Positive Psychology | Live Happy

Do You Have Enough Meaning in Your Life?

No recipe for happiness is complete without meaningand purpose. In fact, when we engage in activities that serve ahigher calling and help others spread positivity, we not only get a warm,fuzzy feeling, but also increase our overall satisfaction with our lives.Now, thanks to modern research, the meaning in your life canbe measured via the Meaning in Life questionnaire. If you receivea high score, you're on a very positive track! You probably know your life’s mission, which contributes to a sense of happiness and peace.If you measure on the low end, don’t worry—here are a few ways that have been shown to add meaning to your life:• Nurture your relationships.• Make positive connections with others.• Mix in altruism and compassion.• Be open to new experiences.Log on to AuthenticHappiness.org and take the Meaning in Lifequestionnaire to find out how strong you are in this area.

Positive Psychology

6 Key Strategies for Achieving Success

Every time I tell someone that I'm writing a book onself-doubt,they say, “Oh I need that book!”Everyone experiences self-doubt at one time or another.Self-doubt might be that voice in your head that says, “Are you sure you've worked hard enough on this?” or, “Have you practiced enough?”It's normal to regularly question what we're doing and how we fit into our complex world. We’ll never eliminate self-doubt; instead we can learn how to manage it and use it as a driving force.Researchers concur that self-doubt becomes problematic onlywhen it's chronic. If you sabotage your performance with constant self-criticism, or often feel like you are an imposter and people will find you out, for example, you probably are hindered by chronic self-doubt.Below are six scientifically supported ways to manage self-doubt and use it as a constructive building block for success: 1. Re-frame difficulty as a positive forceThe other night, my niece complained that she doesn't like science class because she feels like she's “not good at it.” She added that she always has to work harder at science than her other subjects.This made me wonder: Why is it that people think something's wrong when they have to work hard and make a real effort? In one study at Stanford University led by psychology professor Carol Dweck, students in a control group learned that effort and difficulty is a normal part of growth, and should be perceived as a positive sign on the road to success. This shift in perception improved the students' academic performance and sense of wellbeing.2. Tap into past experiencesIf you’re feeling doubtful, ask yourself, “Have I ever been successful at this in the past?” If the answer is no, then ask yourself if you have ever been successful at a certain aspect of this task in the past.For example, I felt comfortable delivering workshops for years, but when people began asking me to be keynote speaker, I was terrified. After some reflection, I realized giving a keynote speech and running workshops are similar skills.Once I recognized the relevant skills I already had, I solicited help from professionals to learn the skills I still lacked. This improved not only my competence, but also my confidence.3. Practice self-compassionAccording to self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff, people who are more compassionate toward themselves have greater self-confidence. Those who don’t berate themselves when things go wrong are more likely to persist and take the risks needed to progress because they are less afraid of failure. “When it’s safe to fail, it’s safe to try.” Says Neff. (To learn more, watch my interview with Dr. Neff.)4. Doubt your doubtsOften when we embark on something new, negative thoughts can take over. “Who are you to think you can do this? ... Who cares about what you have to say?”I used to be the queen of negative self-talk. I learned to talk back to those undermining thoughts by asking: “Is this true?” Identify what your negative inner voice is saying, and then evaluate it from an objective point of view.More often than not, that little voice in our heads is spouting more fiction than fact. What's more, you can counter that inner critic with objective, rational and affirmative thoughts.5. Stop ruminatingExcessive thinking about what you should have done differently in the past can bleed into the present. So if you are stuck in negative ruminations about the past as you’re faced with a new task, you actually reduce your ability to focus on your present performance.To stop ruminating about times when my performance was disappointing, I say to myself, “I did my best with what I knew at the time.” Then I analyze what I think I could have done differently and I move on. (The moving on part is key.)6. Don't make your self-worth contingent on your accomplishmentsAmerican culture often perpetuates the idea that our worth is contingent upon our ongoing accomplishments. When we are succeeding, our self-worth goes up, and when we are failing, we feel worthless. People who do not tie their self-worth to their accomplishments in fact see failure on the same continuum as success—as a necessary step to ultimate achievement of goals.Rather than a reflection of how unworthy we are, failure can be a sign that we are still learning or have picked the wrong strategy for the circumstances. I try to remember what Maya Angelou once said: “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”Louisa Jewellis the president of theCanadian Positive Psychology Association, as well as a speaker, author, and instructor of psychology at the University of Toronto.

Positive Psychology

Happiness 101

You probably learned a number of useful things in school: reading, writing, arithmetic. But no matter how fantastic your teacher, it’s doubtful that “How to be happy” was included in the lesson plan.Luckily, it’s never too late. September marks the inaugural run of The Science of Happiness, a free online class for happiness seekers worldwide.Teaching happinessThis “massive open online course” (MOOC) is the first of its kind devoted exclusively to positive psychology. Instructors Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., will teach students science-based skills for greater happiness and wellbeing.“We’re going to dig into what we think are the most direct paths to happiness and health,” says Dacher, who is also the founding faculty director of University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.Connections, compassion, kindnessDacher says the 10-week course will zero in on scientifically proven methods for greater happiness, from building strong social connections with friends and family to the power of compassion and kindness.Students can also expect to learn a bit about their own brain, as well as practical applications for happiness. “We’re taking great care to have reflective practices that our students can engage in, like writing a gratitude diary, learning different techniques to be mindful, how to read people’s emotions more effectively—the tested practices that people can start to integrate,” Dacher says.Visiting scholarsJoining in the discussions will be noted experts from the field of positive psychology, including neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, Ph.D.; The Myths of Happinessbest-selling author Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D.; and mindful meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.So, can students really boost their happiness in just two months? Absolutely, Dacher says. “Even more important, [students will] have a sense of what they can work on to get happier. I think it’ll give them a little purpose—a little extra meaning in life.”“The Science of Happiness” launches Sept. 9. Register at either GreaterGood.Berkeley.edu or EdX.org, or opt in at any time to audit the course.

Positive Psychology

4 Ways to Spark and Spread a Positive Mood

No one can be in a good mood all the time, but since our emotions effect not just ourselves but also those around us (friends, coworkers, family), it's important to know how to make yourself feel better when you're in a funk. Here are some techniques to try out when you need an emotional boost. 1. Label your emotion Thismay sound counterintuitive, but justnaming your emotion out loud can startto change it. When you’reauthentic, people can tell.Researchershave found that just saying “I’manxious” or “I’m worried” allows thenegative emotion to dissipate muchmore quickly. So when you’re upset withyour spouse, friend or colleague, don’thesitate to say, “I feel upset about…” 2. Take deep breaths Try it now. While you’rereading this. Take a breath. Andanother. How do you feel? A little morerelaxed in the chest and shoulder area?Try this when your spouse or child sayssomething upsetting. Step aside—go to the kitchen or the bathroom or onto thefront porch and take a few deep breaths.No one will miss you, and you will comeback refreshed. This is one of thesimplest things to do, but it’s one of thehardest to remember! 3. Go for a walk We can’t emphasize how many studies stress thebenefits of being outdoors and theeffects it can have on your mood andstress level. So, if you feel that you’reabout to crash into a negative mood,take a few minutes and go for a walkoutside. The worst thing you can dois sit at your desk and continue todwell on it. 4. Move it! Surprisingly, doing a stretch, standingwith good posture and smiling allcontribute to a good mood. Performing aphysical activity—like doing fivejumping-jacks or being silly withanother physical movement, can changeyour attitude.Keep in mind that one of thesetechniques may work better than theothers for you, so experiment and seewhich works best and when. Margaret H. Greenberg and Senia Maymin, are organizational consultants and executive coaches, and authors ofProfit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business. For more information about Senia and Margaret, go toProfitFromThePositive.com.

