Joy Code 101: Why You Need Your Own Definition of Happiness
You've climbed the ladder. You've earned the title. You're leading teams, making decisions that impact thousands, sitting in rooms where strategy gets shaped.
You are whipping your family in to shape, keeping them healthy, happy, engaged, on time. You check in on your aging parents, friends or siblings you are concerned about.
You take your supplements, closing your movement rings (most days!), fill the fridge, keep on top of admin and laundry (most weeks!)
You are quite literally – nailing and winning at life…
And yet….
There's this gnawing feeling that won't quiet down.
The exhaustion that a weekend can't touch. The sense that you're performing brilliance rather than living it. You've mastered every KPI except the one that matters most:
do you actually feel happy?
For the ‘C-suite’* women I work with, this disconnect shows up in familiar patterns:
• Lying awake at 3am, mind racing through tomorrow's agenda while your body begs for rest
• Achieving the "impossible" goal, only to feel... flat
• Looking around at the life you've built and wondering why it doesn't feel like you thought it would
• Moving so fast that you've forgotten what you're moving toward
If this resonates, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ and you are doing enough!
But consider this – perhaps you're just operating without your most essential navigation tool: a clear definition of what joy and happiness actually mean to you.
The Code That Changes Everything
Joy Code 101 is deceptively simple: Write your own definition of what joy or happiness means to you.
Not the LinkedIn version. Not what happy "should" feel like or the happy that would make everyone else happy. Not the Instagram or Pinterest version… Your definition.
I came to this code in my darkest days, when I'd lost everything and was rebuilding from rock bottom. I remember thinking, "I just want to be happy." But I realised something crucial:
I couldn't create happiness if I didn't know what that actually felt like or meant to ME.
So I closed my eyes and asked myself: What is happiness? How does it feel in my body?
I didn't have happy circumstances at the time (It was the year of the 5 D’s – Depression from death of my mum, divorce on the cards, a dead end in my career and crippling body dysmorphia). But I could cultivate the feeling by remembering moments when I was happy, or imagining future moments when I would be. (There's a whole code in that practice itself—we'll come to that later.)
My Definition: The Tension That Unlocks joy
As I sat with this question, I felt two seemingly opposing sensations arise in my body. I wrote them down in my diary (I can probably still find that entry):
Happiness is the sense of grounded contentment.
It's gratitude for everything I have. Looking around and thinking, "I'm so grateful for what I have"—even when, at that time, it wasn't very much. It's that feeling of being absolutely grounded in my gratitude, content exactly where I am. My boys, a warm bed, being alive, my dad, my animals, loyal friends…’
But true joy, the kind that makes you tingle, included something else:
Excitement for what's yet to come.
That delicious anticipation. Writing down: "I don't know what's coming, but I know it's going to be better than this, that the best is yet to come. I don't know what's arriving, but I'm excited to see what will happen."
As I progressed out of the darkness, this evolved: "I'm paving a path. I know what I'm creating. I know what I'm building, and I'm excited for it to come into fruition."
Happiness became: contentment AND excitement. Gratitude AND anticipation.
This makes sense when you understand how happiness actually works. I once heard Arthur Brooks (the king of happiness research) say that true happiness is when we're always moving, that feeling of momentum.
Gratitude alone isn't enough. Being present isn't enough. We also need to know that the best is yet to come. That there's more beauty arriving. That we're moving toward something.
How This Solves Your C-Suite Struggle
For high-achieving women, this code is particularly powerful because it addresses your core challenge: you've been optimising for the wrong definition of success. True success is being happy in yourself, joy as a purpose.
When you're clear on your definition of joy, several things shift:
The 3am insomnia eases. Your mind isn't racing because you're uncertain about the destination, you're simply planning the route to somewhere you genuinely want to go.
Achievements start to feel meaningful again. When you know your definition includes both gratitude for now AND excitement for what's next, each milestone becomes a celebration and a launching pad, not just another box ticked.
You stop waiting for circumstances to make you happy. This is crucial: I discovered I could feel happy in the moment by cultivating the feeling in my body, regardless of my circumstances. You don't need the promotion, the exit, the perfect work-life balance to start feeling joy. You need clarity on what you're creating.
You can actively design toward it. Once I had my definition, gratitude + anticipation, I could focus on cultivating both. More gratitude practices. More dreaming. More building toward what excited me. That's when everything started to unlock.
Your Turn: Write Your Definition
Your definition might be the same as mine. It might be similar. Or I might have just unlocked a realisation: Oh, that's where I need to focus my attention.
Maybe you need more gratitude practice, more grounding in what's already beautiful in your life.
Maybe you're so present-focused that you've stopped dreaming, you need to reconnect with anticipation and excitement for what's coming.
Maybe you've been chasing other people's definitions of success and need to get honest about what actually lights you up.
Here's your practice:
Close your eyes. Take a breath. Ask yourself: What is joy? What is happiness? How does it feel in my body when I'm truly happy?
Don't think it. Feel it. Let the words come from your body's wisdom, not your strategic or logical mind.
Then write it down. Keep it somewhere you can see it. Because this becomes your North Star, your compass direction and the definition you can actively cultivate, create, and focus on.
This is Joy Code 101. Know your definition of joy.
Because you can't strategise your way to something you haven't defined.
And you, as a brilliant leader, deserve to know where you're actually going.
All my love
Ali xo
* When I talk about C-suite women, I'm not just talking about corporate executives with fancy titles. I'm talking about any woman who's running something significant—whether that's a boardroom, a business, or a household. You're making high-stakes decisions, holding space for everyone else, and carrying the weight of responsibility. If you're the one everyone turns to, the one who keeps it all running you're C-suite in my world.
Ready to unlock more codes and redesign your C-suite life around joy instead of hustle? Join us inside The Joy Rebellion where we're making this year the year joy becomes your strategy, not your reward.
Not sure what the best fit is for you - book a call with me to make a decision.
Join The Joy Rebellion here or Learn more about working with me
The Joy Rebellion
The Joy Rebellion is my membership for women who thought life would get easier at 40 and instead find themselves juggling ageing parents, teenagers, hormones, careers, relationships and the quiet question of “is this it?” all at the same time.
It’s a grounded, supportive space to choose yourself without blowing up your life - a “for you” moment in the middle of the chaos - using joy as a strategy to help you anchor back into who you are, stay in your own energy, and return to your life clearer, steadier and still brilliant in the boardroom, the bedroom and your body.
“Just a few short weeks ago I was stuck and everything felt hard
My finances, my emotions & my energy - nothing was flowing
I met Ali in the summer and have been following her Instagram since. Her joy looked beautiful and i realised it was what I wanted and needed in my life
Joining Ali’s membershiphas literally turned my life around
I am now overflowing with abundance, I wake up excited and I’m falling heavily in love with myself
My self worth, happiness and finances have sky rocketed and I now feel full of hope, big dreams and so very grateful for the life I have
Life really is better when you Joy is at the core of each decision you make and I’m so thrilled Ali showed me the way”
