Do you want to be happier? To put clients at ease when they first start their personal growth work, I often ask them a seemingly simple question: “Would you like to be happier?” The answer is always the same though the words range from “Sure” to “Yeah, but I doubt I can.”
Good news! If you think and behave like a happy person, you can increase your own sense of well being. Shift your attitudes and your behavior follows; shift your behavior and your attitudes follow, so feeling happier is within your control. Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky reports that we are able to shift our happiness quotient by a whopping 40%!
So join us for the next six columns on what you can do to be happier in your lifetime. Planetwide research informs us that happiness is more important to us than having meaning or money. And happiness contributes to other human advantages: happy people earn more, have stronger immune systems, and feel more creative than their unhappier neighbors.
What is happiness for you? Happiness is a stable human trait, not only a momentary event. Some lucky people have a high contentment set point, an internal thermometer that informs them about how OK their life is at any moment. This set point is the composite of your emotion at any moment, and a stable state of mind. You can strategize how to guide your life to meet your expectations. In the next five columns we will offer you key strategies and life stories. Follow these easy guidelines and increase your well being score. Although some tactics may seem counterintuitive, research tells us that happy people think and behave in these ways.
Paradoxically, the key to satisfaction is doing things that can feel risky and uncomfortable. Happy people are curious and take risks daily; they are open to new ideas and new behaviors; they are bigger inside than being jealous and petty; they experience and manage the full range of human emotions, and they combine a drive for pleasure with a drive for purpose in planning their life, keeping one eye on the present and one eye on the future.
Before we help you plan a happier life, we need to help you rate your own satisfaction with life by taking Dr. Ed Diener’s oft-used one-minute questionnaire. Then compare your scores to countless others who have taken this quiz and let yourself know your current well being quotient. Then stay with us to help it increase over the next months, so that by the New Year, you are feeling happier.
The Satisfaction with Life Scale
Below are five statements that you may agree or disagree with. Using the 1 – 7 scale below, indicate your agreement with each item by placing the appropriate number on the line preceding that item. Please be open and honest in your responding.
• 7 – Strongly agree
• 6 – Agree
• 5 – Slightly agree
• 4 – Neither agree nor disagree
• 3 – Slightly disagree
• 2 – Disagree
• 1 – Strongly disagree
____ In most ways my life is close to my ideal.
____ The conditions of my life are excellent.
____ I am satisfied with my life.
____ So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.
____ If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.
How to score your quotient for your own satisfaction with life: Add up your points and see how you compare with many others:
• 31 – 35 Extremely satisfied
• 26 – 30 Satisfied
• 21 – 25 Slightly satisfied
• 20 Neutral
• 15 – 19 Slightly dissatisfied
• 10 – 14 Dissatisfied
• 5 – 9 Extremely dissatisfied
Now that you know your own emotional set point, do join us for the next five columns as we provide a brief instruction manual for emulating the behavior and thinking of people who experience high well being. And do allow yourself to be surprised: activities that lead us to feel uncertainty and discomfort create the foundation for some of the happiest times in life. Stay tuned to think through how you can try on the habits of those who feel happy. You may be very glad you did!
To consider: If you knew that certain behaviors and attitudes were likely to increase your own personal well being quotient, would you try to adopt them? How hard would you work?
To Read: Robert Diswas-Deiner. The Courage Quotient. Jossey Bass 2012.
Judith Coche, PhD is a Clinical Psychologist who owns The Coche Center located at Rittenhouse Square and in Stone Harbor. For a copy of her book of Herald Columns, Your Best Life: Pathways to Happiness, or to reach Dr. Coche: www.cochecenter.com.
Cape May – Governor Murphy says he doesn't know anything about the drones and doesn't know what they are doing but he does know that they are not dangerous. Does anyone feel better now?
