Do small towns make you happy?

Only a few factors go into making people happy. Looks to me like small towns are the best place to try.

At the AMIBA Conference last week, I heard about research into what makes people happy. Turns out, about 50% of your happiness depends on genetics. So you can’t control that. About 10% of your happiness is attributable to your circumstances, like your job, where you live, how much money you have. The remaining 40% comes down to deliberate actions you choose to take. Those actions include things like:

Making connections with other people
Staying connected to nature
Building your mastery and loving what you do
Living a balanced life

Look how much of this could be easier in a small town:

You can more easily make human connections
You’re closer to nature just outside of town
You can more easily create a balanced life where you aren’t caught in the rat race of keeping up to afford that high cost of living.
Opportunities for doing what you love and achieving mastery are arguably easier in a small town.

All of this depends, really, on you. You can make more deliberate actions toward happiness no matter where you live. My point is that small towns are great places to be happy if that’s what you want to do.

Keep making your town better,
Becky

PS – I’d love your help. A reader asked for ideas on how to get visitors to stop in your small town. I started the brainstorming here, and I could sure use your ideas.