Positive Psychology

Death Becomes Us

Nearly all of the world’s wisdom traditions agree on a surprising point: Thinking about death can be good for your happiness.Plato, for example, understood the goal of philosophy as the pursuit of lasting happiness (eudaimonia), but also described philosophy as a “meditation on death.” Or think of the Buddha, who aimed to free human beings from their self-imposed suffering so that they could cultivate genuine happiness, yet insisted that we keep the end forever in mind. “Of all mindfulness meditations,” he emphasized, “that on death is supreme.” Dust to dustJews were no less open to such wisdom. “All are fromthe dust, and to dust all return,” the Book of Ecclesiastes observes in a pointed line. It was intended as a message to remember. Nor could Christians easily ignore it. The central symbol of their faith—the cross—is a memento mori. Lest they forget this, many Christians to this day receive ashes on their brows on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, just after the fun of Mardi Gras has come to an end. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the priest declares. What a way to end a party.I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens. —Woody AllenDenial of deathAll of this may seem a little morbid in today’s world—even for the religious or the philosophically inclined. Tales of saints and hermits staring at skulls freak us out. Death in the early 21st century is something we prefer to avoid. When friends and family get sick, for example, we usually send them away—to a hospital or hospice—rather than let them die in plain sight. The poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, who has written insightfully on the subject of happiness and death in her book The Happiness Myth, points out that “Most people [today] have not seen someone die, whereas, in past centuries, even young children were brought to deathbeds to witness a period of sometimes agonized dying, and then the much-respected moment of transformation. This moment was as sacred and revered as the modern-day birth.” We hide death from our children these days and opt for youth and vitality over old age. And when our soldiers fall in combat, the cameras are barred from even showing the body bags when they return.The modern cult of youth could be hindering our happinessSurely this avoidance is also a little extreme? At the very least it may be worth asking in our death-averse society—with its cult of youth and good cheer—just what the benefits of thinking of the end might be. Why have all those wise men and sages counseled us to remember death? They may have had some good reasons.It turns out that modern psychologists, no less than ancient sages, have something to say on the matter. They point out, for example, that confronting our mortality may trigger what the psychologist Dan Gilbert calls a kind of “psychological autoimmune response,” or what Social Psychology professors Nathan DeWall and Roy Baumeister describe as a “terror management” system that allows us to deal with existential threats. Thinking about death, in other words, triggers offsetting feelings of happiness, allowing us to manage our terror of death. Just as the immune system of the body fights off pathogens, this immune system of the mind apparently helps us process threatening thoughts such as death.That may be one explanation for why the curved graph of happiness over a lifetime looks like a smiley face. (According to Gallup studies, our happiness starts high, dips in our 40s and 50s, and then makes an upswing right up to the end.) In one of life’s little compensations for our receding hairlines and expanding waistlines, men and women tend to get happier as they get older, after bottoming out in middle age.Strangely, it may actually be the increasing proximity of death that gives us an off-setting boost of happiness via this same autoimmune response.We appreciate life when we think about its finality and fragilityOr it may just be, as the sages have often said, that to recall our mortality is to force us to take the measure of what we have—the gift of life—and to weigh its importance and put it into perspective. The frustrations of the day-to-day tend to disappear or turn to dust when measured against eternity. And to prepare for a good death is necessarily to undertake to live in a way that would make that possible.There is even evidence to suggest that cultures that think about death regularly in open and constructive ways are happier than those that don’t. As the writer Eric Weiner discovered in his quest to discover the happiest places in the world, which he chronicles inThe Geography of Bliss, the subject of death came up surprisingly often when he went looking for happiness. “You need to think about death for five minutes a day,” one man in the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan told him. It was, in this case, a specifically Buddhist insight. But the advice is backed up by wisdom, ancient and modern, that can make a claim to universality.Intimations of mortalityIf it is true, as the writer Thomas Mann said in his great novel, The Magic Mountain, that “for the sake of goodness and love, man should not let death rule his thoughts,” it is equally true that to ignore death entirely is counterproductive. That is a risk in the early 21st century. For the sake of our happiness, we could all stand to cultivate a little philosophy.

