9 Powerful Insights about happiness
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Introduction
If you are the type of person who at one end considers himself an overachiever, life hacker or someone who wants to win the so-called "game of life", but at the same time, questions the transcendence of mere achievement and even the purpose of life itself; I have an article for you. This article starts by enticing the reader to put happiness at the center of our life's purpose and future motivations. It then gives us tactics and scientifically backed reasons why certain behaviors make us happier and more fulfilled in the long run. Later, it deconstructs what we think makes us happy, places in doubt the things that don't and invites us to double down on the behaviors that do.
1) Happiness is the name of the game
The first insight is to put happiness at the forefront of everything we do and conscientize it as our life's purpose. For the inner overachiever in you, I phrase the insight in the context of a game, and the method to win the game is by being exponentially happier every year. To quote the Dalai Lama “The purpose of our lives is to be happy” It is that simple, and yet we yearn for something more complicated and mysterious. Although this affirmation is simple, this does not mean it's not profound. Once you take this as an inherent truth, your life will shift, the question then is: what are the best strategies to live a happier life?
2) Life is not about me, it's about we
If we assume that happiness is the end game, what is the single most important predictor of our happiness? It's not money, not your craft, upbringing, environment or geography; it's the depth of our relationships. Getting social, connecting with friends and loved ones is the number one source of happiness. Dan Gilbert the renowned author, psychologist and known as the Harvard professor of happiness, states that: "the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends." What is paradoxical is that we are continually sacrificing social relationships to get more things like money and status. Neuroscientist, psychologist and behavioral economists have all conclusive evidence that this is the overwhelming predictor of happiness (study). At the same time, social connections benefit us by increasing longevity by 50% (study), strengthening our immune system (study), helping us recover faster from diseases and lowering our levels of anxiety and depression (study).
Another evidence that I found surprising is marriage. Disney movies and other conventional wisdom that talk about happily-ever-after advocate pro-marriage, but are married couples happier than an up-and-coming bachelor? The data indeed shows that Walt Disney and his followers were right. Being in a fulfilling marriage, consequently, makes us happier. Dan Gilbert states: “Married people are happier than unmarried people. They are healthier, live longer, have more sex,” and do better on nearly every indicator of happiness." Warning, the caveat in Gilbert's research is that your relationship must be fulfilling to be happy. If you are in a toxic relationship not surprisingly you are better off single and ready to mingle.
In conclusion, audit the percentage of time you allocate to relationships that are fulfilling, enhance your growth and foster a state of flow when you spend time with your loved ones (Lose your sense of time). Now literally grab your yearly calendar, plan to devote more time with these chosen happiness messiahs, by either planning a trip together, partnering in business, joining a sports team or starting regular poker nights. Life is too short to spend time with people who do not contribute to your wellbeing; enter a virtuous cycle by deliberately spending more time with people you enjoy and that spawn out your greatness.
3) Be grateful for all your hardships
If being connected and having meaningful relationships is the number one predictor of happiness, gratitude is arguably the most powerful emotion linked to happiness. Experiencing gratitude on a daily basis not only improves our general wellbeing, but also helps prolong it (research), leads to better relationships (study), makes you sexier (study), makes you a better person and makes other people better too.
For me, the most profound and powerful strategy is to feel grateful for all your hardships. I encourage you to reflect and introspect the worst and most burdensome moments in your life. Be thankful for the person or situation that brought you misfortune, because deep inside they have been your greatest source of internal growth. My calling is to start seeing our problems as gifts. In psychology this is called cognitive reframing; great leaders are masters in reframing "perception is power. Sometimes our so-called “problems” turn out to be the greatest blessings of our lives". It is "an opportunity to learn, grow and give more to those around us."- Tony Robbins. In other words, we are changing the meaning and purpose of the things that happen to us and seeing them instead as events that happen for us.
4) Life is a sprint NOT a marathon
More precisely happiness is a set of sprints, not an upcoming marathon. The psychologist Ed Diener discovered that "the frequency of positive experiences is a much better predictor than the intensity of the positive experiences"- Dan Gilbert (study).
Gilbert also points out that we are terrible predictors of our happiness because we tend to focus on intense events, buying a large house, winning the Nobel Prize or a Pulitzer award. In essence, our days should be designed to encounter several moments of happiness, by purposely spending time with people who elate us, by creating things that invigorate us and by not postponing any chance to have fun along the way.
5) Show me the Money
Can money make us happier? YES indeed. But up to a yearly income between $50.000 to $75.000 (source). These earning figures take into account the average cost of living in US cities, the amount changes depending on the cost of living of the city. After the income threshold of $75.000, the level of happiness has exponential diminishing returns. Beyond the $75.000 ceiling, if we want to maximize our happiness levels, the trick is to spend money on the right things.
Unknowingly, people with higher incomes aren’t spending their money on the things that make them happier. For example, time spent resting or early retirement, the dream of so many working people, frankly doesn’t deliver happiness. “People are happiest when the mind is engaged,” Gilbert said, whether talking, creating, or having sex (another point for marriage). “People are [also] happier when they give money away rather than spending it on themselves.” In other words, if you already have an active or passive income of $75.000, everything you do beyond that point should be for the intrinsic value itself and not for the money. The money will just add bonus points for doing something you love.
