Joy is a phenomenon about which many disciplines have written or theorized, with different results that can cause confusion or uncertainty in defining and engaging with it. For individuals involved in change-making, engaging with the concept of joy can provide a sense of momentum, moments of respite, or motivation for imagining the future. Still, it can be difficult to access with imprecise and sometimes conflicting understandings of what joy is. Through a multidisciplinary literature review, this paper synthesizes existing work into a new framework to understand joy in the different ways it may appear. Self-reflexive journaling is also used to help the researcher track thoughts, impressions and engage with the concepts during the development of the framework. The framework presents three forms of joy: Personal Joy, as in how joy appears in an individual’s life and how it impacts their approach to experiences; Applied Joy, as in ways individuals can actively cultivate and use joy in their work; and Aspirational Joy, as in ways joy can serve a goal or be a fruit of change. This framework builds on existing research on joy and furthers the study by creating new spaces for dialogue between disciplines and media on this topic. A prototype of a reflection activity is also presented to provide an example of how the framework might be engaged with, with the intent that it should be tested and refined.