Positive Psychology

The Promise of Positive Education

A 2011 University of Pennsylvania study followed 300 students through a year of middle school, measuring their good and bad feelings (depression, positiveemotion, life satisfaction) and how teachers rated their classroom behavior.The study found negative emotions (depression and anxiety) did not predict academic achievement, but positive emotions actually did. Students in the positive group had higher grades thatkept increasing the next year.In particular, researchers concluded, character strengths are the “mostpromising lever for increasing academic achievement.”The most promising leverNot your GPA. Not whether you can ace standardized tests. Not your IQ.Not whether you come from a two-parent home, listened to Baby Mozartas an infant and spent your Saturdays at museums. Not how many homes youbuilt for Habitat for Humanity or hoursyou practiced basketball on an actualcourt instead of in front of an Xbox.Now, let’s not ignore those typicalmeasures, as some of them may beindicative of character strengths. If youare in the top 5 percent of your class,scored a 2100 on your SAT, or are thestar player on your basketball teambecause you get up at 6 a.m. every dayto practice, it’s likely you are resilient…or “gritty” as researchers say.Grit is just one of many characterstrengths positive psychologyresearchers are focused on these days,but it seems to be the one gaining themost headlines.It owes much of its newfound fame toAngela Duckworth, Ph.D., an associateprofessor of psychology at Penn Stateand a 2013 recipient of the MacArthurFoundation “genius” grant for herresearch on grit and self-control as traitsthat predict success.Angela is co-developer of the “GritSurvey,” a 22-statement evaluationthat is quite predictive of futuresuccess with questions like “I do notalways finish what I begin” and “I amdoggedly persistent.” The test measuresperseverance for long-term goals andcan predict grade success at selectiveuniversities, retention at elite military academies (better than the U.S. MilitaryAcademy at West Point’s own tests) andranking in a national spelling bee.Angela’s mentor is Martin E.P.Seligman, Ph.D., who took psychologyin a completely different directionas the founder of “positive psychology,”studying what makes people happyinstead of what makes them need Prozac.“[Angela’s] notion of grit seems toencompass—to varying degrees—thecharacter of perseverance, self-regulation,zest, curiosity and hope,” says MarkLinkins, consultant for educationalpractices at the Values in Action Instituteon Character in Cincinnati. “It seemsthat grit is the nearest thing we have to a‘secret sauce’ for success. When we lookat the list of those who have achieved great success… in their respective fields, it is evidence that talent alone doesn’texplain much.“Grit is what sustains dedication to atask across time. Without that sustaineddedication, we may have bursts ofinspiration and creativity, but such shortbursts only rarely create anything oflasting value.”Grit researchJane Gillham, Ph.D., co-director of thePenn Resiliency Project, contributeda chapter on resilience to the Oxford Handbook of Happinessreleased inJanuary2013. She reports thatAngela and Martin’s research in2005 found that self-discipline wasa stronger predictor of adolescents’grades than their IQ. She also notes that research from 2009 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health ServicesAdministration showed programs thatteach coping, problem-solving skillsand social competence also improvedspecific academic cognitive skills,grades, standardized testing scoresand graduation rates.In addition, she found that two-thirds of U.S. adults thinkschools should educate studentson their social, emotional andbehavioral needs.“When people think about resilience,”Jane writes, “major adversities typicallycome to mind. For example, the childwho performs well in school and whodevelops close connections to others, despite enduring years of abuse andneglect. The process of resilience isalso reflected in positive adaptation in response to everyday stresses (conflicts with peers, low marks in school) andcommon life transitions (the birth of asibling, the break-up of a relationshipduring adolescence).”Jane advocates integrating lessonson grit and resiliency in schools—notjust as a by-the-way mention by a well intentionedteacher, but explicitly as partof the curriculum.Gregory Park, a post-doctoral fellowstudying positive psychology at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, recentlypublished a white paper on wellbeingand achievement that draws heavily fromthe research by Martin and Angela.Gregory discusses the perseverancepiece of the predictive puzzle: “Inparticular, the strengths of self controland perseverance are powerfulpredictors of many of the desired outcomes from students, inside andoutside of the classroom. These nonintellectualstrengths are related tothe capacity to delay gratification andsustain effort through difficult tasks.”Martin and Angela’s researchshows self-control and perseverancepredict grades, absences, at-homestudy habits, classroom conduct andhomework completion.So why isn’t resiliency a class just likegeometry? Some schools are workingon that.Austin ISDLast Halloween, a huge section ofAustin, Texas, was flooded. Five peopledied; 8,500 homes lost power; morethan 500 homes were damaged; and Perez Elementary School closed fortwo days.When the school reopened Mondaymorning, counselors were on-siteto help the kids process what hadhappened. The district’s Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) coach wasthere, too.Sherrie Raven, director of thedistrict’s SEL department, remembersthe students telling stories about howthey waited on top of their houses forboats to rescue them.“The kids were able to say, ‘I was really scared but I used my deep breathsto calm down’ or ‘I used my self-talk to say I’m going to be OK, I can staycalm,’ ” Sherrie says. “It’s one of thebest examples I’ve seen of the resiliencethat we’ve helped build in these kids.They had the grit and self-awareness tosay, ‘I’m going to be OK. I’m not goingto panic.’ These are little guys, and theyhave that language.”Now, language isn’t better grades.But this is evidence to Sherrie thather program is on the right track.And research looking at 213 SEL programs (250,000 students) agrees.Gregory writes that when resilience is taught in the classroom, grades and standardized testscores increased by 11 percent.Positive social behaviors and attitudesabout school, self and others increased9 percent. Andadolescent depression, anxiety andconduct problems decreased by 9 percent.Research from SEL and the PennResiliency Program (a school-basedintervention that is an offshoot of theuniversity’s resiliency research) has shown that“school-based interventions can havereal, lasting effects on student wellbeing,”Gregory writes.SEL centers on five guiding principles:self-awareness, self-management,social awareness, relationship skills andresponsible decision-making.From elementary through high schoolAustin ISD, the academic home to87,000 students, is among the first publicschool districts in the nation to bringSEL into the school day. The departmentopened in July 2011 and beganintroducing SEL into its vertical teamstructures (elementary schools that feedinto middle schools, which feed intohigh schools). The five vertical teamsleft will be included within the next twoschool years.The first two high schools tointegrate the SEL curriculum in Austinhad a very clear reason why: One had11 deaths on its campus within a year—some natural, some accidental, somesuicides. The other had seen promisingstudents drop out of college aftergraduation because they didn’t havethe grit to continue, “the ability to say,‘That really sucked but I can move on,’ ” as Sherrie describes it.Rudolph “Keeth” Matheny is anSEL instructional coach at one of thoseschools, Austin High School. Here’s one of his grit lessons: Take a piece of paperand draw a big square. Divide that intoquarters. Divide those into quarters.How many squares to you have?“The non-gritty say 16 and put theirheads down,” Keeth says. “Kids who aregritty see the whole thing is a square,so 17. And I guess each of the boxes is asquare, so 21. Then there’s a square inthe middle, so 22. Then each side hasfour more, so 26. There are three-by-three squares, four of those, so thereare 30.“I give a prize to the kid who findsthe 30 squares.Was it intelligence that enabled this student to see how many squares there were? Was it that he knew the answer? No. What caused him to accomplish this task differently than everybody else in the room? The answer is he persevered. He was willing to challenge himself to push through to find more squares. That’s what grit is.” More than 200 teachers have visited Austin ISD’s SEL program in the past year, observing what teachers like Keeth are doing. SELs don’t call such lessons “character,” as Martin, Angela and other researchers do. But the life lessons are quite similar.