The muscles we use most shape who we become—and the smile muscle may be the most powerful one we have.
Look around at the faces near you—and then look in the mirror.
Some of us have well-developed smile muscles. Others have developed the muscles of sadness, or anger, or expressionlessness. They didn’t form by accident. They formed through repetition, habit, and the small choices we made every single day without realizing we were choosing at all.
We often forget we’re making those choices. But it’s OK. We can start choosing differently right now.
The Muscles We Build
Just as our bodies are shaped by physical exercise, our faces—and our inner lives—are shaped by the expressions we repeat most often.
There are people with well-developed laughter muscles. Just as there are people with well-developed sadness muscles. And there are many people who, over time, have built expressionless muscles: the flat, guarded, closed-off face that moves through life without responding to it.
Expressionless muscles are the ones we should be most careful about. Those who keep using them lose something precious: their self-esteem, their aliveness, and their connection to who they truly are.
What we want instead are responsive muscles. These are muscles that meet life with warmth, cheer, and love. And the beginning of all of that is the smile muscle.
What the Smile Muscle Does
Our expression is both a reflection of how we feel and a generator of it. When we activate the smile muscle, something real happens inside us. Our cells awaken. Our energy flows, and our mindset begins to shift. We become more beautiful. And something remarkable happens: those around us become more beautiful, too.
This change creates a ripple effect of energy. Our energy touches others, shifting the room, then the day, and our lives. In this way, the smile muscle changes our destiny.
No Conditions, No Reasons
The most important thing to understand is: we do not need a reason to smile.
We may be waiting for good news, for a problem to be solved, or for someone to say the right thing. We may believe the smile must come after something changes. But that is the thinking that keeps us stuck.
There are no conditions or reasons required. Regardless of what’s going on around us, we can choose how to respond. Will we exercise our laughter muscles, sadness muscles, anger muscles, or expressionless muscles. This choice is especially potent in how we respond to ourselves. Whatever happens, we can smile at ourselves. Right now, without waiting for anything, we can give ourselves encouragement and hope.
When we find the smile muscle this way—unconditionally, freely—we come back to ourselves. We become more comfortable with ourselves and gain clarity, letting us see our true selves inside. That is what rebirth feels like: discovering ourselves again, today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
A Clearer Path to Our Goals
Returning to ourselves also restores our vision. When we are closed off, expressionless, or stuck in cycles of worry and self-doubt, our goals feel distant. We lose sight of what we are working toward and why. The smile muscle helps clear that fog. As our energy lifts and our sense of self strengthens, we begin to see our path again.
A settled, positive mind—the mind generated by well-exercised smile muscles—is a focused mind. From that place, we take better actions, make clearer decisions, and move toward our goals with more energy and less friction.
Positivity is not a reward for achieving our dreams. It is one of the conditions that makes achieving them possible.
A Simple Practice: The Hourly Smile
Try this: set an alarm for once an hour.
When it goes off, activate the smile muscle. You can even work that muscle up into laughter. Smile brightly and fully. Notice how your body, your energy, your mood, and your mindset change.
This simple practice is one of returning to ourselves. We check in and make the energy that our true selves resonate with through our smiles and laughter. We remind our cells that we are alive and awake, and we choose how we meet this moment.
Over time, the smile response will become a reflex. Through this kind of transformation, though seemingly small, we become reborn. We and those around us will become happier for it.
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