By Sonja Lyubomirsky. 2007.
Chapter 1: Is It Possible to Become Happier?
A Program for Lasting Happiness
Although these individuals had great difficulty even leaving their beds, they were instructed to log on to a Web site and engage in a simple exercise. The exercise involved recalling and writing down three good things that happened every day. Within fifteen days, their depressions lifted…
Below is a sample of my observations, as well as those of other researchers, of the thinking and behavior of the happiest participants in our studies:
– They devote a great deal of time to their family and friends, nurturing and enjoying those relationships.
– They are comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have.
– They are often the first to offer helping hands to coworkers and passersby.
– They practice optimism when imagining their futures.
– They savor life’s pleasures and try to live in the present moment.
– They make physical exercise a weekly and even daily habit.
– They are deeply committed to lifelong goals and ambitions
Happiness Activities
1. Expressing Gratitude
2. Cultivating Optimism
3. Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison
4. Practicing Acts of Kindness
5. Nurturing Social Relationships
6. Developing Strategies for Coping
7. Learning to Forgive
8. Increasing Flow Experience
9. Savoring Life’s Joys
10. Committing to Your Goals
11. Practicing Religion and Spirituality
12. Taking Care of Your Body ((Meditation)
13. Taking Care of Your Body (Physical Activity)
14. Taking Care of Your Body (Acting Like a Happy Person)
The Five Hows Behind Sustainable Happiness
1. Positive Emotion
2. Optimal Timing and Variety
3. Social Support
4. Motivation, Effort, and Commitment
5. Habit
Chapter 2: How Happy Are You and Why?
I use the term “happiness” to refer to the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile. However, most of us don’t need a definition of happiness because we instinctively know whether we are happy or not.
Our expectations about what our lives should be like are greater than ever before; we believe that we can do anything, and we are profoundly disappointed when reality doesn’t meet or even come close to perfection.
Compared with previous generations, we feel far less belonging and commitment to our families and communities and are thus less buffered by social support and strong meaningful connections to others.
There’s evidence that happy people are somewhat more likely to perceive everything about their lives, including their appearances, in more positive, optimistic ways.
Becoming objectively more beautiful will not make most of you happier. Coming to believe that you are beautiful is another story, and research suggest that this may be one of many happiness boosters.
Happiness Activity No. 2: Cultivating Optimism
But the exercise wasn’t just about imagining a model future for them, it was about building a best possible self today that can make that future come true. Committing their Best Possible Selves to writing enabled them to recognize that is was in their power to transform themselves and to work toward valued goals, that their dreams today and tomorrow didn’t hinge on their spouses or on money or on some stroke of luck.
Because writing is highly structured, systematic, and rule-bound, it prompts you to organize, integrate, and analyze your thoughts in a way that would be difficult, if not impossible, to do if you were just fantasizing. Writing about your goals helps you put your thoughts together in a coherent manner, allowing you to find meaning in your life experiences.
Writing about your dreams also gives you an opportunity to learn about yourself–that is, to understand better your priorities, your emotions, and your motives, your identity, who you really are and what’s in your heart.
One young woman, Molly, did this exercise and wrote to me how it made her understand heat her goals really were and realize they were not unobtainable:
“After the writing sessions, I felt really good, really happy with myself. The more I thought about the goals, the more I realized they weren’t unattainable and far out of my reach. In actuality they were within my reach–they didn’t seem so far away. … [The exercise] made me realize that I could be doing more to reach these goals, and with a little effort now I could achieve this best possible life. … I had never realized so much that what I want is a stable life (love, family, friends, occupation, livening situation). I hope to be with a complementary partner, successful in my work, continue to maintain the relationships I have today with my friends and family, and to try my hardest to live in a city that makes me happy, with lots of things to do and close to the ocean. I think this would make me ultimately happy, and I do not think that these goals are unreachable.”
Why Does Optimistic Thinking Boost Happiness?
First, if you’re optimistic about the future–for example, you’re confident that you’ll be able to achieve your lifelong goals–you will invest effort into reaching those goals. For this reason, optimistic thoughts can be self-fulfilling.