“We have a lesson in kindergartenon how we feel feelings in our bodies.Anger feels different than embarrassed,”Sherrie says. “In middle school, we havelessons about whether bullying can everbe an accident. In high school, we talkabout setting goals and making plans.All along the way, you have lessons inmanaging your own emotions. How do you handle anger, disappointment?How do you keep going? How do you joina group on the playground? How do youuse self-talk to keep going on somethingthat’s hard?”That’s where the grit comes in.“Your classroom teacher can say inmath class, ‘When I get to a problemthat makes me really want to give up, I really have to use some self-talk to say:‘I know how to do this. I can do this,’ ”Sherrie says. “Having the classroomteachers introduce the curriculumreally lets us work on that integration of learning throughout the school.”Austin’s goal is to eventually have“self-talk” on the day’s agenda, just likefractions. For now, though, the skills are woven into traditional academic lessonsas they are written by theSELteam.For example, while working on a scienceexperiment, students are instructed towork on making sure everybody gets aturn to talk. At the end of the lesson,students are asked to rate themselves ona scale of 1 to 5 on how they did withletting everyone talk and are asked torate their groups.“We make it visible,” Sherrie says.Resilience at KIPPTrinity Mann is in her second year at theKIPPInfinityMiddle School in New York City. The sixth-grade student struggledat her previous magnet school, so much sothat her confidencewas shaken, says hermom, Nicole.“If she would take a test and felt she gotone wrong, she was defeated,” Nicole says.“And for the rest of the test, even if sheknew the material, she’d already given up.”Nicole called it Trinity’s need to “snapback.” The Knowledge Is Power Program(KIPP) calls it her grit.Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg foundedKIPPin a Houston public school classroomof 47 kids in 1994. Today,KIPPis a publiccharter school with 141 campuses nationwide,serving 50,000 students in 20 states andWashington, D.C.KIPProlled out a morestructured character strength program inNew York City in 2009.KIPPfocuses on the seven characterstrengths Dave developed with Angelaand Chris Peterson, Ph.D.: grit,zest, self-control, social intelligence,gratitude, optimism and curiosity.Trinity has lessons in grit onTuesdays and Thursdays. But she usesthose lessons every day, according toher mother, who says she’s seen an 80to 90 percent improvement in Trinity’sability to snap back since she startedattendingKIPPInfinity. She shows gritin everything from math to dance.When Trinity was in the fifthgrade,she told her nonfictionteacher atKIPP she didn’t feel confident about her classwork. “He pushed me to dobetter, and I actually made a goodgrade,” she says. “And that wasmy goal.”Why is grit important to her?Because she wants to get into a topcollege, not just a college. That’s just what Dave had in mind back when hecreated the character program.“We always said our mission wascharacter and academic skills for collegeand life,” Dave says. “Anyone who spendsany time teaching or with kids knowsthat issues like self-control and grit andgratitude are important things to talk tokids about. Yet, we really didn’t know thescience behind it.”That was until Dave met Martinand Angela. “We’re working on goingbeyond the language of grit and lookingat the actual behaviors associated with it….I think that reallyclarifiesfor people what grit really means,” Dave says.KIPP focuses on fivegrit-specific behaviors: finishwhat you begin,stick with an activity for more than afew weeks, try hard after failure, staycommitted to goals and keep workinghard, even when you feel like quitting.“What you’re really trying to get kids to do is understand that there are repeatable behaviors that they can do to be gritty,” he says. “You’re alsotrying to work with teachers on how to structure your classroom and yourschools to create situations where kidsget to do these repeatable behaviors.For example, do students haveenough structure to sustain rigorous,independent practice in class—timeby themselves or with another student,working independent of a teacher—tokeep going?”Specific to Angela’s research,KIPPschools are asking teachers to increasethe amount of independent practicewithin their lessons and to work onbuilding stamina for reading.“That requires workingindependently with focus, not givingup when you get frustrated,” Daveexplains. “We’re intentionally teachingkids strategies to build their stamina,while, as the kids get older, we’reteaching them short- and long-termgoal-setting. When kids receive theirtests back in, say, math class, some ofour teachers are having kids creategoals for the next week: ‘How am Igoing to study for next week’s test?What am I going to do differently?’"VIA Institute onCharacterMartin’s work with VIA resultedin the classification of 24 characterstrengths.KIPP narrowed the 24 down to the ones with the strongest correlation toacademic achievement. VIA’s approach is similar, but focuses on the concept of “signature strengths.” “Each of us has a unique constellation of strengths,” VIA consultant Mark explains. “How can we help each student and teacher understand their own strengths profile? How do they use that profile to learn, achieve, connect with others? Ourapproach is respecting the individualcontent of each person’s character andshining a light on that.”The Newark Boys Chorus School,Shanghai American School and BellaVista Elementary School have usedVIA’s character strength approach.Jennifer Fisher, who taught first grade at Shanghai’s American Schoolwhen the school introduced VIAcharacter strengths into the curriculum,started the conversation during readingtime, highlighting strengths in thepicture book’s characters: “A word like‘perseverance,’ it’s a very big word. Butif you explain it to them and that itmeans you keep trying and you don’t give up, they’ll remember theword—‘perseverance.’ ”Mark doesn’t necessarily thinkgrit is more important for academicachievement today than it was 50 years ago. Students today facedifferent challenges. “While I think the ‘grit formula’ hasalways been in play, it may have greaterrelevance for students today simplybecause the opportunities to make one’smark seem to be somewhat more limitedthan they were at one time, due totechnology, a shrinking workforce, etc.,”he says. “When competition increases,perhaps grit becomes a more valuablecommodity. From an evolutionarystandpoint, this certainly makes sense.”Can You Make KidsMore—or Less—Gritty?Resilience education, as taught throughthe Penn Resiliency Program, focuseson six strengths: emotional competence,self-control, problem-solving anddecision-making, social awareness,social competence, self-efficacy andrealistic optimism.Gregory’s research indicates resiliencyis at least malleable, “making it a primetarget for interventions.”“The breadth of places where grit hasproved impactful is really incredible,”Dave says. “There are differentchallenges faced at different ages inpeople of different backgrounds, butsome of these character skills remain thesame. The frustrations and challengesaffluent kids or low-income kids facemay look different from time to time,yet both sets of kids need to be ableto get over their frustrations, to workindependently and focus. I think that’swhy Angela’s research is so powerfuland why so many people are so into itright now.”Are overly involved “helicopterparents” parenting in a way that’s counterproductive to the importance of developing grit in their kids? Maybe.“One way to think about it thatI share with parents and teachers isthat it is always safe to fail around thework kids are doing,” Dave says. “It isalways safe for kids to make mistakesin the essay they’re writing or the mathproject they’re doing or when learning to play the piano or violin. Mistakes areactually there for learning.”Sherrie agrees: “It is critical we teachthe kids, ‘You can do this yourself.’ ”In April, Austin ISD’s Keethspoke at a congressional hearing inWashington, D.C., hosted by theCommittee for Children on the topic ofteaching character strengths like grit inschool. His goal was not for parents towish their kids were in his classroom,but that his lessons were in everystudent’s classroom.“Everybody is all about the commoncore, math scores, biology scores,” hesays. “They don’t realize that it’s lessonslike this—like grit and mindset—thatmake all of those things better. Whenyou teach a kid to persevere, that you’renot born with math skills, that kidachieves way more. And that’s whenscores go up.”

