This post is Part 1 of a two part series. You can read Part 2 here.
I recently skimmed The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California:
The book contains excellent practical advice on happiness and I highly recommend it.
What I like most about this book is that the advice is based on scientific research. In fact, the original title of the hardbound edition was “The How of Happiness: A SCIENTIFIC Approach to Getting the Life You Want.” I guess the publisher thought the title was unappealing to some people.
In this post, I discuss the activities Sonja identified that help make people happier. She also created a test to help determine which happiness activities work best for you. But you’ll have to buy or borrow the book if you want to take the test or find out more about the research supporting the advice.
1. Expressing Gratitude
Regularly expressing gratitude will make you happier.
One way to express gratitude is through a Gratitude Journal. My friend Sherri at Serene Journey has a detailed post on creating a Gratitude Journal. Through research, Sonja discovered you should only update the Gratitude Journal once per week. If you update more frequently, you become bored and the journal loses its effectiveness.
Another way to express gratitude is to communicate it directly to another person. Just tell the person why you are grateful to him.
Whatever way you express gratitude, it’s important you find new reasons to be grateful. Research shows that repeating previously identified reasons doesn’t improve happiness.
2. Cultivating Optimism
You’ll be happier if you’re more optimistic.
There are three dimensions of optimism and Mary at Goodlife Zen has a post that describes all three. Try to determine which dimensions cause you the most trouble.
One way to cultivate optimism is to write about our Best Possible Selves. Spend twenty to thirty minutes writing about a future in which everything turns out the way you hoped. The future time frame can be anywhere from one or ten years.
Another way to cultivate optimism is to identify automatic pessimistic thoughts. For instance, you may think “I got a bad grade in English, so I’ll never be a good writer”. You recognize this thought and challenge it in various ways:
- What else could this situation mean?
- Is this thought useful to me?
- Did I learn anything useful that I can use in the future?
- Did anything good come from this?
3. Avoiding Over-thinking and Social Comparison
It’s difficult to be happy when you ruminate about negative events or negatively compare yourself to others. For example, you may repeatedly think about how you “screwed up the presentation to the boss” or that your “friend is more successful because he makes more money.” These thoughts leads to dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
There are several ways to avoid over-thinking and social comparison:
- Distract yourself with other activities
- Shout “STOP” to yourself and force yourself to switch to another thought
- Think about ways to solve the underlying problem
- Avoid situations or triggers that cause you to over-think or compare
- Talk to somebody to gain new perspective
- Write the thought in a journal and let it go
4. Practicing Acts of Kindness
Being kind to others will make you happier as long as it’s true rather than false kindness.
The best way to regularly insure you perform acts of kindness is to plan ahead. Determine when, where, and how much effort you’ll put into being kind. Also, it helps to vary the types of kindness you perform.
Of course, you can always perform spontaneous acts of kindness.
5. Nurturing Social Relationships
You’ll be happier if you have many friends and intimate relationships. There are several ways to nurture relationships:
- Make a time commitment for relationships
- Express sincere appreciation, admiration, and affection
- Find joy in your friends’ success
- Manage conflict by staying focused on the issue and empathizing
- Share your inner thoughts
6. Developing Strategies for Coping
You must learn to cope with stress and worry in order to be happy. There are many strategies, but one strategy is to try to see things clearly when you’re worried.
A second strategy is to try to solve the underlying problem by dividing the problem and solution into manageable pieces. This only works if there is some identifiable problem to solve. For instance, personal debt is a solvable problem and you could create a plan to gradually reduce your debt.
A third strategy is to find some benefit or meaning in the trauma. For instance, if a close friend dies of cancer, you may decide to help with cancer charities.
Do you already practice some of these activities to to increase your happiness? If so, which activities work best for you?
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Tags: Habits, Kindness, Psychology
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Roger,
I like the point about avoiding over-thinking and comparison. How true is this, especially for me, and I suspect many other people! If we slowed down, sat still and just experienced being, most of us would feel happy because that’s our natural state. It’s thinking too much that makes us feel unhappy.
Daphne,
I couldn’t agree more!
Over-thinking is also one of my biggest problems. I suspect it’s a common problem amongst bloggers who collectively tend to be introspective.
I’m guilty of the over-thinking and comparison traits, too! I think it’s very common. I am pretty good with the rest of these suggestions, although I need to work on nurturing my social relationships and developing strategies for coping. I’m not as effective in those areas as I could be.
Thank you for the great tips!
Jay,
I think we all need more practice at coping strategies. The book had many more than I described in the post.
I love your honesty at the beginning of this post (I recently SKIMMED this book!).
I’d have to say I never trust scientific research. Ever since the whole Earth is Flat fiasco, and the eggs are good for you/ no, bad for you/ no, good for you again thing… I don’t think scientists have a clue what they are doing.