If you perceive an outcome as attainable, if you see a possible future for yourself and the possibility of realizing it, you will persist in the plan even when you hit inevitable obstacles or when progress is slow. Indeed, researchers have shown that optimists are more likely to persevere and to engage fully even in the face of difficulty. They also set a greater number of goals–and more difficult goals–for themselves. Optimism motivates us and leads us to take initiative. Optimists don’t easily give up.
Furthermore, optimists are more likely to make plans and take direct action when faced with adversity. They are good copers. …research has found that people who have frequent optimistic thoughts are physically healthier.
Studies also show that optimists are relatively more likely to report a sense of mastery and high self-regard and less likely to show depression and anxiety. It feels good to believe that your prospects are bright. If you have something to look forward to, you will feel energized, motivated, and enthusiastic. You will feel good about yourself and feel able to control your destiny. You will even be better liked by others.
There are many ways to practice optimism, but the one that has been empirically shown to enhance well-being is the original Best Possible Selves diary method. … Visualize a future in which everything has turned out the way you’ve wanted. You have tried your best, worked hard, and achieved all your goals. Now write down what you imagine.
Happiness Activity No. 3: Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin if serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Act to solve problems. Even if you’re feeling weighed down by your problems and responsibilities and are indecisive about what to do, take a small step now. … It could be writing a list of every possible solution to a particular problem…and then implementing one of those solutions. … Don’t wait for something to happen or for someone else to step in and help you. Even small steps will improve your mood and self-regard.
Another technique is to strengthen your identity and work toward building your sense of self-worth. This is a biggie, but you can begin by taking small, active steps, like learning or undertaking something new, such as cooking, hiking, gardening, painting, dog training. This will enhance your self-confidence and provide an alternative source of self-esteem by expanding your identity.
Finally, if this is up your alley, learn how to meditate. The skills involved in this relaxation technique can help you distance yourself from your worries and ruminations and impart a positive sense of well-being. … Many people who meditate habitually claim that they find themselves less burdened, worried, and stressed for the rest of the day.
Happiness Activity No. 5: Nurturing Social Relationships
Happy people are exceptionally good at their friendships, families, and intimate relationships. The happier a person is, the more likely he or she is to have a large circle of friends or companions, a romantic partner, and ample social support. The happier the person, the more likely he or she is to be married and to have a fulfilling and long-lasting marriage.
…romantic partners and friends make people happy, but it also means that happy people are more likely to acquire lovers and friends.
…if you begin today to improve and cultivate your relationships, you will reap the gift of positive emotions. In turn, the enhanced feelings of happiness will help you attract more and higher-quality relationships, which will make you even happier, and so on in a continuous positive feedback loop.
…humans are powerfully motivated by a pervasive drive to seek out and maintain strong, stable and positive interpersonal relationships. We strongly resist the breakup or dissolution of relationships and friendships, and without a sense of belongingness, we suffer numerous negative consequences for our physical and mental health.
Chapter 8: Happiness Activity No. 10: Committing to Your Goals
“If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert.” He was right.
People who strive for something personally significant, whether it’s learning a new craft, changing careers, or raising moral children, are far happier than those who don’t have strong dreams or aspirations. Find a happy person and you will find a project.
…pursuing goals adds structure and meaning to our daily lives. Notwithstanding the myth of the man in the gray flannel suit, structure and meaning are good! It grants responsibilities, deadlines, timetables, opportunities for mastering new skills (e.g. building a wooden deck) and for social interactions with others (e.g. taking a wood turning class). This is valuable for just about everyone, but it’s particularly critical if you are older and retired (and thus may lack the structure and sense of purpose supplied by a profession)…
A fourth fringe benefit to being committed to our goals is that it helps us learn to master our use of time: to identify higher-order goals (…), to subdivide them into smaller steps or subgoals, (…) and to develop a schedule to accomplish them. This is a genuine life-simplifying and life-improving skill.
Activity Goals
The process of pursuing “activity” goals (e.g. joining a wilderness club, volunteering at a blood drive, learning about art) allows a person to continually experience new challenges, take on new opportunities, and meet a variety of experiences.
