The How of Happiness

How happy are you?

On a scale of 1-10 how happy would you rate your self on average? We all know people who are up there near 10, bouncing off the walls with joy almost every day. Then there are those of us who are closer to the 2 or 3 range on the scale and just aren’t quite as happy. Regardless of your current state of happiness don’t most people want to be happier? Sonja Lyburmosky in her book The How of Happiness discusses three different things that affect our happiness. Although we often think, “I’ll be happier when I’m married” or “I’ll be happier when I graduate” or “I’ll be happier when. . . .” any number of things. According to Lyburmosky only 10% of our happiness can be attributed to our circumstances. So graduating, getting married, or buying a new house will only affect your happiness on a small scale. The largest portion of our happiness, 50% is actually attributed to our biological makeup. Those people you know who are always on cloud nine might actually have a higher set level of happiness. How on earth could you determine this you might say? A study followed sets of twins who had grown up in different homes, with different circumstances, and different parents but both had the same base level of happiness – this was true for all of the sets of twins in the study. Interesting right? So if a whopping 50% of our happiness is this biological set point and a tiny 10% is just our circumstance, what is the other 40%? This is the 40% we can actually influence with our own intentional activities.

In her book The How of Happiness Lyburmosky discusses 12 intentional activities we can do to increase our happiness and recommends testing out three that you feel fit your needs most. Now as you look through these activities you might think, “wow some of those activities are just not for me.” And that is A-Okay. Lyburmosky recommends focusing on just three activities at a time so if some don’t fit your fancy then disregard them altogether. The 12 activities include:

1. Count your blessings - Express gratitude for what you have either through contemplation, journaling, or writing a “gratitude” letter to individuals who you may not have properly thanked previously.

2. Cultivate optimism - Dream and write about the best possible future for yourself and write these ideas down in a journal

3. Avoid overthinking and social comparison – Find distractions to cut down on how often you dwell on your problems and compare yourself to others.

4. Practice acts of kindness - Do good things for others, this includes friends and strangers, directly or anonymously, both spontaneous and planned.

5. Nurture your relationships – Ponder on a relationship that could use a little extra TLC and spend extra time and energy to heal, strengthen, and improve it.

6. Be engaged – Intentionally participate in activities in which you lose track of time, which are challenging, and absorbing.

7. Savor – Soak in experiences and enjoy things in the moment. Allow experiences taking place to provide you with wonder and awe.

8. Set some goals – Choose a couple meaningful goals and commit to them by devoting time and effort to their pursuit.

9. Develop coping strategies – Everyone experiences hardships in one way or another. Search out ways to endure and find joy in your trials.

10. The art of Forgiveness – Keep a journal or write a letter to help let go of anger or resentment towards anyone who has wronged you. You don’t necessarily need to give them the letter but it always helps to get out your feelings.

11. Increase spirituality – Increase your involvement in your church, temple, or mosque attendance, scripture study, reading spiritually themed books, and pondering about Deity.

12. Take care of your body- Get out there and move! Exercise, physical activity, yoga, and meditation are all great. Don’t forget to eat healthy foods, drink a lot of water. Smiling and laughing are also great ways to stay healthy.

Challenge Time!
So whether your “set point” of happiness is low or high and regardless of your current circumstances, you can still influence a whopping 40% of your happiness. One way to do that is by participating in some of these activities. It will blow your mind to see how impactful small increases in happiness are in your life as you express gratitude, nurture relationships, or practice the art of forgiveness. Are you ready to commit to a happier life? You can do it! Our challenge to you this week is to spend some time going through these 12 activities and deciding 2-3 you feel would be enjoyable to you. Once you’ve chosen them, commit to doing them for a certain period of time, maybe start with just one week and continue from there. You’ll see for yourself that just a small investment of time in these activities will yield a great increase in your happiness. If you would like you can also borrow Lyburmosky's book, The How of Happiness at a local library or purchase it on Amazon.com for $6.99.  Hope you enjoy boosting your happiness with these awesome happiness activities!

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While we don't want to control or force anyone to share, post or report, we would love to hear about your experiences.  If you had a great experience doing some of the happiness activities then please share!  Or maybe you have other activities you feel boost happiness, please feel free to share them below.

This blog is focused on being intentional about being happy. Although we shared 12 activities to increase the 40% of the happiness you are in charge of we will largely focus our posts on something that can have an enormous positive impact on our happiness, that is recreation and leisure. If we want to maximize our happiness by boosting our 40% as high as possible we need to be intentional about the activities we do, who we do them with, how often we do them, etc. Each week we will share a new post explaining an important principle pertaining to recreation and leisure, provide examples of ways to apply it to real life, and then challenge you to put it to work in your own lives and families. We really look forward to sharing insights with you as well as hearing what activities you enjoy and how your families are growing more cohesive and happy as you participate in certain activities. Ellie and Harper go to the park – Here we go.