Positive Psychology

The New Definition of Happiness

If you want to live happy, you first need to define happiness. Over the past few years, we have traveled to more than 50 countries researching and speaking on positive psychology, and after spending time with farmers who lost their lands in Zimbabwe, Swiss bankers in the middle of a banking crisis, owners of NBA teams and schoolchildren in South Africa, we observed that every culture and individual has a different conception of happiness. So how can we study something when we cannot agree on a definition of it? How do you define happiness? First, let’s recognize that there are enormous differences in what causes happiness and unhappiness among individuals. While hours of watching Desperate Housewives might be a guilty pleasure for some, for others, it’s their version of hell. The same goes for pets, chocolate (heaven forbid!), football and touch. Some cannot be “happy” if their stock price is down, while others cannot be “happy” knowing that companies are making profits while underpaying their employees. A big, juicy hamburger might make a Happy Meal for some Americans, but is a sacrilege to many in India. Even smiling at the wrong time in certain East Asian cultures can create unhappiness instead of spreading more positivity. Our own triggers of happiness are as varied as our fingerprints. However, while the triggers of short-term happiness are different, what sustains long-term happiness, we would argue, is universal across all cultures. There are four main qualities that sustain happiness: 1) optimism (believing that our behavior will eventually matter) 2) social connection (the breadth and depth of our relationships) 3) the way we perceive stresses (as challenges instead of threats) 4) meaning (the connection between our actions and our values) In order to sustain happiness, we need to redefine it for the world. We need to differentiate pleasure from happiness. In The Happiness Advantage, we use the ancient Greeks’ definition of happiness: “the joy you feel striving toward your potential.” Happiness in this definition cannot be stripped from meaning and from growth. This definition changed the way we pursued happiness and is linked to all four of the sustainers of happiness. Joy is something we can experience in the ups and downs of life, even when things are not pleasurable. A long run can be tiring and painful, but you can feel joy and happiness as you use the body you’ve been given to explore your potential. Childbirth is one of the most painful things humans can endure, but, as our baby doctor told us, there is a difference between pathological pain, like breaking your arm, and meaningful pain. There is a joy throughout pregnancy, childbirth and parenting that, while not always pleasurable, is linked to us achieving our potential as parents, lovers and contributors to this world. We feel happiest when we feel we are growing in our relationships or our ability to change the world for the positive (optimism) or when we see life as a challenge instead of a threat. This definition also solves the problem that we have with studies that have shown that people who have children are less “happy.” Happiness versus pleasure We got married last year, and as we thought about having children, we reflected on these studies that have scared many people away from parenting. As we looked deeper, we realized the questions they asked the participants were about pleasure, stress levels and workloads, not about happiness. We must not confuse having work, stress and challenge as the opposite of happiness. In fact, happiness requires all of those because those are necessary to achieve our potential. It’s time to move away from defining happiness as simply pleasure, and know, like the ancient Greeks, that it’s so much deeper: It’s the joy we feel when we’re striving toward our potential. So, go out into the world and continue this conversation about redefining happiness with your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors—anyone who will talk to you. Together, we can lead a movement to change how our schools, our companies, our government and our families define what being happy truly means.

