Project: Dabble

Explore how joy fuels learning, enhances motivation and fosters meaningful connections in the pursuit of knowledge and personal growth.

An African proverb from Ghana says: “When you gather firewood, you invite others to light their fire” (Appiah, 2024).

That idea is at the heart of ubuntu, an African concept that emphasizes how our identities are shaped through our relationships with others. Our well-being is tied to the well-being of our family, community and environment. The theologian John Mbiti captured it this way: “I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am” (Onyebuchi Eze, 2018).

Learning is like gathering wood for a fire. When you take initiative, learn a new skill and pursue your aspirations, your learning can create possibilities for others to pursue dreams of their own (Appiah, 2024).

One of the greatest joys of learning is recognizing that what you are doing matters, both to yourself and to those around you. Yet we often think of joy in learning as a reward that comes at the end. It’s the flash of an “aha” moment, the pride of mastering a new skill or the satisfaction of earning a career-enhancing credential. But joy does more than mark success. Joy is a catalyst for learning.

Joy-centered learning is an approach that intentionally creates the conditions for joy to strengthen and sustain meaningful learning. Joy serves as a renewable resource that you can harness to deepen your engagement, achieve your goals and reach your full potential (Camfield, 2025). It grows through connection, whether someone helps you learn or what you have learned becomes useful to someone else. A joy-centered approach helps you recognize how learning has made your world larger, expanded your capabilities and deepened your engagement with life.

This doesn’t mean learning will be easy. Let’s face it, learning is hard work. But joy can exist alongside effort, frustration and even failure. It comes from pushing yourself toward greater mastery and discovering solutions you could not see before. And rather than waiting for joy to emerge as a byproduct of persistence or success, you can actively cultivate it by shaping the conditions in which learning takes place.

What Is Joy?

Joy is the uplifting experience of recognizing something as meaningful or connected to our flourishing. When people describe moments of joy, they often describe a range of emotions. Joy shows up as simple pleasure when we bite into a ripe peach or as a full-on belly laugh over a shared joke with a friend. It emerges quietly, too, in the contentment of curling up with a good book after a long day or the wonder of standing beneath a star-filled sky. It appears in moments of gratitude when someone is there for us during a difficult time or in the delight of watching a child take her first steps. At its most intense, joy can carry us beyond ourselves in feelings of ecstasy or bliss.

Although we often use the words interchangeably, joy and happiness are not quite the same. The late psychologist Chris M. Meadows distinguished happiness from joy in his book A Psychological Perspective on Joy and Emotional Fulfillment. Happiness, he argued, is a state of mind that grows out of how we evaluate important areas of our lives over a period of time (Meadows, 2014). Joy, by contrast, is an emotion that arises, often unexpectedly, when a deep desire or quest connected to our flourishing is fulfilled.

In The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh (2015) illustrates this distinction: A traveler crossing the desert who sees a stream of cool water experiences joy; drinking the water brings happiness.

Why Joy Is Central to the Learning Process

Joy is more than a pleasant experience. Like other emotions, it plays an important role in how we learn. Emotions shape how well we pay attention, how motivated we feel, which strategies we use and whether we keep going when something becomes difficult.

Psychologist Reinhard Pekrun’s control-value theory helps explain why. He argues that learners’ emotions are influenced by whether they feel capable of succeeding and whether what they are doing feels worthwhile (Pekrun, 2006). Enjoyment can be especially helpful because it keeps attention on the activity itself. It can also strengthen motivation, support flexible thinking and make it easier to adjust strategies when something is not working.

Research generally supports a connection between positive emotions and learning outcomes. A meta-analysis of 21 studies of fully online learning found that positive emotions were moderately associated with better academic performance, while negative emotions showed a smaller negative relationship with performance (Qi, 2025). The pattern held across students of different ages and learning contexts, although the strength of the relationship varied.

A study of 300 university students learning English as a foreign language found a similar pattern. Emotions such as enjoyment and hope were associated with higher final grades, while anger, hopelessness and shame were linked with lower performance (Alzaanin, 2025). The study also found that negative emotions were reduced when teachers adapted instruction and materials to students’ learning preferences.

These findings suggest that the emotional experience of learning matters. They also point to the importance of creating conditions that support positive emotions. Pekrun argues that clear instruction, appropriately challenging tasks, authentic learning, autonomy, cooperation and supportive relationships are important factors in fostering positive emotions during learning.

While we cannot control every emotion that arises, we can take an active role in creating more opportunities for joyful learning. One place to start is by paying attention to the moments when joy already appears.

Try This: Capture Your Joy

Get into the habit of noticing moments of joy when you are learning something new. For the next week, record these moments of joyful learning, whether at work, at home or in your community. Did you master a new recipe that made you proud? Learn to use a new software program at work that helped you get more done? Discover a fun fact about worms from your child? Tuning your antennae to these experiences can help you recognize what makes learning meaningful and motivates you to persevere through challenges.

In Joy Is a Risk Worth Taking, psychologist Kelly McGonigal recommends several creative ways to capture moments of joy. Here are three approaches you can try:

1. Start a joy list.

Each day, write down at least one moment of joy you experienced while learning. Be specific, and challenge yourself to notice something different each day. Your list doesn’t have to be limited to words. Add sketches, doodles or colorful illustrations to bring your experiences to life.

2. Photograph your joy.

Take a photo or short video of something that brings you joy while learning. It could be a project you’re working on, a place you’re exploring or a moment of discovery. Collect your images in a digital gallery, create a collage or share your favorite moments on social media.

3. Share your joy.

Find a friend, family member or fellow learner to exchange moments of joy with. Send each other a daily text, photo or voice message describing something that sparked your curiosity or made you smile. Sharing these experiences gives you an opportunity to celebrate one another’s discoveries and strengthen your connection.

Reflect

At the end of the week, look back at the moments you collected. What brought you the most joy? Did you notice any patterns? How did these experiences affect your curiosity, motivation or willingness to try something new? Consider how you might create more opportunities for these experiences in your everyday life.

Like gathering wood for a fire, learning with joy creates warmth and possibility that can spread well beyond you to enhance the lives of others.

References

Alzaanin, E. (2025). Achievement emotions: Their relationship with academic performance and learning styles in EFL learners. Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(1).

Appiah, R. (2024). Proverbial positive psychology: can we leverage African ancient wisdom to promote flourishing? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(6), 995–1010. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2282771

Camfield, E. K. (Ed.). (2025). Joy-centered pedagogy in higher education: Uplifting teaching and learning for all. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003532224

McGonigal, K. (2026). Joy is a risk worth taking. Avery.

Meadows, C. M. (2014). A psychological perspective on joy and emotional fulfillment. Routledge.

Nhất Hạnh, T. (2015). The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching. Harmony.

Onyebuchi Eze, M. (2018). I am because you are. The UNESCO Courier. [Updated April 20, 2023]. Available from: https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/i-am-because-you-are

Pekrun, R. The Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions: Assumptions, Corollaries, and Implications for Educational Research and Practice. Educ Psychol Rev 18, 315–341 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-006-9029-9

Qi, M., Liu, W., Li, M., Wang, G., & Liu, B. (2025). The impact of achievement emotions on learning performance in online learning context: a meta-analysis. Frontiers in psychology, 16, 1599543. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1599543