What to remember and what to forget to become happier

I've heard this from thousands of people throughout my career. I've said this myself many times, and you probably have too. Everyone wants to be happy. But what do we really mean when we talk about happiness? Usually we want to achieve and maintain certain feelings, such as joy or fun, but something always gets in the way.

Almost always, the phrase “I just want to be happy” is followed by a “but” describing the source of the unhappiness: money problems, relationship problems, health problems—or an actual tragedy. Life seems to do everything possible, from minor troubles to major disasters, to make our happiness, at best, fleeting, and at worst, completely unattainable. What a cruel paradox: we are programmed to desire happiness, but are doomed to a life of struggle that puts it out of reach.

But what if this paradox is based on a misunderstanding of what happiness is? In fact, almost everything that folk wisdom knows about him is based on myths. And if you step over them, anyone can become happier. Even amid suffering.

What you need to forget to become happier

1. Happiness is a feeling

We all know what happiness looks like. It includes emotions such as joy, love and interest. Just like unhappiness includes fear, sadness, disgust and anger. However, calling happiness (or unhappiness) itself a feeling is a mistake. It's like saying your job and money are the same thing. You need a job that pays you, and how much you earn can indicate your professional effectiveness. But to reduce work only to money would be wrong and upsetting.

Likewise, your emotional state both stems from and helps ensure your well-being, but is not identical to it. Happiness is more than a series of neurological signals that help you feel safe, alive, and able to reproduce. I prefer to think of happiness as a combination of three less ephemeral components: pleasure, satisfaction and meaning.

Enjoyment begins with simple pleasure. Then the company of other people is added, and this is a challenge for our higher consciousness, which requires the use of management abilities brain to apply socialization skills. Therefore, pleasure can be represented as a formula: pleasure plus the company of others plus memory.

Pleasure increases happiness in a way that pleasure alone cannot do. This is why, for example, food and drink advertisements typically show people eating and drinking together rather than alone at important times in their lives. Advertisers want their product to be associated with long-term enjoyment (and therefore happiness) rather than just short-term gratification.

Satisfaction is the joy of achieving something you worked for. This is the feeling you get when you get an A on a test you studied hard for, or a promotion you earned through sweat and blood. You feel fulfilled when you do something difficult, even painful, that aligns with what you consider to be your life's purpose.

Psychologists determine meaning as a combination of consistency (everything happens for a reason), purpose (life has guidelines) and significance (your life matters). We can go for some time without pleasure and even without satisfaction. But if we lack meaning, and acquiring it requires a lot of effort and sacrifice, we are completely lost. When we lack meaning, we are unable to cope with the inevitable crises and difficulties of life. When we have meaning, we look at life with hope and inner peace.

2. Your problems are the problem

You may have noticed something strange and disturbing about the definition of happiness above: all of its components involve some amount of effort, discomfort or suffering, and even some degree of unhappiness.

Enjoyment takes time and effort. It implies that you need to say “no” to easy, casual entertainment, and sometimes to your desires and temptations. It may mean that you need to moderate your appetite for pleasure and live by the rules that you choose for yourself, for example, being faithful to your partner. Satisfaction also entails some work and hardship. If you don't get something at the cost of suffering at least a little, it is unlikely to truly satisfy you.

Trying to fix problems to make yourself happier is a common but misguided and unhelpful strategy. Instead, we need to look for the answer to the question “why” and turn problems into opportunities for training and growth. Not surprisingly, the last component of happiness—meaning—involves the most suffering. Viktor Frankl - psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor wrote: “In the way a person accepts his inevitable fate and with it all the suffering that it sends him, Even in the most difficult situations and in the last minutes of life, many opportunities open up to give life meaning".

3. Happiness is your goal

The truth is, you cannot be happy. However, you can be happier.

The search for happiness is reminiscent of the search for El Dorado - the legendary “land of gold”. When we search for happiness, we may catch glimpses of what it's like, but such flashes are short-lived. Some people talk about happiness as if they have it, but in reality no one has it. And very often, those who, according to society, should be absolutely happy - the rich, beautiful, famous and powerful - make the news because of bankruptcy, personal scandals and family problems.

If there was a secret to happiness, we would all have found it by now. If happiness were just a commodity, it would be big business, it would be sold on the Internet, it would be taught in school, it would be provided to us by the authorities. But that's not true.