Positive Psychology

The Science of Post-Traumatic Growth

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in May 1980, 13-year-old Cari Lightner was walking to a church carnival just a few blocks from her home in Fair Oaks, CA, when she was hit by a car and thrown 125 feet in the air. The driver didn’t stop. He was, Cari’s mother Candace would later learn, drunk and out on bail for another drunken driving hit and run. Cari did not survive. Five months after her daughter’s death, Candace held a press conference on Capitol Hill, announcing the formation of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. In the 33 years since then, the non-profit’s public advocacy work has helped save more than 300,000 lives. Carlos Arredondo, 52, was sitting in the bleachers near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the bombs went off. He had been waiting to greet runners from Tough Ruck, activeduty National Guard soldiers who march the course carrying 40-pound military backpacks, or “rucks,” to honor comrades killed in combat or lost to suicide. Arredondo clutched an American flag and photos of his two deceased sons—Alexander, who died in a firefight in Iraq in 2004, and Brian, who, deeply depressed over his older brother’s death, hanged himself seven years later. Spotting a young runner with both legs blown off below the knee, Arredondo rushed from the stands, smothered the flames that were still burning the runner’s legs with his hands, then ripped a T-shirt into makeshift tourniquets. An iconic photograph from the day captured Arredondo, in his cowboy hat, his hands soaked in blood, pushing the 27-year old Jeff Bauman in a wheelchair. He would later say, “I had my son on my mind” as he repeated to Bauman, “Stay with me, stay with me.” Strength AfterUpheaval These stories are all illustrations of what experts call post-traumatic growth, or PTG, the phenomenon of people becoming stronger and creating a more meaningful life in the wake of staggering tragedy or trauma. They don’t just bounce back—that would be resilience—in significant ways, they bounce higher than they ever did before. The term PTG was coined in 1995 by Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D., psychologists at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. “We’d been working with bereaved parents for about a decade,” Richard says. “They’d been through the most shattering kind of loss imaginable. I observed how much they helped each other, how compassionate they were toward other parents who had lost children, how in the midst of their own grief they often wanted to do something about changing the circumstances that had led to their child’s death to prevent other families from suffering the kind of loss they were experiencing. These were remarkable and grounded people who were clear about their priorities in life.” None of these parents, Richard stresses, believed that their child’s death was a good thing. They would have given up all their newfound activism, insights and altruism, their re-ordered sense of what really matters in life, to have their child back. “The process of growth does not eliminate the pain of loss and tragedy,” Lawrence says. “We don’t use words like healing, recovery or closure.” But out of loss there is often gain, he says. And in ways that can be deeply profound, a staggering crisis can often change people for the better. The SuperheroWithin Us We’ve always known that people often grow stronger and discover a sense of mission after tragedy strikes. It’s the stuff of our superheroes, real and fictional. Batman’s caped crusade against crime was inspired by his witnessing the murder of his parents. When Christopher Reeve, the actor who played another superhero, was left a quadriplegic by an equestrian accident, he briefly considered suicide. Instead, with Superman-like resolve, he became a powerful advocate for people with spinal-cord injuries. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which outlived him and his wife, has awarded more than $81 million to researchers working on a cure for paralysis. In some ways, the term PTG gave experts the language to express, and recognize, something that was hiding in plain sight: trauma’s potential to transform us in positive ways. “Mental health professionals have a long history of looking only at what’s wrong with human functioning,” says psychologist Anna A. Berardi, Ph.D., who directs the Trauma Response Institute at George Fox University in Portland, OR. “But if you ask people, “Have you been through something difficult and come out the other side stronger, wiser and more compassionate?” the majority of us would answer yes. That’s powerful proof that as humans we’re wired to grow as a result of hardship.” The concept of PTG is a striking contrast to PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, the lens through which we’ve viewed trauma for the past few decades. First applied to veterans of the Vietnam War, PTSD entered the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the guidebook to psychiatric diagnosis, in 1980. It became embedded in our popular culture as well. “During those post-Vietnam years the main character in shows like Hawaii 5-0 was often the crazed, paranoid Vietnam veteran who’s going to shoot up innocent people,” says Lawrence. Soon PTSD was being evoked after any type of catastrophic event, natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy, acts of violence such as 9/11 or the mass shootings in Columbine and Newtown. A psychiatrist’s warning that survivors were likely to start showing symptoms of PTSD—vivid flashbacks, emotional numbing, high levels of anxiety and depression, substance abuse— became a staple of the media’s catastrophe coverage. In fact, PTSD is relatively rare. According to statistics from the Department of Veteran Affairs, an estimated 3.6 percent of Americans will experience PTSD during the course of a given year, a fraction of the more than 50 percent of those who report at least one traumatic event. Many more will find that they’ve gained something from their ordeal. “A small percentage of people cannot return to their previous level of functioning after a traumatic event,” says Anna. “Most people emerge from a trauma wiser, with a deeper appreciation of life.” PTG is much more than a new acronym, says psychologist Stephen Joseph, Ph.D., the co-director of the Center for Trauma, Resilience and Growth in Nottingham, England, and author of the book What Doesn't Kill Us: The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth. “It promises,” he writes, “to radically alter our ideas about trauma— especially the notion that trauma inevitably leads to a damaged and dysfunctional life.” The Paradox of Gain After Loss Post-traumatic growth is a response to a seismic event that rocks your world to its very core. Your psychological house isn’t merely rattled—it’s leveled. “Trauma disrupts your core beliefs,” says Judith Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., a trauma researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. “It’s so far from what you’ve experienced in your life that you can’t integrate it into your belief system. You’re walking home down a street that you thought was safe, and you’re raped. Your core beliefs are shattered.” It’s not the trauma itself that leads to growth but the process of rebuilding, of creating new anchors in a life that has become unmoored. In 2004 Anna traveled to Indonesia as a mental-health first responder after the tsunami that killed over 225,000 people. Entire villages had been wiped out. “The challenge that faced the survivors,” Anna says, “is at the end of the day, can you build your capacity to comprehend what’s happened, and to find meaning in your life?” She recalls one local doctor who was helping tend to the injured. He’d lost his entire family—wife, sons, parents, siblings. “Everything was gone,” Anna says, “but he said, ‘Every day I thank God that I have air to breathe, and I can still use my body and my mind to serve. I’m praying to Allah that I can use this tragedy to learn how to love better.’ ” Anna pauses, then continues. “I was humbled by him.” If that’s a snapshot of post-traumatic growth, the long view is fuzzier. People who go on to a richly redefined life after a crisis may begin with reactions to their trauma that are so violent and extreme, it’s difficult to imagine they can survive, much less thrive. When Carlos Arredondo learned that his son had been killed in a hail of gunfire in Najaf, Iraq, he doused himself with gasoline and lit a propane torch. Suffering second- and third-degree burns, he attended Alexander’s funeral on a stretcher. Distress doesn’t end when growth begins. “You’re talking about the paradox of loss and gain happening at the same time,” says Richard. “It’s a messy, clumsy and difficult path.” Posttraumatic stress and post-traumatic growth may keep company for the rest of our lives. “These experiences co-exist,” says Calhoun. “When someone loses a child, growth may make that pain bearable and may provide meaning to your life. And as time goes on you will have more good days than bad days, but you will always be a bereaved parent.” Five Areas of Positive Change If heart-wrenching loss is part of the human condition so is its flipside: being propelled by the crisis to make positive, meaningful life changes. Researchers have documented post-traumatic growth in Vietnam POWs, the survivors of serious car accidents in Tokyo, women who have battled breast cancer, soldiers who were held as prisoners of war in the Middle East, Germans who survived the Dresden bombings, Turkish earthquake survivors, Bosnian war refugees. Every trauma is a singular one and everyone’s reactions a mix of his or her unique history, resources, biology and temperament. But patterns exist. Richard and Lawrence, who developed an assessment tool called the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, found that people experience growth in five broad areas. They have a deeper appreciation of life, they experience new possibilities for themselves, their relationships are closer, they feel more spiritually satisfied and they experience a greater sense of personal strength. Judith Mangelsdorf volunteers at the Björn Schulz Foundation in Berlin. Established in 1997 by the parents of an 8-year-old boy who died of leukemia, the foundation operates hospices and provides a wide range of support services to the families of children who are terminally ill. Judith has watched many families move from paralyzing grief through intense self-reflection to a broader way of seeing their role in the world. She offers a sketch of how loss can become a catalyst for positive change. Immediately after the death of a child, parents are, she says, in total despair. “They are suffering so much they feel it’s the end of their life,” she says. “Many wake up night after night with the same dream of their child suffering.” Because you are so clearly suffering, she says, people who care about you show their support. A friend moves into your guest room, your employer says to take as much time off as you need, someone from the church spends an hour with you every day. “You’re still filled with sorrow and searching for answers to the question of why this happened,” says Judith, “but you realize that there are people in your life you can really rely on. And slowly, there may come a point when you think that while you can’t change your own destiny, you may be able to help others.” Many of the parents Judith works with at the Björn Schulz Foundation go on to become “voluntary family companions,” offering compassion to others who are experiencing the anguish of saying goodbye to a dying child. What We Can Learn from Trauma Thrivers Judith says that witnessing these transformations has changed her. She has more perspective, for starters. “Being appreciative of life is something that is very present for me,” she says. After she finishes her last therapy session of the day, she often walks down to the Spree River with her partner, who is also a psychologist. “We take a bottle of wine,” she says, “sit with our feet in the river and talk about what went well—not wrong—that day.” A strong social network and experiencing positive emotions on a daily basis are two things, she says, that help people deal with crisis. She suggests to her patients, and to friends, simple techniques to enhance both. Make a list of five things that make your day a better day—a walk in the park with the dog, a latte at Starbucks, cuddling with your partner, a chat with your sister, 30 minutes spent reading a novel—and try to do them more often. Practice random acts of kindness. When you go to the grocery store ask your 88-year-old neighbor if there’s anything she needs. Ask Richard, who has studied trauma now for over three decades, what we can do to strengthen our potential to experience post-traumatic growth, and he suggests that’s the wrong question to pose. The more meaningful exploration, he says, is what lessons we can take from people who have emerged from trauma stronger, wiser and more compassionate. What do people like Carlos Arredondo, Christopher Reeve, the friend who came out of her breast cancer treatment with stronger family ties, the co-worker who has reshuffled his priorities after a fire destroyed his home have to teach us? “If you can figure out how to live your life as a fully functioning, fully engaged human being,” he says, “you won’t need trauma to transform you, because you’ve already done the work.” Read more: Learning to Thrive With Post-Traumatic Growth

