How to Find Happiness in Your Life
Are you on a quest to find happiness? While happiness might feel elusive or out of your reach at times, that doesn't make it an impossible journey or goal to achieve. On the contrary, happiness could be waiting for you around the next corner if you just hang on.
Or, it might be even simpler than that. Happiness might have been with you all along—you just may not have taken the time to realize it was much less complicated than you once believed. You probably know it's not about driving the newest car or having the latest gadget. But, what is it that really drives happiness? Let's consider four studies from around the world to answer that question.
Always Be Improving
A 2007 study reporting on data from the British Household Panel Survey revealed an interesting set of findings of the roots of happiness.
What is it that makes us happy: getting what we want or having what we want? Paradoxically, it seems that it's not the state of "being married" that makes us the happiest, but rather dynamic events such as "starting a new relationship."
In the same way, "getting a new job" had a greater effect on happiness than employment status. "Becoming pregnant" had a greater effect on happiness than "being a parent." Similarly, events such as "starting a new course," "passing an exam," or "buying a new house" were all also high on the happiness scale.
In contrast, events with a low relation to happiness included the end of a relationship, losing a job, and losing a parent. What does all this mean, and what is making people in Britain happy? Let's take a moment to figure this out.
Positive dynamic events seem to be key rather than static situations. While this may all sound a little superficial, it makes sense to some degree if you consider happiness to be a "momentary" state.
What can we glean from this study? If you want to pursue happiness in your life or stay positive, realize that there is always the possibility that some happy event is waiting around the corner for you. And if you don't feel like waiting—go out and make something happy happen. As the quote from Abraham Lincoln goes, "The best way to predict your future is to create it."
Surround Yourself With Happy People
A 2008 study reported on data from the Framingham Heart Study conducted in Framingham, Massachusetts followed 4,739 people from 1983 to 2003 to answer one interesting question: does our happiness depend on the happiness levels of the people around us?
Startlingly, the results of the study showed that to be precisely the case.
People who are surrounded by happy people are more likely to become happy in the future.
What's more, the analysis revealed that this effect was the result of happiness spreading, not just an artifact of happy people tending to hang out with one another.
According to this study, if you have a friend who lives within a mile of you and that friend becomes happy, the odds of you also becoming happy increase by about 25%. The same was true for spouses (up to 16% improvement), siblings living within a mile (up to 28%), and next-door neighbors (up to 70%). Interestingly, the happiness of coworkers was shown to have no effect on the happiness of those around them.
What does all this mean? Surround yourself with happy people as much as possible, because it's very likely that their happiness will spread to you.
Recall Positive Memories
In an Australian study of over 300 young adults, it was shown that those who recalled memories about problem-solving (a time when you successfully managed a challenge) or about identity (something that shaped you to become the person you are today) showed decreased negative emotions and increased positive emotions, respectively.
These findings suggest that simply thinking back to a time in your life when you were overcoming a challenge or to a time when you went through a significant life experience that changed you for the better could be effective in boosting your mood, and therefore, your happiness.
Collective Goals or Self-Transcendence
A 2019 study out of South Korea using data from the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) showed that respondents prioritizing spirituality were the most likely to be happy, followed by those who valued social relationships (friends, family, neighbors).
People who placed the most weight on external achievements (money, education, work, leisure) were the least likely to be happy.
These findings suggest that the path to happiness in South Korea is not about all that glitters with gold—rather, going after goals related to collectivism or self-transcendence may be most important to boosting and preserving happiness. These results are consistent with those found in the field of positive psychology.