because they are insecure about themselves.

They project anger onto you because they have no productive things to do for themselves.

Also, don’t think words are the only expression of anger. This can include body language, which people use to make you feel powerless.

So, do yourself a favor and don’t believe the anger is about you. 

5. Don’t Rely on Anyone Else for Your Happiness 

Here’s the thing about life:

You can’t rely on others to give things to you.

Whenever you can’t get something, you have to help yourself.

This includes happiness.

Happiness is a state of mind that you choose in any circumstance you are in.

Unless you are in a catastrophic situation, it’s better to find something that makes you happy and think about it when you are feeling down.

This makes you happier at the moment and gives you control of your happiness.

6. Don’t Compare Yourself To Others

Most people fall into this trap. 

They try to impress people they don’t like with stuff they don’t need.

The best ways to avoid this trap are:

1. Don’t buy things you don’t need

2. Don’t worry about what other people think

7. Understand That Most People Don’t Care About What You Do

People only care about themselves.

They are preoccupied with their problems and their wants.

Hence, unless you have to do business with them, there is no point in trying to impress them.

Be free to express yourself in ways that make you happy.

8. Have Mindfulness

Here’s what I mean by this:

Mindfulness is the state of being actively aware of what is going on around you.

This is important to know because protecting your joy requires you to have an active awareness of your situation and not get caught up in imagination.

If you get caught up in imagination, you will lose sight of the reality on the ground and you’ll become oblivious to what you need to do to protect your joy.

So, when it comes to protecting your joy, here are some action steps you can take to be mindful of your situation:

1. Understand who is stealing your joy and why they are stealing your joy as discussed in “Assess Who Is Stealing Your Joy.”

2. Work with the appropriate person and/or read through the appropriate tips in this post to come up with an action plan for resolving the situation at hand.

For instance, let’s say that you determined your brother is stealing your joy because he is yelling at you for practicing the piano for the school recital.

A way you can resolve this is to tell a parent (or someone you trust) what is going on.

Then, by discussing your situation in more detail, you and the helper can talk to the brother about the advantages and disadvantages of yelling at you.

The advantages can be having a sense of power (or so he thinks).

The disadvantages can be losing his toy or getting a timeout for misbehaving. 

And in some cases, getting kicked out of the house. With this, you all can show him the financial reality of what happens when he gets kicked out of the house and it negatively impacts his ability to get what he wants.

You can even show him examples of those who get kicked out of the house and how their ability to get what they wanted was eliminated.

This is one of many examples of how being mindful of the situation at hand can help resolve the problem.

If you know who is stealing your joy and why they are stealing it, you have set the foundation for correctly preventing someone from stealing your joy.

Now, another way to protect your joy is this:

9. Don’t Let Anyone Rob You Of Your Peace

No one should deprive you of your peace. 

If you have people in your life who won’t give you any space, they could be robbing you of your peace.

This is unacceptable, regardless of who the person is.

They do this to take advantage of you in some way shape or form.

In other words, they want to manipulate you.

Now, this is different from an ethical business person trying to capitalize on another person’s problem to get the person to work for less than the going rate.

This is smart.

This “taking advantage” thing refers to something called gaslighting.

This phenomenon involves the other person saying false statements to make you question your reality.

In other words, you might know something to be true, but the other person says something else occurred.

This is unacceptable.

At this point, your peace and your joy are being intruded and it’s time for you to take action.

Now, what action do you take?

Read on to way 13 to find out.

10. Take Time for Your Mental Health

This one is important.

It’s sometimes more important than physical health.

If your mental health is not up to par with where it should be to live a happy and healthy life, your joy will vanish.

With this said, if your mental health is suffering in any way, the action step to take is as follows:

1. Talk to a trustworthy individual about your situation ASAP.

That’s it.

Everything else will fall into place depending on your situation.

If the first person you reach out to isn’t helpful, try someone else until you get the right help.

The bottom line with mental health is if you don’t have it, you will never be joyful.