Positive Psychology

The Flow in All of Us

For decades now, scientists have found that being in flow translates to accelerated performance, a shortcut on the path to mastery. Creativity, learning and progression move at warp speed when a person is in flow.Some say coders on flow built the Internet. And that any time a game is won in overtime or a major breakthrough occurs in the sciences or the arts, flow is at the heart of it.“We have known for over 50 years that flow is the state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best,” says Steven Kotler, the director of research for the FlowGenomeProject, based in Austin, Texas. “But we haven’t been good at accessing flow. If we can decode how people are finding flow, then we can find the answers to society.”Steven, who’s an award-winning journalist and a lifelong skier, started researching flow decades ago by talking to scientists who, he realized, studied flow but didn’t often experience it themselves. Then he’d speak with action sports athletes who got into flow on a daily basis without even trying to.“I’m talking to these athletes and I started thinking, wow, they have flow-hacking tips,” Steven says. “Today’s adventure athletes are the best flow hackers we’ve ever seen. They’ve become masters.”Steven has written a book on this subject called The Rise of Superman, which will be published in March. The book documents some of the world’s top action sports athletes—including skier JT Holmes, surfer Laird Hamilton, snowboarders Travis Rice and Jeremy Jones, and others—and how they access flow.To achieve flow, most researchers agree that you need a few internal elements: clear goals that are challenging but within reach, uninterrupted concentration and immediate feedback.In his book, Steven interviews Dr. Robb Gaffney, a former professional extreme skier who now works as a psychiatrist, with his office at the base of California’s Squaw Valley ski area.Robb, a scientist and an athlete, is both a student of flow and a master of it.“Being an athlete has helped me understand the flow states of athletes and perhapsflow states people achieve in other situations,” Robb said recently. “Most folks in my field have never experienced flow by carving down a steep mountainside, but it’s very likely they’ve found it while doingdifferent things.”That perhaps, is the most important thing to know, and a sentiment that most flow researchers agree upon. Although certain athletes seem to have found the doorway into flow, you don’t have to go skiing off a cliff in order to find your way there.“I believe flow states come from a myriad of different situations,” Robb says. “Thebulk of flow experiences on the planet might exist outside the athletic realm.The fact that I’ve had just as many flow state experiences whileworkingin my office as I have had on the snow—those 60-minute sessions that seem to last two minutes—makes me realize that flow doesn’t need to be triggered by my sport.”Steven says it’s a mistake to believe that flow only comes from physical risk. “You get a tremendous amount of flow in business or at start-ups,” he says. “There are a lot of mental, social and financial risks. High consequences drive people into flow, but you can replace the physical consequences with mental and social risks.”

A man sits relaxing on a peer by a lake.

