The Secret to Happiness?
When I think about my own life, I can’t help but feel extremely fortunate to have finally found the balance and freedom in my life that has brought me so much happiness, but getting there has been difficult and at times, very stressful. Why did it take me so long? Is there a secret to happiness? Are you happy?
In an article in the April, ‘07, Scientific American, it speaks to this issue in scientific terms. Being the scientific journal it is, there are researchers who are trying to determine what the science of lasting happiness is. In order to gain insight into how happiness works, researcher, Sonjy Lyubomirsky, started with three promising metrics of happiness: kindness, gratitude, and optimism. Since past research had linked these three attributes to happiness, they were interested in how we can use these attributes in strategies to gain insight into how happiness works.
One of the studies used a gratitude journal in order to track the subjects daily blessings. To the surprise of the researchers, they found that those who had to document their gratitude in a journal daily were found to be less happy than those who only counted their 
blessings once a week. There likewise, was another study that imposed a “kindness intervention” in which some participants had to intervene with kindness daily while others varied their schedule. Again, those who varied their schedule reported being more happy.
It is interesting to note that when the strategies were required on an imposed daily basis, they were not as effective. Also, while the researchers did find that the strategies did produce happier participants, once the study was over, people who dropped the exercises also showed a drop in happiness. What this indicates is that these happiness strategies are similar to other learned behavior in that you have to “use it or you lose it”, somewhat like physical exercise.
The problem with us as human beings is that we are inordinately preoccupied with so many other distractions in life, that working at being happy is just not on our calendar. Lyubomirsky concluded that “a lot of people don’t apply the notion of effort to their emotional lives because the effort it takes is enormous.”
Do you take time out of the day to examine your life and determine your happiness barometer? Maybe you should. I have included in this article a link to an Oprah Winfrey Happiness Test that will only take a minute to complete and give you a score of your happiness quotient. Perhaps the first place to start in becoming happy is to assess where you are. Then figure out what it is about your life that needs changing. Maybe it isn’t your life at all…maybe it’s just you.
Here’s the link. Have fun!
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New Scientist
The Onion
Media Matters
Newsvine
Associated Press
GREAT posting! Maybe these thoughts will help…
There are simple, eternal universal truths that lead to happy, spiritually successful lives. We call these happiness habits…
“Be Guided By Goodness • Fuel Your Life And Your Work With Fun • Passion Is Empty Without Compassion • Profit From Your Mistakes • Beating Yourself Up Reinforces Errors You Want To Avoid • Drive Discipline With Desire • Make Decisions Not Judgments • Schedule Your Time Not Your Tasks • Be Driven By Desire NOT Duress • See Obstacles NOT Problems • Focus On How You Want To Feel • Touch Each Person You Meet With A Positive Spirit • Love Propels Happiness ”
For more happiness insights see our HappinessHabit.com web site http://HappinessHabit.com
Michele Moore, author of
How To Live A Happy Life -
101 Ways To Be Happier
http://HappinessHabit.com
http://HappinessBlog.com
I took O.W.’s happiness test and I’m not happy with the results. Being older, I could not help considering my answers at different ages in my life. Which leads me to believe that somehow one’s age should be considered a factor at test time in determining your state of happiness at that time. Or what it might be at that time as if you are ageless? Maybe so. But after all we are not all grounded.
Stan, do you really want to measure your happiness? What good does it do you? Isn’t how to be happy or happier everyone’s real concern?
There are eternal, universal truths that lead to happiness and spiritual success.
When we embrace and apply the beliefs, values, ideals, habits and boundaries characteristic of happy people, we all can be happy or at least happier.
Michele Moore
Not being happy with your happiness test sounds like quite the conundrum. As far as age being a factor in one’s happiness test, I think age should have a direct correlation with happiness, and if it doesn’t then one may be a little off-course.
Obviously asking a 20 year old if they are satisfied with their life should vary greatly with a 60 year old. While someone is 20 there is a highly likely hood of them not achieving what they want out of life yet. When someone reaches the golden years hopefully one has had ample amount of time to do so.
It really boils down to ridding yourself of expectations. I truly believe that expectations are the root to all unhappiness. If you think about it, every time you are upset, you are upset because something did not work out the way you expected it too.
Thanks Michele and Stan for the wonderful comments, take care guys and hope to hear more from you in the future.
Michele –
These kind of tests are fun to take, and I don’t know how meaningful the results can be considered. However, as to “the beliefs, values, ideals, habits and boundaries characteristic of happy people” one does not analyze//sp?// these things unless bidden by an event to examine closely. Things that pop up in life may stimulate one to self-examine. But what better way than a test or quick quiz whose questions focus on items not considered, bringing them to one’s attention. Om ni patra…Om ni patra.
Stan -
I’m glad they’re fun, I just don’t understand what good they do. In some cases, they just make people sad.
The process of taking a test to see if you ARE happy by some psychologist’s subjective measure is very different from taking steps to learn how be happy or happier.
It’s less looking at ourselves and what is versus more deciding and defining what we want to do differently from now on to be happier. Make sense?
Michele Moore
Good point Michele.
We should always be reassessing where we are. But I think some people don’t ever stop to really think about it. They just remain in a state of acceptance instead of one of inquiry and change.
I feel sometimes these tests sort of shock us out of the malaise.
And, Stan, as far as how meaningful they are — the one that Oprah offers is more of a self-examination than a test. Therefore, I find it to be more of a means to reassess our life and where we are in relation to feelings of happiness.
How often do we actually do this? This test merely offers us this opportunity. How accurate it is — that’s up to you, you are the one answering the questions.
Great points and thanks guys for the comments.
Your comments and insights are intriguing and fascinating, many thanks for your candor.
I was very unhappy for much of my life, pondering why would not improve my situation.
What worked for me was to focus on developing a different way of thinking, acting and feeling.
How could I be happy or happier? Studying and interviewing habitually happy people for me provided lots of powerful insights that really worked.
Lots of money is being made on misery, and the same experts want to make happiness very complicated. I think you need to look at who profits, how and why as you look at options for yourself.
Great thoughts, many thanks!!!!
Michele Moore, author of
How To Live A Happy Life -
101 Ways To Be Happier
Hi Michele,
As to what worked for you I totally agree. Developing a different way of thinking, acting and feeling is all about changing one’s perception. It actually can be as easy as that.
The problem is that we are so engrained with our current perceptions, that changing them “seems” monumental but in reality it isn’t.
Thanks for your kind words and we hope to see you again on the site.
Hi Unum,
The secret to successful change is to eagerly embrace the new perspectives and habits while recognizing and rigorously rejecting the old bad habits you want to avoid.
Definitely deciding to be different is an important first step in the process. Until that happens, conscious change rarely occurs.
M.
Happiness-Guru.com
Love this and found it after writing a post on the same subject and was looking for images etc.
As a Master of NLP I can tell you that gratitude paves the way for success and happiness. When your are always looking back and trying to escape your current life paradigm you just my trip on the way and lose momentum. But when you create the habit of being grateful for what you have and look forward to creating even more you will always move forward with motivation. Keep up the good work, I love to see more intelligent people blogging.