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The Power of Relationships in Our Lives

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Article Summary: 

On the costs of social isolation and loneliness, the benefits of close relationships on our health, wellbeing, and happiness, and how to develop and maintain close relationships.

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Loneliness and disconnection are big problems these days for many. This year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on the “public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection.” He noted, “Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.” According to a Guardian article, about 20 percent of people report that loneliness is a “major source of unhappiness in their lives.”

“Loneliness hangs over our culture today like a thick smog.”
-Johann Hari, Lost Connections

Workaholism and the dramatic increase of screen time in our lives both aggravate the problem. Average daily digital content consumption is now just under seven hours, according to a recent Forbes report.

If we want to address the issues, first we need to understand them clearly, so let’s begin by defining the relevant phenomena.

 

Defining the Problem(s)

There are several factors at work, from loneliness and social isolation to solitude.

In his book, Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness, Dr. Murthy defines loneliness as “the subjective feeling that you’re lacking the social connections you need.” He explains:

“It can feel like being stranded, abandoned, or cut off from the people with whom you belong—even if you’re surrounded by other people. What’s missing when you’re lonely is the feeling of closeness, trust, and the affection of genuine friends, loved ones, and community.”

Loneliness is a normal human emotion. We all experience it, but it can become problematic when we feel it too often. Researchers have identified several types of loneliness, including:

  1. intimate loneliness: when we feel we don’t have trust and a mutual bond with an intimate partner or close confidante.
  2. relational loneliness: when we feel we don’t have quality friendships and social support.
  3. collective loneliness: when we feel we don’t have a network or community of people who share our interests and values.
“These three dimensions together reflect the full range of high-quality social connections that humans need in order to thrive. The lack of relationships in any of these dimensions can make us lonely, which helps to explain why we may have a supportive marriage yet still feel lonely for friends and community.”
-Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and his book, Together

Loneliness isn’t the same as social isolation. Researchers define social isolation as a lack of relationships with others and little to no social contact or support. Obviously, such social isolation often leads to feelings of loneliness.

Another related phenomenon is solitude. Some people conflate it with loneliness, but that’s a mistake. Researchers define solitude as a state of being alone and note that it can be voluntary or involuntary.

Solitude, it’s worth noting, can be positive. For example, it can help us have more time to reflect (a valuable thing when many of us lack margin in our lives) and lead to greater self-awareness. Also, solitude can help us develop authenticity and become more familiar with and comfortable being ourselves. Dr. Murthy points out that, perhaps surprisingly, solitude can help protect against loneliness.

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The Costs of Loneliness and Disconnection

Loneliness and social isolation can have adverse consequences in our lives. According to a large meta-analytic review of the research literature over more than 30 years by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues, “Actual and perceived social isolation” (i.e., living alone, having infrequent social contact, or having few ties with a social network) “are both associated with increased risk for early mortality.” (1)

According to researchers, loneliness and disconnection are associated with:

  1. a rise in cortisol (a stress hormone)
  2. increased blood pressure
  3. elevated blood sugar levels
  4. inflammation
  5. worse immune functioning
  6. poorer health behaviors (such as physical inactivity, worse sleep, and smoking)
  7. faster aging
  8. higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia
  9. greater likelihood of premature mortality (1)

According to the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, poor or insufficient connection come with a 29 percent increased risk of heart disease, 32 percent increased risk of stroke, and 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia among older adults. Also, lacking social connection can increase risk of premature death by more than 60 percent. (2) It can be just as deadly as certain diseases, according to researchers.

As if the physical health effects weren’t bad enough, loneliness and isolation often contribute to mental health challenges as well. For example, the risk of developing depression among adults who report feeling lonely often is more than double the risk among people who report feeing lonely rarely or never. When it comes to children, loneliness and social isolation elevate the risk of anxiety and depression both immediately and far into the future.