End of story.

So, if you are losing your joy because of poor mental health, the action step I listed above should be your first step in resolving your issue.

This person will typically identify the problem from a neutral perspective (which is good) since they are less emotionally involved in the situation than you are.

11. Make Personal Boundaries and Stick To Them 

If people keep invading your space when you want or need to do something else, you will get annoyed and might feel like imploding at the moment.

That’s why when it is possible for you, you HAVE to take a stand and say you will not do (fill in the activity) at this time.

This time is for me to do (fill in the activity).

Now, regarding how to implement this tip, more details will be discussed in way 13 titled “Distance Yourself from Negative People.”

To fully understand way 13, read this:

12. See Haters For Who They Are

Here’s what a “hater” is.

Hater =  Someone who doesn’t respect any part of you.

This could mean your time, your generosity, your space, your inner and outer beauty, etc.

If the person doesn’t respect at least one thing about you, they are a hater.

Haters are those who do not warrant your time and attention in any circumstance where you are free to walk away from them.

They’ll drain your energy and they’ll mentally and physically exhaust you.

To get rid of these haters from your life, you need to distance yourself from them, which we will get into more detail right now.

13. Distance Yourself from Negative People (aka: “Haters”)

In the 1st section of this post titled “Understand What It Means to Have Your Joy Stolen,” we mentioned the importance of focusing on what you can control and improving those aspects to make your situation better.

Have that note in mind as you learn how to distance yourself from “haters.”

When it comes to haters, there come in 2 categories:

1. Those who have financial leverage over you
2. Those who do NOT have financial leverage over you

Let’s first define what financial leverage is.

Financial Leverage = The ability to get someone to do something since the other person has to do what you say to get the money he/she needs to survive.

I’m pretty certain there’s at least one person who has financial leverage over you.

This person is NOT easy to get rid of.

To deal with this person, you need to do everything they say as long as it is not illegal and not unethical.

If they tell you to do something illegal or unethical, call 911 immediately.

If they tell you to do something that is not illegal or unethical, do what they say.

Why?

Because they are, in essence, your clients.

In this situation, the only thing you have control over is your ability to follow their directions.

When you do this, you implement something called harmony, a sales trigger designed to get prospects to say yes to what you are offering since you provide a benefit they desire.

As you harmonize with “haters,” they are less likely to make your situation worse.

In other words, since you are following their directions, you won’t get punished and they can’t punish you or they’ll lose what they want.

Do you understand?

Now in your free time, you will do anything in your power to increase your earning potential to build the financial leverage required to walk away from the situation without letting it hurt you.

An example of this is learning a skill or obtaining a degree so you can serve those who are willing to pay more for your services.

Once you have reached the point where you no longer need to serve this “hater” to survive, you simply do this:

Politely let them go from your life.

Even if it’s a family member.

When you have financial leverage, you don’t have to be stuck with someone you hate.

You just go.

That’s all there is to it for distancing yourself from negative people.

Here’s one additional tip before we wrap up this section:

Don’t criticize your haters.

Why not criticize the haters?

To avoid an unnecessary fight.

What goes around comes around.

If you do something bad to someone, the world will make you pay.

Yes, it’s tempting to criticize the other person for actions they did to you.

However, you don’t want to put yourself in a situation worse than the one you’re in right now.

Instead, express your concerns about this “hater” to someone you trust without this “hater” knowing.

If you have a genuine compliment for the hater, tell them.

It will reduce their hostility towards you, you’ll avoid a fight (be it verbal or physical) and, in some cases, get them to cooperate with what you want them to do.

Have that note in mind when dealing with people and use it if need be.

14. Don’t Neglect Your Relationships

This is a big one.

Why?

Good relationships make us happy and have good health.

Loneliness increases cortisol levels, which is a stress hormone in our bodies.

As a result, we become unhealthier and dissatisfied with our lives.

On the other hand, maintaining good relationships with others serves as a key aspect of maintaining good health and happiness.

