Finding Happiness: Strategies that Work

May 2004 Newsletter:

Looking for Happiness?
Find out What Really Works
Do you know what it takes to be happy?
by Karin Suesser, PhD, Psychologist

People today are healthier and wealthier than a few decades ago, yet many of us do not feel very happy. Is it the stress of modern life? Or are we simply losing our capacity for joy? If you could make yourself happier somehow, would you?

Many people try. They take up meditation or aerobics, they go shopping or get married, they drink or take drugs. These activities may increase feelings of pleasure temporarily, but they do not usually lead to long-term happiness. What does? A good person to ask would be Dr. Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, who first made his name studying depression, and has now turned his expertise to studying happiness.

Seligman argues that, while there are no shortcuts to happiness, there are indeed ways to become happier. In his book Authentic Happiness (Simon & Schuster, 2002), he starts with the idea that people differ in the types of strengths they have, and states that we're happiest when using the particular personal strengths we already have, such as kindness, love, wisdom, humor, optimism, and generosity, to overcome challenges. By frequently using our strengths in all the important areas of life, we can develop resilience against misfortune and negative emotions, and move our lives into a more positive direction. The good news is that our strengths aren't fixed; they can be nurtured and developed throughout our lives, with benefits to our relationships, careers, and our health.

The first step in the process is to correctly identify your strengths, and Seligman offers a test to do that, called the Values in Action (VIA) survey. This free test can be accessed online at www.authentichappiness.org, and consists of 240 statements - such as "I am always curious about the world" - designed to identify a person's "Signature Strengths." The next step is to identify the areas in your life that are not working well for you, such as work or relationships, and ask yourself whether you are consistently bringing your top strengths to these areas. The key is planning to use one's strengths, such as enthusiasm, self-control, or bravery, to make specific areas of life more positive.

Three Forms of Happiness

Further in the book, Seligman identifies three forms of happiness: the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life. The pleasant life is what most Americans think of when considering whether or not they are happy moment to moment. There are shortcuts to achieving the pleasant life. You can take drugs, go on a shopping spree, eat chocolate, watch TV, or play entertaining computer games. It will probably make you happy for a bit, but at some point, most people ask, "Is this all there is?" Somehow, people want to feel like they deserved their positive feelings, and that requires more meaningful activities.

Enter the higher paths to happiness: the good life and the meaningful life, both attained by developing and purposely using one's positive personality strengths. The good life comes through deep engagement in work, family life or other activities. People are happiest in a job or an activity they find worthwhile. But the most underrated of all, says Seligman, is the meaningful life - devoting oneself to an institution or cause greater than oneself. Some find meaning in family or friendships; for others it might be charity or a religion. So instead of changing careers or taking a vacation to achieve more happiness, it would be more fulfilling to savor time with your children or find a way to give to others, whether they are strangers or your own family.

Happiness Strategies You Can Use Today

In an exercise Seligman calls 'Philanthropy versus Fun', psychology students in one of his classes were asked to engage in one pleasurable activity and one kindness-oriented activity, and write about both. The results, he claims, were "life changing." The afterglow of the fun activity (watching a movie, eating ice cream) paled in comparison with the effects of the kind action (volunteering at a soup kitchen, tutoring another student, shoveling snow for a neighbor). The reason, Seligman suggests, is that kindness is deeply gratifying. "It calls on your strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge… it consists of total engagement and in the loss of self-consciousness."

Seligman also encourages people to try another exercise that he found to be highly effective, called the "gratitude visit." First, "think of someone in your life who made an enormous positive difference, who's still alive, whom you never properly thanked." Next, write a brief testimonial to that person, about 300 words, "telling the story of what they did, how it made a difference, and where you are now as a result." Then ask that person if you can come by for a visit. When you arrive, read the testimonial out loud - usually, everybody cries. Seligman discovered that people who have made a gratitude visit say they are happier and less depressed when they are tested, up to a year later, compared with people who were assigned a different intervention.

Over time, Seligman wants to identify a set of such interventions that reliably make people happier, that they can do themselves without necessarily having to go to a therapist. But first the different approaches to happiness must be proven scientifically valid, a task Seligman and his research group are currently tackling. Anyone can take part in their online study,which randomly assigns exercises like the gratitude visit to users.
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