The only thing that every person wants so badly from the very beginning of existence humanity, remains elusive. We learned how to make fire, came up with a wheel, a lunar rover and TikTok. But despite all our ingenuity, we have not mastered either the art or the science that would help us get and keep the one thing we really need. Some people manage to be happier than others, but no one can stay that way forever.

This is because happiness is not the final station, but the direction of movement. We cannot be absolutely happy. But wherever we are on our life's path, no matter how satisfied or dissatisfied we are no matter what we were, we can all become happier through self-knowledge, good habits and a commitment to perfection.

If the idea that happiness requires effort, involves unhappiness, and is virtually unattainable sounds like bad news to you, it shouldn't be. This thought should free you. Her message is that your feelings cannot dictate your well-being, that your Problems can't stop you from being happier and that you can finally stop looking for the non-existent "land of gold".

What to remember about happiness

1. Happiness needs nourishment

When you go to a nutritionist to get on track with your diet, he or she will look at how many macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) you consume to identify any imbalances and make adjustments. Enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning are the macronutrients of your happiness diet. And this is a good starting point for thinking about what level of happiness you are currently at and how you can increase it.

Ask yourself whether you are content with the simple pleasures of life or whether you are working towards real pleasure and making the sacrifices necessary to achieve it. Assess how clearly you understand all the components of meaning: sequences, goals and significance. The answers to these questions will show you where you need to put more effort and where you can make the most progress towards becoming happier.

2. Don't eradicate your misfortunes

The hippie motto is “If it feels good, do it!” - very bad advice. If only because it suggests choosing pleasure rather than pleasure. But the motto “If you feel bad, stop doing it” is no better. The main reason why people cannot become happier is that they spend a lot of time and energy trying to eradicate unhappiness from their lives.

You need negative emotions and experiences to find pleasure, satisfaction and meaning. I'm not talking about health problems like anxiety or depression, but about ordinary troubles that happen to everyone from time to time. You don’t need to look for such misfortunes; they find you on their own. The point is not to fight them or deny them, but to accept them, to learn from them. lessons and grow as a person.

Start each day by reminding yourself that every experience, positive or negative, is part of living a fulfilling life. If you spend energy avoiding natural conflicts, protecting yourself from rejection and disappointment, and running away from sadness and fear, turn to face troubles and say: “Come on!” It takes practice, but over time you will be surprised how much this approach can improve your quality of life.

3. Personal growth is essential for happiness.

One of the greatest paradoxes of happiness is that what brings us joy is not the achievement of a goal, but the path to it. Some goals—the pursuit of wealth, power, or fame—are misguided and harmful. Taking steps towards personal growth, acquiring new skills and strengthening connections with others are closely linked to levels of well-being.

To achieve happiness, you don't need to attach great value to it. Overvaluing it as a goal can even take you away from well-being. Just like the phrase “I want more money” will not only not make you richer, but will also make you feel more acutely that you lack it. A smarter approach is to focus on habitsthat will make you happier.

4. Correct habits are the path to happiness

It's easy to imagine that the habits that bring happiness are very personal and unique. After all, everyone has their own tastes. But we can identify some general patterns. Happy people follow their life philosophy. They maintain strong bonds with family and remain close to friends. They strive to help others through their work. It takes thought and insight to understand exactly what all of this means to you and how it plays out in your life. However, the general categories of such habits are the same for everyone.

How to apply knowledge in life

Perhaps you understand perfectly well what beliefs help you become happier and which ones don’t. However, all of this can be damn difficult to remember and implement into your life. Therefore, here is one more thing that will help consolidate knowledge and apply it in practice every day.

Teachers sometimes use a technique called the plastic platypus method to teach students how to learn and pass on knowledge to others. Its essence is that you need to explain what you have learned to an inanimate object, such as a toy. Research shows that if you can present newly acquired information in a coherent manner, you are more likely to retain and remember it. The plastic platypus works great, but it's even better to share knowledge with a real person: teaching a subject is one of the most reliable ways to study it deeply yourself.

You're probably wondering how you can teach someone how to be happier when you still have a long way to go. But that's what makes you a good teacher. The best teachers of happiness are those who have had to work to gain knowledge before sharing it, not those who are lucky enough to wake up in a great mood almost every day. These people are like fitness bloggers who are lucky with their genes and can eat whatever they want, and therefore have no idea about the problems everyone else faces.

Don't hide your problems. Use them to help others understand that they are not alone and that they can be happier. Your efforts and pain give you authority. Your progress makes you a role model, and sharing your experiences with others promotes that progress—a win-win situation.