One Harvard study following the lives of 724 men found that good relationships are necessary for maintaining happiness.

This is critical.

As it pertains to your joy, if you have good relationships, you MUST do everything in your power to maintain them.

You’ll always want someone to do business with or to hang around with.

Maintaining these relationships comes with 2 ingredients.

These ingredients are:

1. Be the leader

2. Always provide value to them. 

Why these 2 ingredients?

For starters, most people won’t take the initiative to reach out to the other person to do something.

Hence, it’s your task to reach out.

How do you do it?

Simply listen to your gut and reach out to the person when your gut tells you to reach out to them.

You’ll come out with far more positive outcomes than negative outcomes if you do this.

As for providing value, remember, people, are selfish.

They are only interested in what they want.

In relationships, your job is to unselfishly serve them (without trying to please them; don’t confuse this with being a people pleaser).

Talk in terms of the other person’s interests, make every conversation about them, and be genuinely interested in them.

Give them what they want before asking them to do something for you.

This way, they’ll become interested in you and feel internally obligated to do what YOU want them to do for you.

In general, that’s how you build and maintain relationships with others.

Come from a position of value and be proactive in building and maintaining these relationships before asking for anything in return.

Over time, your joy will flourish as you attract positive people into your life.

15. Have Gratitude For and Appreciate the Things You Have

A lot of times, someone takes what they have for granted.

As a result, people around them feel unappreciated and leave this person behind.

This makes everyone sadder in the process.

In many cases, the individual doesn’t recognize the value in the things they have.

As a result, the individual gets an illusion that people around them are taking his/her joy when in reality, the individual is the one taking the joy out of them.

This is something you need to recognize:

You might feel as if people are taking your joy.

Sometimes, this illusion is false.

It is up to you to recognize this illusion and to change your behavior accordingly if you and/or a professional identify that it’s you who is causing the problem.

This problem usually stems from you not appreciating people enough to warrant them to continue providing the value you seek.

If this is the case, you need to seriously reflect on the value other people provide you before accusing them of taking away your happiness.

For instance, consider this:

If you are an adult and a parent always supported and still supports your endeavors even if your endeavors don’t go along the traditional path in life, don’t you think that warrants praise?

And if someone goes out of their way to cook you a meal without expecting anything back from you or treats you in an unusually kind way, don’t you think you should appreciate that?

If you don’t genuinely appreciate things people do for you out of the goodness of their hearts, that’s the problem.

To regain your joy in these situations, you have to give people credit where credit is due.

Not only will other people appreciate this and be internally obligated to help you, but you’ll feel better inside as well.

If you don’t believe me, consider this:

A study from Harvard University and the University of British Columbia suggests that those who reflect on the last time they gave someone something were happier than those who did not think of a time when they gave someone something.

Additionally, those who give something are more likely to do it again because the feeling that comes with it is extremely addictive (in a good way). 

In turn, when you give, you become more joyful.

So if you haven’t given thanks and/or genuine appreciation for things you have, I challenge you to take out a sheet of paper.

Think about those who have provided something of value to you without asking for anything back out of the goodness of their heart.

Write this person down and the thing(s) they have done that is of value to you on a sheet of paper (even if they billed you for it and they did an exceptional job).

If it’s more than one person, write them all down as well.

Then, at your earliest convenience, write them a letter of appreciation or tell them to their face that you appreciate them for who they are and/or what they’ve done for you.

This will make you at least 10X happier than what you are right now.

Guaranteed.

16. Know Your Worth

Just as much as you are giving to others, you have to make sure you are getting paid what you are worth if you are in business.

For example, if an employer is paying you less than what you’re worth, this is a problem you need to address.

Your joy will significantly worsen if you let this linger.

Or, maybe you’ve done your chores at home and you follow all of the house rules and treat everyone with respect, but your parents don’t commend you for your actions.

These are situations where the person (or people) you are dealing with have interior motives to take advantage of you.