Chapter 10: The Five Hows Behind Sustainable Happiness
It’s relatively easy to become happier for a short duration, just as it’s a piece of cake to quit smoking for a day or to temporarily keep a tidy desk. The challenge lies in sustaining the new level of happiness.
The First How: Positive Emotion
“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”
– Benjamin Franklin
So, if you suddenly experienced a financial windfall, you would ultimately be much happier if you spent the money on numerous pleasant, mood-boosting things occurring on a day-to-day or weekly basis–a daily lunch of expensive sushi, a weekly massage, a regular delivery of fresh flowers, or Sunday morning calls to your best friend in Europe–rather than spend it all on a single big-ticket item…
Their problem, it turns out, is not so much that they anticipate bad things will come to pass as that they cannot believe that good things will. The experience of positive events is also important; surprisingly, recovery from depression appears to be jump-started by positive events even more than it’s thwarted by negative events.
The Second How: Optimal Timing and Variety
The Third How: Social Support
…the third critical factor underlying the success of a happiness activity is social support. This jargon is used by psychologists to represent all kinds of help and comfort provided by others, especially those with whom we have strong, meaningful relationships.
The Fourth How: Motivation, Effort, and Commitment
“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert
Another vital key to a successful happiness-increasing program, as you already know, is committed and dedicated effort. When it comes to achieving greater happiness, the steps you need to take are not altogether different from those required for learning French or changing careers or any other goal you might pursue.
1. You must resolve to undertake a program to become happier.
2. You must learn what you need to do.
3. You must out weekly or even daily effort into it.
4. You must commit to the goal for a long period of time, possibly for the rest of your life.
The first and second steps you have already initiated by picking up this book or others like it. They are critical steps because the sense of mastery and possibility that accompanies the launch of a new chapter for yourself is immensely powerful and transporting. Just think of it, you are on the threshold of altering your life!
“Every time you make a choice,” wrote C. S. Lewis, “you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.”
Without effort, without trying, without striving, without tenacity, without constancy of purpose, there is only failure, hesitation, “a faint heart and a lame endeavor.”
…the pattern of our results characterizes every single kind of pharmaceutical, including lifesaving meds and therapeutic drugs taken by millions. The drug may be lifesaving while you take it, but interestingly, the moment you stop, it “fails” to work.
When [Oprah Winfrey] was reportedly once asked how she is able to run five miles per day, even when traveling, she replied that she has to recommit to the goal every day of her life. The same applies to strategies to make yourself a happy person. Renew your commitment every day.
The Fifth How: Habit
I hope you are now convinced that it takes a great deal of effort and determination to become happier.
…the effort is greatest at the beginning, but it diminishes with time, as your new behaviors and practices become habitual through repetition.
…this is a seemingly obvious but very important observation–in trying to accomplish something (like quitting smoking), people may try (and fail) many times before they ultimately succeed. The 63 percent of success stories that Schachter found had tried several times before finally accomplishing their goal.
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
– George Eliot
Postscript: If You Are Depressed
Because the average age at which people develop depression is in their mid-twenties, the illness can have a profound effect on important life transitions, like finishing school, starting out in a career, becoming a parent, and getting and staying married.
The behavioral part consists of teaching depressed patients skills that they may lack, such as problem solving (i.e. teaching you how to define life problems and helping you generate possible solutions to those problems and choose among them), self-control (i.e. teaching you to set weekly goals and then to monitor your behavior and reward yourself for meeting those goals), and so-called behavioral activation (i.e. encouraging you to take action rather than avoid difficult situations).
The fact is that 60 to 70 percent of depressed patients improve after using a single antidepressant, although it usually takes three to six weeks for a full response. If one drug doesn’t appear to work, many depressed individuals ultimately find another one that does.
…Seligman has demonstrated, even the most severely depressed individuals can improve my doing a simple daily happiness-increasing exercise. (His study essentially involved an optimism strategy; taking time to recall three things that went well each day).
Patients encouraged to focus on their strengths rather than on their pathologies experienced significantly greater relief from depression compared with those receiving “treatment as usual” and even compared with those taking antidepressant medication.