How To Be Happy As Per ‘Science of Wellbeing Yale Course’

We all want to be happy. Happiness means different things to different people. In my HR line of work, I deal not just with processes and deadlines. Human emotions are a big part of my work. On a daily basis, I interact with a lot of people. It is always a challenge to navigate emotions especially at work. On one particular search for some team related activity, I came across the Yale University Happiness Course – The Science of Wellbeing. Now when I saw that this was a scientific way to look at the elusive concept of happiness, I was intrigued.

All of us at some level know, what makes us happy. Yet most times, we aren’t truly happy.

I decided to look at the course. The professor was Laurie Santos – who had become very popular with this course worldwide. The course was convincing enough and fueled by my own quest for happiness. I enrolled for the course. It said ‘few weeks’. I thought I could manage a few weeks. After all who is not interested in a long and happy life?

So in the evenings I started spending time listening to lectures one by one. It truly was a revealing journey and taught me a lot. Have you heard how you have been looking for happiness in the wrong place? There is some merit to that statement. The course has a lot of scientific evidence of things that truly make you happy and things that you think will truly make you happy. Yes, there is a major difference between the two.

How can you measure happiness?

At the start of the course, you have to measure your happiness. At the end too, you are given an option to measure your happiness. If you saw an actual difference between these two. Therein lies the success of the course.

The PERMA questionnaire is used to make a note of your current happiness level. It has the following areas

• Positive emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning and Accomplishment

These are the basic dimensions of psychological flourishing.

How to be happy?

If I asked you, what makes you happy, you probably have a few answers to it. But if I ask you ways to sustain that healthy level of happiness everyday, would you think it is possible?

I’m guessing, you will probably shake your head and say no.

First and foremost, there are lot of misconceptions around this concept of ‘How to be happy’?

The first misconception I had was ‘I know to be happy’. Like doing a few material things correctly would ensure my happiness. Unsurprisingly, I was wrong.

The GI Joe Fallacy

Here is where the famous GI JOE fallacy comes in. Poeple believe that

Knowing is half of the battle
But knowing is different from actually doing it and changing yourself one step at a time.

– THE GI JOE Fallacy

So don’t fall prey to this fallacy and think just because you know something, you have mastered it. When it comes to our daily habits, it takes weeks, months and sometimes years to change and build a healthy habit.

Think back on what happened when you actually tried to change one of your past habits.

How much effort you had to put in?

Was it easy or difficult?

Now let us see a few things that do not make us happy. I would like to call it the happiness myth.

Things that do not make us happy

• Good job
• More Money
• More expensive things
• Perfect Body
• Good Grades

All of these things would be answers from different perspectives, if I ask you the question, ‘How to be Happy?’

But the shocker here is, not all of these are essentials when it come to happiness. Grades, money, material things etc are in fact things that put us down and pull us up emotionally.

But are they constant? Are they ever enough to keep you going?

The truth is they are never a constant source of happiness. Instead they are a constant source of stress.

For instance consider this question – How much money would really make you happy?

Can you assign a number to it?

How many expensive things would you need to be happy? You will never know for sure.

When your income goes up, your lifestyle costs also go up. It is as simple as that. There is really no end to it, unless you decide to stick with your current lifestyle even with your increasing salary. Which most of us would never do, practically speaking!

But we all know that is just not possible. We belong to a social circle and we are influenced by it whether we like it or not.

We constantly compare ourselves with out neighbors, friends, relatives and sometimes even strangers. These are called reference points.

The How of Happiness

In the book ‘the how of happiness‘ by Sonja Lyubomirsky, it is clearly depicted that happiness is not just determined by genes or circumstances. Sonja goes on to say,

Our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are.

Sonja Lyubomirsky

Which means we have to make the effort to be happy every single day by building a series of disciplined habits.

Our minds do not have the capacity to think in absolutes. The mind is dependent on different reference points to decide on whether it is happy or not

What are reference points?

Reference points are those points against which we constantly compare ourselves.

If I ask you ‘Are you happy in your job?’ you would probably say yes.

But if I ask you the same question in comparison with a higher earning colleague, I’m assuming that earlier said ‘yes’ might change. That is human nature. We all need and act on different reference points.

A research was done on the happiness levels of the Olympic champions who had won the gold, silver and bronze medals.

Now who do you think would have been the happiest out of these three champions?

Obviously the gold winner right?

You are correct. Now according to you who would be the next happier person among the three?

It logically has to be the silver winner. Right?

Wrong!

The bronze winner is the next happier person, for the simple reason that he/she had high possibilities to lose that medal but earned it in a narrow gap. That the champion could have easily been pushed to position no 4 (reference point) but they were lucky enough to be in position no 3 makes that person happier.

What makes the Silver medalist sad?

The silver medalist’s reference point is gold. So actually the champion is not happy about winning the silver but sadder about losing the gold by such a narrow margin.

Then again, are all reference points reasonable?

Think about the situation where you compare your looks or behavior to a movie star on TV. How is that a reasonable reference point?

Movie stars invest so much of their time, money and energy into looking, speaking and behaving a certain way while you are probably busy earning or studying. That is why all reference points are not necessarily reasonable. But our brain does not understand all that.

So the next time you start comparing yourself, be aware that you are doing it. Do you know there are certain mindful practices that you can follow to be happier in general?