These people are not worth appreciating and therefore, they need to be removed from your life ASAP.

How you deal with these situations is done on a case-by-case basis, so I can’t give a clear answer for how to solve this problem.

In general, if you know who is causing the problem and why they are causing it, the very first course of action is to talk to a trusted professional about your situation as discussed earlier in this post.

Then, handle the situation based on whether or not this person has financial leverage over you or not.

But, know your worth because it will say a lot about the other person you are dealing with.

17. Please Forgive Others

Sometimes, people don’t do despicable things on purpose.

And even if they did, chances are they did it with no ill-intent or because they got the wrong information on what to do.

In these cases, you should forgive them.

People are bound to make mistakes and if you expect perfection out of them, you will burn yourself out and you will make those around you mad.

As a result, they’ll want to distance themselves from you and you’ll have fewer people to associate with.

Not good.

Now, I’m not telling you to forgive the person who broke into your house to steal $500 or the terrorist who crashed 2 planes into the World Trade Center on a big bad day.

But, at every opportunity, give someone a second chance if they messed up something and didn’t commit the mistake with ill-intent.

It will make life less stressful.

18. Pray and Meditate

If you’re religious, prayer can help you connect with your higher power and gain control of your life.

Many people testify to the benefits of prayer in bringing joy into their life.

One person in this article mentioned how prayer got him or her good grades in school and got them through hard times in life.

In one research booklet published by the Mental Health Foundation of the United Kingdom, praying can help someone improve their mental health and recover from traumatic events.

According to this article, 92% of Hurricane Katrina victims prayed after the storm and this greatly aided in their recovery after the storm.

This evidence suggests praying as a medium to restoring your joy after a tragic or unfortunate event.

As for meditation, it can help protect your joy.

One study took 30 medical students and assessed their cortisol levels after meditation.

After meditating for 4 days, the “average serum cortisol levels” for the participants decreased significantly.

According to the study, meditation reduces stress and decreases the risk of diseases.

As you know, stress robs you of your joy if you let it get the best of you.

Since meditation can reduce the amount of stress you have, it can increase your level of joy once you implement it.

So, to reduce stress and potentially increase your joy, meditate.

For me, what works well is sitting in the front of my chair for 10 minutes with my eyes closed, my back straight, and listening to pleasant music, particularly this track:

Every time I meditate, I feel more pleasant than when I’m not meditating.

I’m sure you’ll experience the same benefits when you try meditation.

You’ll feel happier, focused, and your chance of having a joyful day will increase.

Try it today.

You won’t regret it.

19. Have Self-Compassion and Forgive Yourself

Self-compassion is the process of being kind and understanding to yourself when something doesn’t go your way.

We all make mistakes.

It’s inevitable.

But beat ourselves for something insignificant?

That’s not the right way to go about it.

We’ll make our situation worse if we do that.

And research supports this.

One Stanford Medicine article says that those who practice self-forgiveness are happier, have better mental health, and are in better physical health than those who do not engage in self-forgiveness.

It quotes perfectionism as “toxic.”

When you believe that anything less than perfect is unacceptable, you begin to doubt yourself and you worsen your performance as a result.

You let your mind dwell on your past mistakes and distract you from improving and doing better.

In essence, perfectionism produces the opposite effect of what it’s intended to do.

Now, when achieving any goal, you should always keep your eyes on being perfect since you will achieve far greater results than those who believe achieving perfection on a task is impossible.

When you prepare for anything, prepare like you will get 100% since you’ll catch every detail that you would’ve missed otherwise.

What I’m referring to is when you don’t achieve perfection.

Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get, say, a 100% on a test when you get 97%. 

It’s not the end of the world.

Recognize all of the things you did right, focus on correcting what you did wrong and move on.

It’s that simple.

You won’t dwell in the past if you take this approach.

As a result, you won’t rob yourself of your joy.