“Today it’s widely understood that one of the most important factors
in preventing and addressing toxic stress in children is healthy social connection.”
-Vivek H. Murthy, Together

Isolation can become a downward spiral, fostering discontent and shame, leading to further isolation. Many people have a tendency to go it alone through hard times and transitions, perhaps from their personality or upbringing. Unfortunately, that’s a recipe for more hardship.

“Protracted loneliness causes you to shut down socially, and to be more suspicious of any social contact…. You become hypervigilant. You start to be more likely to take offense where none was intended, and to be afraid of strangers. You start to be afraid of the very thing you need most…. disconnection spirals into more disconnection…. many depressed and anxious people receive less love, as they become harder to be around. Indeed, they receive judgment, and criticism, and this accelerates their retreat from the world. They snowball into an ever colder place.”
-Johann Hari, Lost Connections

 

The Benefits of Relationships

Forming and maintaining relationships, by contrast, comes with many benefits, according to researchers. British-Swiss journalist and author Johann Hari notes that just as bees evolved to be part of a hive, so we humans evolved to be part of a tribe. It stands to reason that there’s an evolutionary basis behind our urge to connect with others and form social bonds. Doing so helps us survive and reproduce, and it helps us access support in times of danger, distress, or trauma.

“…like food and air, we seem to need social relationships to thrive.”
-Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener,
Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth

Social bonds are not just about surviving but also about belonging and thriving. Enter what psychologists call the “belongingness hypothesis”: that we have a “pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships.” (3) In a major review of the research literature on interpersonal attachments, researchers Roy F. Baumeister and Mark R. Leary found that our need to belong has two main features:

  • first, we need frequent interactions with others that are positive or pleasant (or at least mostly free from conflict)
  • second, we want interpersonal bonds that are stable and continuing and marked by genuine concern (and, ideally, mutual concern)

According to researchers, social relationships benefit our immune system as well as our cardiovascular and endocrine (hormone regulation) functions. (4)

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Relationships and Happiness

Researchers have long tied the quality of our relationships to our wellbeing, happiness, and sense of fulfillment. The connection also shows up in surveys. According to a large 2023 Pew Research Center study, 61 percent of U.S. adults say that having close friends is extremely or very important in order for people to live a fulfilling life. (5)

The research on the link between social connections and happiness is extensive and powerful. (See the Appendix.)

“The centrality of social connections to our health and well-being cannot be overstated…. One of the strongest findings in the literature on happiness is that happy people have better relationships than do their less happy peers. It’s no surprise, then, that investing in social relationships is a potent strategy on the path to becoming happier…. people with strong social support are healthier and live longer.”
-Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

According to Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of California Riverside, “The causal relationship between social relationships and happiness is clearly bidirectional.” In other words, when we improve our relationships, we’re likely to experience positive emotions. Then, our enhanced feelings of those positive emotions are likely to help us attract more relationships (and ones that are of high quality). That, in turn, will help make us even happier. She calls it “a continuous positive feedback loop” and “an upward spiral.”

 

The Dark Side of Relationships

Though the benefits are clear, we should also note that not all relationships are positive or beneficial. Far from it.

Many people are in relationships that are poor, manipulative, abusive, or even toxic. And good people sometimes have profound flaws that not only get themselves into trouble but also hurt others. Of course, all relationships go through ups and downs, and it’s not realistic to assume that they’ll induce happiness all the time. In fact, many people get themselves into trouble by expecting too much from their relationships, as opposed to doing the inner work of intentional improvement. Researchers have noted that relationships can be extremely stressful. (6)

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How to Maintain Close Connections and Relationships

Since relationships are so important to physical and mental health and happiness, we’re wise to reflect on what we can do to nurture them. Here are things we can do to develop and maintain our relationships:

  1. Make time for important people in our lives and avoid the traps of perpetual busyness and workaholism that pull us away from them. Stop neglecting people and start cherishing them, starting with attention and quality time.
  2. Be honest, trustworthy, and reliable.
  3. Show interest in them.
  4. Open up and share our inner life, including our hopes, challenges, and fears, with close family and friends we trust.
  5. Demonstrate loyalty and commitment to family and friends.
  6. Support family, friends, and colleagues during their times of need.
  7. Show them we care with our actions as well as our words.
  8. Show them appreciation often.
  9. Express affection (e.g., holding hands, hugging, cuddling, massage). We humans are wired to need physical contact, and researchers have found a link between touch deprivation and many negative health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and immune system disorders.
  10. Celebrate good news with them.
  11. Be polite and considerate.
  12. Listen more and better.
  13. Be positive—and don’t fall into the traps of complaining/muttering, catastrophizing, or having a victim mentality.
  14. Strive to understand their context, interests, and perspectives.
  15. Seek common ground and mutual interests.
  16. Treat them as they wish to be treated.
  17. Show understanding and empathy.
  18. Stop blaming others so much and take responsibility for our part in things.
  19. Respect their preferences and boundaries.
  20. Manage conflict well, including forthrightly and deftly raising concerns or disagreements instead of letting them fester.
  21. Avoid disrespect and contempt.
  22. Don’t hold grudges.
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
-A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

 

Conclusion

Our relationships with others are among the most precious gifts we can have in life. Too many people lose sight of that as they get lost in work, materialism, concerns or the day, or petty grievances.

One of the reasons that connections and relationships are so important in our lives—and such powerful contributors to our happiness—is that they get us out of our egoic shell. They get us to focus on others. It’s through our relationships that we can become better people by developing our empathy and compassion and giving part of ourselves to others.

Connect deeply and often. Do it gladly and urgently. You won’t regret it.

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Are you neglecting any important relationships in your life?
  2. Are you doing enough to develop new relationships?
  3. Are you doing enough to maintain your existing relationships that are important to you?
  4. What else will you do, starting today?

 

Tools for You

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Related Articles

 

Related Books and Podcasts

  • Vivek Murthy, Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness (Harper, 2020)
  • Johann Hari, Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope (Bloomsbury USA, 2018)
  • “The Life-Changing Power of Connecting with Others,” episode 410, December 12, 2023 on the Feel Better Live More podcast with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

 

Appendix: Research on Connections and Relationships

The research on the centrality of close relationships to our health, wellbeing, happiness, and fulfillment is extensive. Here are some important studies:

 

Harvard Study of Adult Development

The Harvard Study of Adult Development is a massive longitudinal study of hundreds of people for their entire adult lives. The study began in 1938 and is continuing to this day (after having multiple study directors) with its “Second Generation Study.” The study has evaluated mental and physical health and wellbeing, career enjoyment, retirement experience, and marital quality via interviews, questionnaires, medical exams, and psychological tests.

When asked what he’s learned from the study, Professor George Vaillant (a psychiatrist who led the study for decades) wrote: “Warmth of relationships throughout life have the greatest positive impact on ‘life satisfaction.’… (We now have) 70 years of evidence that our relationships with other people… matter more than anything else in the world…. Happiness is love. Full stop.”

 

Study of the Happiest People

In a study of 222 undergraduates, screened for high happiness using multiple confirming assessment filters, researchers sought to identify the characteristics of the happiest 10 percent of people among us. They found that the main distinguishing characteristic of the happiest people was the strength of their social relationships. (7)

“Here’s the most fundamental finding of happiness economics: the factors that most determine our happiness are social, not material…. social connectedness is the most important of all the variables which contribute to a sense of wellbeing in life.
And that is true at any age…. We are each other’s safety nets.”
-Jonathan Rauch, The Happiness Curve

 

World Values Survey

According to researchers who evaluated data from the World Values Survey, which surveyed people in more than 150 countries about their life satisfaction, the top factors that account for about three-fourths of reported well-being are: social support, generosity, trust, freedom, income per capita, and healthy life expectancy. (Note how many of these factors are social.)

 

The Blue Zones

Dan Buettner, explorer, author, and American National Geographic Fellow, has written extensively about the “blue zones”: regions in the world where people live, or have recently lived, much longer than average, including many centenarians. The blue zones identified are: Okinawa Prefecture, Japan; Nuoro Province, Sardinia, Italy; the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California, U.S.

