There exists two mindsets on obtaining happiness, I used to call this the Eastern and Western philosopher mindset but everytime I do someone tells me why that's wrong so instead I'll call it the exoview and endoview of happiness.
Exoview is the ideal we're all taught in an industrial society, that to gain happiness one must gain fulfillment and to gain fulfillment one must put in work. The concept here is that happiness is obtained by working hard and succeeding at that work, to make positive contributions to society as a whole and to be, for lack of a better word, "successful". The exoview of happiness dictates that in order to be happy you must be wealthy, you must be have a good occupational success and you must always be busy, working on something new, forcing your life to have some kind of purpose outside your own. I call it the exoview because exo means "outside" and stresses that happiness comes from your affect on the outside world and its affect on you. That, in order to be happy, you must be validated by those around you and the society that you live in, the happiness comes from outside and thus it's exoview of happiness. This is the type of happiness you are striving for, you are striving to be famous, you are striving to be successful, you are set in the mindset that happiness comes from the outside view, it comes from the validation of others. However, this is not the only view of happiness.
Endoview is the concept that happiness comes from within, instead of trying to adapt your surroundings to improve your life, you instead adapt your mental state to be comfortable in your surroundings. The endoview of happiness stresses the concept of deep meaningful relationships, self-actualization and mental harmony, it is the belief that one can be happy by simply realizing that, within himself, he is worth something, he does not need the validation of other people, but instead simply needs the validation from within himself. In order to be happy in the endoview model, one needs to comfortable with oneself, to reject societies demands and realize that one can rise above them, one does not need to be wealthy, or "successful" in order to be happy, only comfortable, moral and calm. The Endoview dictates that happiness comes from inside, not outside, it comes from you being comfortable with yourself.
Perhaps, you've been trying too hard to focus on the exoview of happiness, trying to hard to get happiness from other people, when perhaps you should focus more on the endoview, trying to become happy with yourself, seeking happiness from within yourself and to those close around you.