Having said that, all 6 points are fantastic. Developing Optimism has been a big one for me because I was always a bit morose and pessimistic. CHOOSING the see the good in everything has helped me tremendously. Now I need to find the good in scientific research.
Lisis,
I really only did skim the book, so I was trying to be scrupulously honest.
I think you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on scientific research. I do agree that new research contradicts previous research, but it’s the best information we have.
I do think science is based on a belief system. Have you ever read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. He discusses something called the Church of Reason which I may write a post about.
If you like the optimism activity, you would really find Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism useful. Check it out at a library near you.
Wow - this sounds like a great book. I like how it highlights that to be happy, you have to DO something about it. Happiness rarely just happens (humour can happen; happiness, not really); it’s ‘earned’ not given.
I’ve got to get this book…thanks.
Laurie,
It’s definitely a book worth reading or at least skimming.
Yes - there’s lots of proven things we can do to improve our happiness. I can’t think of one good reason not to do them.
I don’t know that there’s a science to happiness. It’s simply a natural state that we experience. The points above are helpful of course, especially to one who may in the depths of unhappiness.
And they are good points to remember when we need a little help here & there. Real happiness if found where it is: inside. We find it there when we practice, meditation or related practices that help us uncover all our natural states. Then happiness is constant.
Pamir,
In an ideal world, I agree with you — happiness always comes from within. Everyone would meditate, become enlightened, and find lasting peace. I’m pursuing this path myself.
Unfortunately, we are a long way from the ideal. People need all the help they can get to find a modicum of inner peace. I hope the methods in this post help in some small way.
This is great! I’ve been wanting to read the book and now I feel even more motivated to do so. Thanks for posting this.
Postively Present (aka Dani),
You’re welcome and I hope you like the book!
Hi Roger!
I have seen that book somewhere but never looked at it. So many books are out on happiness and each person I think reaches the same conclusions. Happiness is definitely a training of the mind and a matter of perception. Granted, those who are born optimists have an edge on this but in the end, everyone can learn to see the positive in any situation.
Hi Roger,
This is great! I would agree with writing in your gratitude journal once a week as opposed to each day. After a couple of months of writing in it daily I’ve found that just thinking and reflecting on what I’m grateful for each day is enough. I no longer need to formally write it down.
I’m also finding that I’m more aware of the thing I’m grateful for as it happens or as it’s there and I don’t need that reflection at the end of the day. This does sound like a really great book thanks for bringing it up! (and thanks for the link as well)
@Nadia: There are many books on happiness and I find some offer contradictory advice. I’m always happy when I can find something backed by research.
@Sherri: Thanks for the insight about writing down gratitude. The idea of the gratitude journal is to reach the point where it’s automatic to feel gratitude real-time. It’s great your at that point. That’s something to be grateful for.
Being of the scientific mind, my ears always perk up when I hear that somthing is “backed by research”.
I think the “problem” with research isn’t the research or the researchers, but trying to figure out how to apply what the research means. Like Lisis’ example on eggs - studies show that elevated cholesterol levels are associated with heart disease… eggs have cholesterol… therefore eggs must cause heart disease.
If you put many studies together and look at the big picture, you see that eggs=heart disease is not only wrong, it is an over-simplistic view of health.
Kinda like life - to have an accurate understanding of what is going on around you, you need a broad perspective.
I’m not sure I agree with the weekly gratitude journal. I kept one for over a year and never became bored with it. Perhaps it varies from person to person? I just restarted my gratitude journal online and am curious to see how long I keep it up.
Roger, I think we might be a lot alike in regards to science.
In any case I think this may be one of the 50 or 60 books on my shelf that I haven’t got to yet. I’ve got to quit buying 2 for every 1 I read! LOL!
I loved the book Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson and it is very scientifically based. Martin E. P. Seligman’s Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism are also excellent scientific choices.
Keep up the great work!
@Ann Elise: I think most of the research problems stem from using correlation and then assuming causality.
You can express gratitude more than once per week - the issue has to do with keeping it “fresh”. If you can do that, then expressing gratitude daily in a variety of ways works.
@Stephen: I also tend to buy books faster than I can read them.
I’ve read Learned Optimism and its an excellent book. I appreciate all the research behind his work and other research in positive psychology.
Hello ,
I am new to your blog thus would like to give you my gratitude for writing and posting such nice post.
I like the “Nurturing Social Relationship ” point a lot. Lot of time our relationship in the society could be just for give and take. We need to develop our views more greater than that. I am not speaking of charity or that kind. But yes if your friend need your help, just help him. Do not think how is going to pay me back and stuff.
Regards
Sudeep
Nicely done Roger,
I love the practical advice. Yes, these are all steps that contribute to happiness, but the also bring a sense of balance to our lives. Thanks.
@Sudeep: Welcome! Social relationships are critical to happiness. It’s not easy being truly kind, but it increases your happiness.
@Johathan: Thanks! I’m glad you like it.
Great blog!!! Very informative and inciteful. Excellent!!!