According to Buettner, there are common patterns of behavior across the blue zones, several of which concern relationships:

  • “Belong”: belonging to and participating in a faith-based or spiritual community and attending services regularly.
  • “Loved Ones First”: putting their families first, committing to a life partner, investing in their children with time and love, establishing and maintaining family and social rituals, and keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home
  • “Right Tribe”: surrounding themselves with a tribe of people that they interact act with often and over their lifetimes (e.g., Okinawans created ”moais”–groups of five friends that committed to each other for life).
“The most successful centenarians we met in the Blue Zones put their families first. They tend to marry, have children, and build their lives around that core. Their lives were imbued with familial duty, ritual, and a certain emphasis on togetherness.”
-Dan Buettner, The Blue Zones

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Relationships and Connections

  • “Union gives strength.” -Aesop, “The Bundle of Sticks,” 550 B.C.
  • “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” -Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 (English Standard Version)
  • “The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.” -Abraham Lincoln, lawyer, statesman, and U.S. president
  • “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” -Erich Fromm, German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, and sociologist
  • “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. You need one because you are human.” -Jane Howard, Families
  • “We all need to know that we matter and that we are loved…. While loneliness engenders despair and ever more isolation, togetherness raises optimism and creativity. When people feel they belong to one another, their lives are stronger, richer, and more joyful.” -Vivek H. Murthy, Together
  • “There are two pillars of happiness… One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away.” -George Vaillant, psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School professor, former director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development
  • “Invest in friends. There is no other instrument that pays such high returns…. We need each other, but perversely we neglect each other. Every day we have an opportunity to exercise friendship, to make huge returns on a tiny investment, but foolishly we relapse into sleep and forgetting. Please take my advice to heart—forget bonds, forget stocks, forget gold—invest in friendship.” -Ronald Gottesman, USC professor
  • “What often matters is not the quantity or frequency of social contact but the quality of our connections and how we feel about them.” -Vivek H. Murthy, Together
  • “Isolation is fatal…. The burden of going it alone is heavy and limiting—and potentially dangerous…. In fact, social isolation can take up to seven years off of your life. Isolation contributes to heart disease and depression; it influences your immune system and leads to faster aging and advanced health problems.” -Richard Leider and Alan Webber, Life Reimagined
  • “We believe that the most terrifying and destructive feeling that a person can experience is psychological isolation. This is not the same as being alone. It is a feeling that one is locked out of the possibility of human connection and of being powerless to change the situation. In the extreme, psychological isolation can lead to a sense of hopelessness and desperation. People will do almost anything to escape this combination of condemned isolation and powerlessness.” -Jean Baker Miller and Irene Stiver, Wellesley College
  • “Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health. Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight—one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives.” -U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy
“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.” -Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (writing about an epiphany he had while in a concentration camp and thinking about his beloved wife, Tilly)

 

References

(1) Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237.

(2) Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community,” Washington, D.C., 2023.

(3) Baumeister, R.F. & Leary, M.R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.

(4) Umberson, D. & Montez, J.K. (2010). Social relationships and health: A flashpoint for health policy. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(Suppl), S54–S66.

(5) Kim Parker and Rachel Minken, “Public Has Mixed Views on the Modern American Family,” Pew Research Center, September 14, 2023.

(6) Walen, Heather R.; Lachman, Margie E. Social Support and Strain from Partner, Family, and Friends: Costs and Benefits for Men and Women in Adulthood. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 2000; 17:5–30.

(7) Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very Happy People. Psychological Science, 13(1), 81-84.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

20 Benefits of Gratitude

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It’s easy to take things for granted. We may appreciate things for a while but, sure enough, we eventually start discounting them. The unhappy result is that we can go through long stretches of our lives without noticing the good things.