I hope that made sense. Comment below if you want me to clarify this point further. I’ll be happy to help you out.

20. Modify Your Behavior

As we talked about earlier, sometimes you’re robbing yourself of your joy.

Blaming people is toxic. 

In most cases, it will only end you up in a worse situation than the one you’re in right now.

No one likes someone who doesn’t take responsibility for their actions.

You are not exempt from taking responsibility for your actions.

If you’ve been unappreciative of someone for what they do for you or you’ve smashed a chair every time you got a 97% instead of 100% or you don’t forgive others for one small mistake they made, it’s time to reassess yourself.

I challenge you to reflect on times when you felt your joy was being stolen.

Write the behaviors you were doing during those times on a sheet of paper.

Also, write down which of these behaviors you know you need to modify.

If you know you need to modify them, chances are you need to modify them.

Talk to someone you trust about your situation so you can get a neutral perspective on this.

Chances are, you will find the answers you need to correct your behavior so you can get your joy back.

If you feel this person is biased against you or biased in your favor, try asking someone else until you get a neutral perspective.

This is a great first step in solving your problem.

21. Have Faith

You’ve got to have it.

Without faith, you have nothing.

You have to believe in your future or you’ll never be happy.

If lack of faith is what’s causing you to lose joy, look inside you.

What quality makes you unique?

Write it down to remind yourself of what this quality is.

This is something you can use to bring abundance to your life.

For instance, if your best quality is honesty, it’s a beautiful quality to have because we live in a world of liars.

Most people don’t like dealing with liars.

So if you use your unique quality of being honest to serve others, you can bring abundance to your life with that.

People will kill to do business with someone like you provided you have everything else they are looking for.

Then, once you have this quality, find out what other people want and give it to them, whether it’s skills, knowledge, candy, etc.

This will turn you into a gem in a sea of bags of potato chips flying in the wind.

Once you have confidence in yourself with all of the qualities you can provide to people, you’ll restore your self-belief.

Hence, you’ll have faith in your abilities to make things happen and life will become such a joy for you.

22. Make Time for Things That Matter 

This is why you work (aside from surviving, ugh, right?).

You want to do things that matter to you.

You want to take a vacation to your dream destination and soak in all of the glory of your hard work and success.

You want to spend more time with your family so you can see your kids become the best version of themselves.

You want to pursue your passion.

Whatever it is you want, you can have it.

You just need to make time for it.

It’s easier than you think.

It all starts with setting your mind to what you want to do.

This will drive you to action.

Here’s an action step plan you can follow to permanently protect your joy in as little as 10 minutes per day:

A) Think about the thing you want to do for 2-3 minutes.

B) Close your eyes and let it marinate in your mind.

C) Write down what you want to do. 

D) Keep this image in your head until you achieve your goal.

It could be something as simple as reading a book or listening to music or meditating or even something adventurous like skydiving.

Or most importantly, your health. If it’s not a priority, make it a priority or you’ll pay for it dearly.

E) Next, find out how many minutes you have per day. This is your free time.

F) Once you know your free time, seek out the specific knowledge you need to achieve your passion. This could be books or articles or mentors or courses, etc.

G) Lastly, take action every day to achieve what it is you want. You’ll eventually get there.

That’s it.

When you do these things, you’ll feel empowered and accomplished to the point where your joy becomes invincible, unbreakable, and indestructible.

This is what you need to do to permanently protect your joy.

That’s all there is to it.

If you do any of the things outlined in the post to protect your joy, your chances of actually protecting your joy and preventing it from being stolen will drastically increase.

I promise you.

Wrap Up

That’s the list of ways you can use to protect your joy from being stolen.

I hope this post helped you in protecting your joy.

If you found this post helpful and you’d like more content that’ll make you more productive and help you reach your full potential, subscribe to Join the Island below.

New posts providing you immediate value you will be sent right when they’re published.

Don’t let anyone steal your joy.

Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: Comment below with any questions you have. I’ll be happy to help you out 🙂