Solving for Happiness - Part 1

Like many of my recent personal successes, this learning (or, rather, a series of learnings that evolved into habits) originated from a podcast, specifically The Happiness Lab. I had been listening to the Happiness Lab since the start of 202o and I immediately fell in love. What's that you say? I can make myself happy by taking specific actions backed by science? Say no more fam. Not only is this podcast super informative and interesting, but it's also comforting in some way. In it, we have Doctor Santos, who feels like a very relatable big sister, speaking about how happiness is attainable for everyone. Like you, too, can be happy, and it doesn't require you to abandon all material things and run off to a monastery.

Like love, happiness is not something you magically stumble upon or retain easily. It's something you work at, something you practice. Every day. It's an action, not a noun.

This is not necessarily different than those sayings we hear all the time, i.e.,

"You are in control of your own happiness."

"Happiness is a mindset."

"Happiness is a choice."

and so on and so on...

However, I find these teachings daunting because they imply that in order to be happy, I must first control my mind and thoughts. That's about as achievable as me becoming the next track superstar. That's cool, but how do regular humans attain happiness?

Dr. Santos takes a different approach. She offers simple actions you can incorporate into your life (that may change your mindset), which will, in turn, increase your happiness. Furthermore, she provides the scientific studies and data to support her recommendations. Fantastic!

Although I found the podcast itself to be quite enlightening, it wasn't until I completed Dr. Santo's Happiness Course on Coursera that I was motivated to consistently implement these tactics. The course is free (or was during 2021), requires minimal time commitment, and is entirely online. Because I don't watch TV on weekdays, it was super easy for me to add it to my routine. My goal was to work through it on Monday evenings, with Wednesday serving as an overflow day. It took me about 3 months to complete the course, and in that time, I increased my happiness by about a point, which is actually quite significant. (They use 2 scales on which to "grade" your happiness before and after the course.) I have implemented many of these habits into my daily rituals, which I'll document in a future post for you.

Below are the core happiness tenets, known as rewirements, that are discussed in the course. I won't provide more details on them, as I strongly encourage you to take the course. But you can obviously see that many (most) of these are achievable by the average person and can be "easily" incorporated into your daily routine.

• Signature Strengths - using your top character strengths in new ways
• Savoring - taking time to savor the things you enjoy
• Gratitude - (List and/or Letter) - expressing gratitude for the people and things in your life
• Kindness - increasing your acts of kindness
• Social Connection - making connections with strangers and acquaintances, along with scheduling time for the people in your life
• Exercise - increasing your physical activity to at least 30 minutes a few times a week
• Sleep - making sure you sleep at least 7 hours a night, several times a week
• Meditation - meditating for 5-10 minutes if you are a beginner, or increasing your time in meditation if you already meditate regularly

A word on "easily." One of the things I love about Dr. Santos and what makes her so relatable is that she discusses at length how even she struggles with implementing these practices into her life. Yes, the Professor on Happiness struggles with incorporating happiness habits.

Creating a new habit isn't necessarily easy, but there's a wealth of information available on effective ways to form new habits. A personal favorite of mine, which was actually very complementary to this course, was the book, Atomic Habits. I encourage you to read this while taking the course (if you have the time and energy). It helped me implement these happiness actions more effectively as a habit. I just happened to be reading it at the same time, thanks to my awesome book club. S/O Between the Covers!

One of the areas in my life with which I was still scoring low on in the happiness questionnaires was "a sense of having a defined meaning or purpose for my life." So like once I figure that out . . .

I kid. But seriously, this is something I still struggle with almost daily. So yeah, the course doesn't give you ALL the answers to life's questions (I know so lousy; can't believe I paid nothing to take it!), but it definitely gave me the mood boost I was desperately craving in this COVID world and also some mental headspace and clarity to tackle some big and important personal questions i.e. how does one find meaning? Obviously, I will keep you guys updated on my quest for world domination... I mean happiness! Can't wait to share with you a future blog post entitled "How I found my life's meaning and now it's over for you..." or something else super inspirational :)