Positive Psychology

The New Pursuit of Happiness

After a challenging week at work, Saturday afternoon beckons—a stretch of free time to do with whatever you like. You want, reasonably enough, to spend those precious hours in a way that will bring you the most happiness. So you decide to: a. Whip up a batch of piña coladas, park yourself on the couch and catch up on six episodes of The Real Housewives of New Jersey while munching on two or three (or four) red velvet cupcakes. b. Go door to door beseeching your neighbors to sign a petition demanding a traffic light be installed on the corner of Fourth and Fig, followed by two hours spent picking up litter and dog droppings from the local park. Which scenario do you choose? OK, both choices are fairly preposterous. But they offer a clear-cut illustration of what experts see as two paths to happiness. Choice A is an example of hedonia. This is in-the-moment pleasure with no limits or rules. It’s self-gratifying, self-serving; the consumption of things and experiences that produce positive feelings and no pain. Hedonia is the fast-food version of happiness, or, as Michael Steger, Ph.D., director of the Laboratory for the Study of Meaning and Quality of Life at Colorado State University, puts it, “Hedonia is doing whatever the hell you want.” Choice B is entirely more sober, a type of satisfaction that experts call eudaimonia. (You can already tell that this is a far more effortful path; the word itself is nearly impossible to spell correctly or to pronounce. u-dy-MOH-ni-a—if you’d like to try.) Eudaimonia is centered on fulfilling our potential; it’s driven by virtue and a higher purpose: service to others. This is a condition we achieve, says Alan S. Waterman, Ph.D., a leading happiness researcher and professor emeritus in psychology at The College of New Jersey, when we live in accordance with our truest self. The concepts of both hedonia and eudaimonia date back to the Greeks. Trust us, you would not have wanted to give Aristotle the job of picking up a keg for the Sigma Phi frat party. As he saw it, those who conceived of happiness as pleasure and gratification were “the most vulgar,” or barely human. “The life they decide on,” he scolded, “is a life for grazing animals.” Eudaimonia, on the other hand was “an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.” In the last few years, scientists in the field of positive psychology have taken up an examination of these two components of happiness. Their investigations are providing some valuable insights into how each impacts our psychological and physical health. Spoiler alert: The research doesn’t provide any clear-cut answers to what will lead to my or your happiest life. “Within each person lies the ultimate compass,” Michael says. But some of the provocative questions this new research is raising can help you find your true north. Stepping Off the Hedonic Treadmill Are you happy now? Right now? How about now? If you were participating in a modern-day happiness study, you might be asked to complete an online daily log. You might have to check off which activities in a list of several dozen you’d engaged in during the previous 12 hours and to then rate your feelings of satisfaction. Or, you might be texted randomly throughout the day, asked what you’re doing and how you feel. When social scientists add up all these caught-in-amber scores and analyze them this way and that, they end up with ratings of both right-now happiness and big-picture, or global, wellbeing. What these studies generally show is that hedonic behaviors have a short shelf life. Catch someone in the middle of, say, watching an Adam Sandler comedy or scarfing down a Snickers bar, and they’re likely to be pretty content. But a few hours, or even minutes, after the credits roll or the candy wrapper has been tossed aside, those feelings of pleasure recede. The buzz of eudaimonic behavior, however, lingers. In a study that Michael conducted, the hedonic behaviors he included on a questionnaire were things like “bought a new piece of jewelry or electronics equipment just for myself” and “relaxed by watching television or playing video games.” Among the eudaimonic activities were “volunteered my time,” “listened carefully to another’s point of view” and “persevered at a valued goal even in the face of obstacles.” People who engaged in more eudaimonic activities not only reported feeling greater satisfaction, stronger positive emotions and more meaning in life, but those feelings spilled over into the next day. They had what could be called a happiness hangover. What’s more, other studies have shown that eudaimonic behavior confers health benefits, too, including a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s and a decreased risk of heart disease. Considering the health halo that happiness affords, it’s a shame we’re so bad at predicting what’s actually likely to make us happy. You don’t need studies to prove this is the case (though plenty do). Your own experience and that of your friends—especially the perpetually grumpy ones—provide plenty of evidence. The bigger house, the faster car, the latest gizmo-loaded smartphone—all may provide a temporary mood boost, but before long we grow accustomed to these pleasures. In a phenomenon that experts call “hedonic adaptation,” our level of happiness reverts to what it was before we had these fancy baubles. We’re trapped on the “the hedonic treadmill,” holding steady at our happiness set point. For a long time researchers believed that our happiness set point was immutable, as much a matter of genetics as the color of our eyes. But lately experts are taking a fresh look at this theory and concluding that our happiness baseline may not be so static after all. A group of researchers at MIT, Harvard Business School and Duke University confirmed that major life events—like winning the lottery—don’t do much to move our happiness needle in any enduring way. But—here’s the good news—small changes in behavior can boost your baseline happiness over time. The researchers looked at two behaviors—attending religious services of any type and getting physical exercise. Each time people went to, say, a yoga class or the gym, their church or their synagogue, they experienced a little uptick in happiness. Repeated regularly, these shots of happiness had a cumulative effect that led to a permanent change in wellbeing. The participants in the study had, the researchers concluded, stepped off the hedonic treadmill “one small step at a time.” Happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., is a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of the books The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Doesand The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Lately, she’s turned her attention to ways to thwart hedonic adaptation. What she’s finding is that effortful, intentional activities can slow down or sidestep happiness habituation. If materialism leads to a happiness dead end, intrinsic goals take us on a scenic route. Building close relationships, investing in the community, mastering new skills, savoring pleasurable experiences are all strategies that can help us, she says, “stretch happiness.” Savoring is a strategy that Michael Steger employs daily. We can refresh our experiences, he says, by being mindful of opportunities to luxuriate. Now living in Colorado after growing up in “really flat, boring” Minnesota, he says, he spends a few minutes every day gazing at the mountains. “I don’t want to become inured to the beauty of the natural landscape around me,” he says. “If I’m just seeing rocks, I’ll push myself to look harder, to see where the clouds are over the mountains, or how a recent rainfall has changed the backdrop.” Easy Does It? Not For True Happiness “A man’s reach should always exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” the poet Robert Browning wrote. He could have been talking about eudaimonia in that couplet. “Eudaimonia has more to do with striving than achieving,” says Dr. Antonella Delle Fave, a professor at the University of Milan who has studied life satisfaction across the globe. “It’s about developing and growing into the best person we can be.” That effort doesn’t always feel good. “Eudaimonia can be an experience where you’re not happy or even satisfied,” Antonella says. “If you’re engaged in a very difficult work task, you may be absorbed in the project and using all your resources to face a challenge that you feel is meaningful. That generates a feeling of wellbeing…eventually. In the moment, there may be more discomfort than pleasure. Providing support to a friend who has suffered a loss, volunteering in a neighborhood blighted by poverty, training for a triathlon—these also provide a context for engagement that is meaningful, but they are far from carefree activities. Diana Nyad at 64 successfully completing the grueling 110-mile, 53-hour swim from Cuba to Florida, reminding herself to “find a way” with each stroke, was an immeasurably fulfilling experience, but hardly a day at the beach. So why bother with things that are hard? In Antonella’s studies of people in Australia, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and South Africa, one clear consistency was this: Boredom is a health risk. It turns out that staying within the confines of your comfort zone, partaking only in those hedonic experiences that are at your fingertips—a good meal, an escapist movie, a shopping trip to the mall—is strongly linked to depression. “The worst, most disruptive condition that we found in terms of overall wellbeing was apathy,” she says. “People who didn’t perceive challenges in their lives that called upon them to develop skills and resources had the lowest levels of life satisfaction. In the long run, a life of ease does not allow you to develop into a more complex, mature person.” Michael agrees. “I’m suspicious of things that are too easy,” he says. “When we look back at our lives many of the things that are most fulfilling, like raising children, making the commitment to be monogamous, taking a job that’s really challenging—require lots of labor, sacrifice, effort and deferred satisfaction over a long period of time. Lots of sleepless nights and cleaning up baby puke might make us pretty miserable in the moment, but we’ll later see those years through a rosy filter. That conflict is exactly what’s amazing about being human, which is that we’re building lives and meaning over the long haul.” Moving Beyond Mere Pleasure Maybe happiness isn’t the goal after all. Instead, perhaps we want to embrace, as Zorba the Greek put it, “the full catastrophe of life.” That’s the position taken by Edward Deci, Ph.D., and Richard Ryan, Ph.D., two leading researchers on human motivation at the University of Rochester. “I think it’s perfectly fine for people to be pursuing happiness,” Edward says. “On the other hand, I think there are a lot of other things that are pretty important to pursue. I like to pursue sadness. Sadness is an important human emotion. When my beloved dog dies, I want to experience the kinds of feelings that are associated with that. We have a wide range of human emotions, and I’m interested in pursuing them all in appropriate situations expressed in appropriate ways.” What’s more, adds Richard, happiness shouldn’t be mistaken for wellness. “If I’m a well-supplied drug addict,” he says. “I may be doing things that I know are ultimately harmful, but at the moment I’m happy.” So, how does “life, liberty and the pursuit of flourishing” sound? Okay, maybe we don’t need to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, but Edward and Richard suggest that “flourishing,” a concept that dates back to high-minded Aristotle, will serve us better than happiness as a life goal. Flourishing, or thriving, results from fulfilling three basic psychological needs. First we need to experience relatedness, or meaningful connections to other people. Whether it’s family, a romantic partner or friends, “I need to feel,” says Edward, “that there are people in this world that I care for, that I want to help when they need help and who would also be willing to help me when I need help.” A sense of competence—that you have the skills and resources to deal effectively with the world—is another basic psychological need. The third basic need is autonomy. “You need to feel that you’re doing the things that you want to be doing,” says Richard, “rather than that life is pushing you around.” Happiness, as it turns out, is a fortunate byproduct of this “life of excellence.” Studies show, Richard says, that when people pursue extrinsic goals that have to do with material things, image or fame, they’re less happy—even if they’re successful in becoming rich and famous—than people who are primarily interested in intrinsic goals like relationships, personal growth and giving to their communities. Don’t panic: Edward and Richard’s research doesn’t mean we need to aspire to Mother Teresa-like goodness. “We are not all superstars,” says Edward. “But we can all be kind to the elderly widow who lives next door, try to be nice to the people we meet on the street and, if we have the time or means, find a way to contribute to organizations that are doing good in the world.” Michael points it in even more pedestrian terms. “You can say, ‘I’m going to be less of an annoying person,’ ” he says. “I want people to feel better after they’ve interacted with me. That’s not curing cancer or solving the problem of poverty, but it is opening ourselves to embrace the concerns of others in some small way.” How to Spend That Saturday Afternoon In the world outside the psych lab, most activities are neither purely hedonic nor entirely eudaimonic but a combination of both. “In many cases things that are fun often dovetail with things that are noble,” says Michael. “To me, hitting more of these blended moments is a key to the well-lived life.” Take sharing a home-cooked meal with friends. “When we exert some effort that takes into account the experience of other people, I think we’re going to be well on our way to a eudaimonic experience,” he says. So, how should you spend that Saturday afternoon? For his part, Michael might pass it sitting on the porch of his Colorado home, enjoying a beer or two while reading a detective novel and glancing up now and then to observe how the shifting light is dancing across the Rockies. “Not everything has to be complicated all the time,” he says. “We can have fun. At the same time we don’t want to neglect that we’re capable of so much more. I think being human is more than trying to string together as many blissful hours as possible and call that a life.” In other words, we can have our red velvet cupcake and eat it, too. Enjoy a few hours of aimless leisure, then why not go out and ring a few doorbells—literally or figuratively—for something you believe in. Shelley Levitt is a contributing editor to SUCCESS magazine. Her articles on health, beauty and well-being have appeared in Women’s Health, Fitness, WebMD and Weight Watchers magazines.

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The New Pursuit of Happiness

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