Contentment: Definition, Examples, & Quotes

Maybe, like me, you’ve found contentment harder and harder to reach since the pandemic began. If you want to cultivate contentment in your life, know that you can even if your life and surroundings are imperfect. You don’t have to wait until you’ve solved every last problem. In this article, we’ll discuss strategies for reaching contentment, conditions that could create discontent, and examples of contentment. We’ll also talk about the contentment challenge, the contentment foundation, and contentment beads.
​
​Before reading on, if you’re a therapist, coach, or wellness entrepreneur, be sure to grab our free Wellness Business Growth eBook to get expert tips and free resources that will help you grow your business exponentially.​​​​​​​​​

Contentment is the calm joy or quiet pleasure we feel when our needs are (even transiently) satisfied and we are in harmony with ourselves and our surroundings. Researchers Monnot and Beehr describe contentment as “low in activation,” “high positive valence,” and “the lack of anxiety” (2014). 

Contented people feel “the urge to savor and integrate” (Fredrickson, 1998). When we’re content, we feel safe and not under pressure (Fredrickson, 1998), and we’re usually engaged in a personally meaningful activity. In my image of contentment, for example, my cat provides companionship, my book provides meaning and intellectual stimulation, and I’m safe from the chilly rain in my warm, dry house. Contentment can also follow a period of accomplishment, when we “stop to smell the roses” before pushing ahead with other life goals (Fredrickson, 1998). Indeed, contentment is associated with “mastery activities,” i.e., activities that provide a sense of competence (Berenbaum, Huang, & Flores, 2019, p. 252).

​Compared with contentment, happiness depends more on external circumstances. When good things happen to us, we feel happy. We’re happy because we’re making progress toward life goals–because, for example, we just got married or received a job offer. By contrast, you can create moments of contentment even in adverse circumstances, and contentment doesn’t depend on the achievement of big milestones. According to Jordan Mckenzie, happiness is “positive affect” whereas contentment is “positive reflection” (2015, p. 252). Mckenzie agrees that “happiness involves pleasurable experiences”; by contrast, contentment is “a fulfilling relationship with the self and society” (2015, p. 252).

Gratitude and contentment can reinforce each other. When you feel content, you’re likely grateful for the present’s small pleasures. For example, I’m often grateful for my cat and my books. Conversely, gratitude keeps you aware of the ways your life is meaningful and satisfying, so it likely promotes contentment.

Below, Neil Ihde explains that contentment is deciding that what you already have is enough–in other words, trading envy and the sense of scarcity for gratitude can make you content. He points out that “gratitude and contentment have a lot in common.”

What are examples of contentment? In this article’s introduction, I’ve already painted a picture of my typical contented weekend afternoon. To all appearances, my cat’s idea of contentment is a daily 8-hour nap (with breaks to look out the window and meow at birds). In Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Catherine Linton memorably describes her vision of contentment: “rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above […]” (Bronte, 1847).

Other examples of contentment include

• Resting after a satisfying workout
• Relaxing in the park with old high school friends after a successful college semester
• Enjoying a pancake brunch and manicure outing with a close friend
• Sunbathing on the beach after a busy season at work
• Playing fetch with your dog in a grassy park

Here are several strategies you can try to bring more contentment into your life:

1. Do something you’re good at. What is your element? Whether it’s stock market investing, painting, throwing parties, or something else, devoting more time to it may bring you contentment. I learned this lesson in graduate school–although writing gives me a sense of mastery and I feel contented when I write, I thought school left me too busy and tired to write. I felt unfulfilled and not quite contented for several years, until recently, when I challenged myself to get back into the habit of writing every day. Even though I’ve had to cut back on other activities (like socializing) to make time to write, the changes are worthwhile. I feel more confident, at ease, purposeful, and yes–contented–than I did when I wrote infrequently.
2. Practice gratitude. Practicing gratitude may help you tune into the ways your needs are already being met and appreciate the goals you’ve already achieved. Shifting your focus to the positive and meaningful parts of your life might bring on contentment.
3. Identify your needs and do your best to meet them. Easier said than done, especially if you’re facing financial, health, political, or other constraints. (Even identifying our exact needs may be difficult.) Most of us can’t meet all our needs, perfectly, all the time, but the good news is that you don’t have to perfect your life to feel contentment. When I’m unsure of my needs, I often reverse-engineer them from my wants. For example, I wanted a bike, so I could ask how I hoped the bike would improve my life. In my case, a bike would let me move around my city far more easily and quickly than walking–in other words, a bike would satisfy my need for more freedom. Now I can think about what specific changes (aside from acquiring a bike) I can make to maximize my freedom, and thus, possibly, my contentment. 
4. Connect with loved ones. Quality time with loved ones can promote features of contentment, including meaning and safety. If you plan interactions around a shared activity, you might also encourage mastery for all attendees. For example, if you and a friend both excel at baking, you could plan a cozy, contented afternoon replicating a recipe from a baking show. 
5. Protect your time. Overscheduling and overcommitting yourself could cause discontentment–it’s hard to feel meaning, peace, or competence as you frantically rush to check off every last item on your to-do list. Rushing also interferes with “savor[ing] and integrat[ing]” (Fredrickson, 1998) achievements.
6. ​Try not to compare yourself to others. A well-known (and successfully replicated) study found that, counterintuitively, Olympic bronze medalists are happier with their achievements than silver medalists. This finding has been attributed to comparison–whereas silver medalists compare themselves to higher-achieving gold medalists, bronze medalists compare themselves to competitors who didn’t win a medal (discussed in Goldman, 9 August 2012). Thus, silver medalists feel disappointment while bronze medalists feel relief. I’ve found that trading some social media time for daily journaling helps me reconnect with contentment–after an hour or two with my notebook, I’m less concerned with what everyone else is doing and more aware of what I want for my life.

What is the contentment challenge? The contentment challenge is a 90-day shopping moratorium proposed by Nancy Ray (n.d.). She set the challenge to help her audience balance their budgets, break financial bad habits, and reconnect with values beyond material consumption (Ray, n.d.).

In the video below, YouTuber Christianna of The Well-Behaved Wallet discusses her participation in the Contentment Challenge, saying, “I don’t need to buy anything to make myself better–I am enough.”

Many artists, writers, historical figures, and other thinkers have shared their thoughts on contentment. Their words may aid your own understanding of contentment:  

• “I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.” – Walt Whitman
• “We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.” – Bernard Williams
• “When you’re heartbroken, you’re at your most creative – you have to channel all your energies into something else to not think about it. Contentment is a creativity killer, but don’t worry – I’m very capable of making myself discontented.” – Florence Welch
• “True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
• “Be content with what you have;

rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.” – Lao Tzu

These quotes highlight the importance of gratitude and mindfulness to contentment, as well as the motivating force of discontentment.

​Want to learn more about contentment? Check out these articles:​​​

• Positive Emotions: List, 90+ Examples, Theories, & Tips
• ​Forgiveness: Definition, Tips, & How to Do It
• Positive Psychology: Definition, Theories, and Examples
• How To Forgive Yourself: For Cheating, Mistakes, or Hurting Someone
• ​Positivity: The Psychology, Definition, and Examples​​​​

Contentment is unself-conscious, satisfied, calm, sometimes masterful engagement with the world around you. When you’re contented, you might also feel peaceful, safe, competent, and in harmony with yourself. Unlike happiness, contentment doesn’t depend on external events going perfectly right; it rests more on the quality of your relationships with yourself and the world. Contentment can signal that we’re meeting our needs, and its absence can push us to make changes. Unlike complacency, contentment is not apathetic and does not tolerate an unjust status quo. 

To cultivate contentment, we can use our strengths, practice gratitude, identify and meet our needs, commune with our loved ones, set boundaries to prevent overwhelm, and avoid comparison. Although these changes are difficult, they may not all be necessary for your contentment, and you definitely don’t need to be perfect to cultivate contentment in your life. These changes are also only suggestions–everyone’s vision of contentment will differ, after all. When do you feel most contented? If you can shift your goals and schedule to accommodate more of these moments, you’ll be well on your way to a contented life.

• Berenbaum, H., Huang, A. B., & Flores, L. E. (2019). Contentment and tranquility: Exploring their similarities and differences. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(2), 252-259.
• Bronte, E. (1847). Wuthering heights.
• Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions?. Review of general psychology, 2(3), 300-319.
• Goldman, J. G. (9 August 2012). Why bronze medalists are happier than silver winners. Scientific American. 
• McKenzie, Jordan. “Happiness vs contentment? A case for a sociology of the good life.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 46.3 (2016): 252-267.
• Monnot, M. J., & Beehr, T. A. (2014). Subjective well-being at work: Disentangling source effects of stress and support on enthusiasm, contentment, and meaningfulness. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85(2), 204-218.
• Ray, N. (n.d.). What exactly is the contentment challenge? Nancy Ray. 
• Wellbeing lab (n.d.). The contentment foundation.