6) Laugh, and the world laughs with you
Calling laughter a miracle drug is an understatement. Laughter improves our relationships (research) makes us more open to people, and it even makes us appear sexier (study). It boosts your memory (study) and reduces the stress hormone cortisol (study). It even makes you a better learner. Our tendency is to be serious when we are studying "research shows that when we laugh, we tend to be more engaged with the material " - Emma Seppala. In general, laughter makes us healthier by lowering stress and inflammation and increasing good cholesterol (study).- Emma Seppala
So what is the single most important driver of laughter? Being with other people, we laugh 30 TIMES more than when we are alone, or in percentage terms 3000% (research). Other interesting data from Gallup is that "Babies laugh, on average, 400 times a day; people over 35, only 15. They also found that in the U.S. we laugh significantly less on weekdays than we do on weekends. Work is a sober endeavor" (article). My advice is that we transform our work environment into a space to have fun, laugh and consequently learn and produce meaningful work along the way.
7) What about a Hug?
Want to be more successful at work, happier, live longer, be more productive and contribute to people's success? If yes, hug it out. Again, this is not feel-good advice, even though it sounds like it, this is hardcore science. According to clinical psychologist Kathleen Keating, a hug can release endorphins, generate feelings of well-being, ease headaches, reduce anxiety, build self-esteem, cure insomnia, help you overcome fear, stimulate the senses, bring you joy, slow the aging process, help control appetite and has positive effects on children's development and IQ (research).
So how many hugs do we need during the day and why? According to neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak, we need a minimum of eight hugs per day to boost our oxytocin levels. Hugging someone (pets count) generates oxytocin which is the molecule that creates all the health benefits mentioned before (Ted Talk). Next time you see your friends, family or coworkers give them a hug; announce you appreciate them and that hugging will be part of your daily habits. If they are weirded out, send them this article, declare it as an initiative backed by science and that you are spreading the oxytocin love :)
8) The Happiness of U
Know thyself. A crucial ingredient for happiness is self-awareness. Siddhārtha Gautama, also known as Buddha states that: "Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment" “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles" (source). I am not recommending you to go off on a journey in the woods, go through a three-day fast, meditate, explore and come back with answers. For the most part, unless you are a Tibetan mind ninja you probably won't get the answers you are searching. Self-awareness is essentially more complicated than that. For instance, if you go Buddha for three days in the jungle, you will probably return calmer, plausibly put some priorities in order and even come up with some new goals. All things equal, this is perhaps a better method than just hoping to stumble upon self-awareness. Nonetheless, what you are missing is a 360 view.
I recommend getting a certified life coach that will conduct the proper assessments. What are we looking for? First conduct a survey with family members, friends, coworkers, bosses, mentors and a self-assessment test. Then you should complete several strength personality tests. As opposed to the method of going monk, here you get a 360 perspective. Depending on how you are intertwined with someone, different power dynamics relationships develop, consequently other people will notice behaviors that you won't catch by yourself. You will not note this difference no matter how much time you spend eating raw food in the jungle. Equally as important, once you get the results from the tests, you NEED a coach to interpret and decipher this information. I do not care if you are the Einstein of Emotional Intelligence; you will not make sense of it. Not because it is complicated information but because you lack something more fundamental: perspective. In simpler terms, you just haven't seen many of these reports; hence you do not know if being result oriented and to what degree is good or bad.
Once you have full grasps of your strengths, make it a point to focus and work in those areas alone. Everything else you are not good at, negotiate or partner with someone else to delegate or barter these tasks.
9) Learn a language of culture not of business | Flow
I got this lesson from my father. The temptation is to study a language for its extrinsic value. An extrinsic reason would be to learn Chinese because China is the world's next superpower and it will be good for business. Although this is very logical, chances are it will be merely impossible to learn the language just for this reason and worst, you will be miserable during the process. Instead, I suggest learning a language because you love the language and enjoy the culture of the people who speak the language. This is an intrinsic motivation; you are learning because you enjoy the learning process itself, it's not a sacrifice in the present or an external reward in the future. Chances are you will make more money learning a language you love and culture you admire than just for money as its own reward. If you don't enjoy the culture of the people you are talking to, this will reflect in your body language and eventually in all your communication; therefore you will have less rapport and less deal flow.
I also use this example to illustrate FLOW. Flow is a crucial state of being that makes us happy. It is the sense you get when you are doing something you love, and you forget the notion of time. Flow happens when you are doing something out of intrinsic motivation, and at the same time, there is a balance between doing something challenging and easy. If something is too challenging you get frustrated, if something is too easy you get bored. The right balance of complexity and the inherent motivation is what gives birth to the state of flow. Identify what induces you to a state of flow and find ways to experience that state on a daily basis. Another pro tip I got from Eckhart Tolle is to "Turn Your Work Into a Spiritual Practice by Releasing Your Ego" this allows us to be fully present and become one with the task we are performing" (Source). Hence, the approach is to take attention off oneself, such as the need for recognition and the self-consciousness of how others will perceive our work.
Conclusion
To tie it all down, I want to highlight one of my favorite John Lennon stories. At school, a teacher once gave him the assignment to write down "what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wrote down ‘happy’. The teacher told him he didn’t understand the assignment, and he told the teacher she didn’t understand life.” We must not measure our lives success by money or status but by how happy we are. The most successful people in the world aim to be happy, to hear the music and are unconcerned by seeming to look crazy in the pursuit.
If you liked this article I recommend reading: 8 Timeless Lessons on Entrepreneurship
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