The benefits of gratitude show up not only in hordes of modern scientific studies but also in centuries of shared wisdom. All the major religions encourage and celebrate gratitude. And many great spiritual teachers have been powerful exemplars of living with a grateful heart attuned to the wonders of creation.

 

20 Benefits of Gratitude in Our Lives

Feeling gratitude has an astonishing number of benefits. Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky from University of California, Riverside and other researchers have found that gratitude can:

1. Magnify good feelings.

2. Improve our sense of wellbeing, happiness, and overall life satisfaction.

“If you want to find happiness, find gratitude.”
-Steve Maraboli, author

3. Lead to better mental and physical health, including lower blood pressure, better sleep, and a stronger immune system.

4. Boost our energy and enhance our vitality.

5. Bolster our capacity for optimism.

6. Reduce negative feelings like anger, bitterness, self-centeredness, envy, and greed—all of which inhibit our happiness—and curb our tendency to compare ourselves to others.

7. Lead to greater generosity, kindness, and helpfulness (“prosocial” behaviors).

8. Help us form closer and better relationships with friends and—and maintain them over time.

9. Expand our social network, giving us access to more friends and greater social support—while making it less likely that we’re lonely and disconnected.

10. Affect our brains in positive and lasting ways, including an orientation toward enjoying it when other people thrive.

11. Shift our attention away from negative emotions (e.g., fault, criticism, regret) and toward positive ones (e.g., benefit, abundance, joy), making it harder for us to ruminate.

12. Help us cope with and build resilience in the face of stress and traumatic events.

“…it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. In other words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.”
-Dr. Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis

13. Help us become more forgiving.

14. Enhance our sense of self-worth. (We feel more capable and confident when we realize how much others have done for us or how much we’ve accomplished.)

15. Reduce our tendency to complain and feel like a victim since it focuses our attention on what we value and appreciate.

16. Help us maintain a broader and better perspective in which we can place our challenges in the larger context of abundance and privilege.

17. Address the problem of “hedonic adaptation,” in which we tend to grow rapidly accustomed to the things we wanted and got.

18. Help our children and youth. According to research, more grateful adolescents and college students show keener interest in school, do better academically, have better social relationships, and enjoy their educational experience more.

19. Help people facing drug and alcohol addiction.

20. Provide some degree of protection against depression and suicidal ideation.

What will you do to start bringing more gratitude into your life, starting today?

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Postscript: Inspirations on the Benefits of Gratitude

  • “Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside.” -Barry Neil Kaufman, author
  • “Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.” -Oprah Winfrey, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author
  • “It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy.” -Brother David Steindl-Rast, Catholic-Benedictine monk and scholar
  • “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” -Melody Beattie, author
  • “When you appreciate the good, the good appreciates.” -Tal Ben-Shahar, teacher and writer
  • “Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace.” -Arianna Huffington, Greek-American entrepreneur and author
  • “Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude.” -Deepak Chopra, spiritual teacher and author
  • “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” -Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

On Spirituality and the Good Life

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Article Summary: 

How spirituality and the good life are related, including the benefits of having a spiritual practice and examples of it.

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We all want to live a good life, but are we living in such a way as to make it likely? In many cases, the cultural influences around us aren’t helping. Think about it.

How many of us feel anxious and stressed much of the time? To what degree are we influenced by cultural messages and forces related to consumerism and materialism, status and ego, fear and greed, manipulation and division? How many of us feel time-starved and struggle with numbing or workaholism? These are common traps, and they take us away from a life we’ll be proud of.

“The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more developed materially than spiritually.
Its balance is disturbed.”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, French novelist and philosopher

When we focus on material circumstances, what happens when things change for the worse, as they’re wont to do? What happens when we’re shaken up with a health scare, relationship wound, or job loss? Do we really want to let our happiness depend solely on how things are going in our life, given that change is inevitable and that we all experience ups and downs regularly?

Enter spirituality. To some, it’s a loaded word, because it comes with baggage. But to many, it’s a powerful centering practice that adds depth, richness, and meaning to their lives, whether through prayer, worship, meditation, or other means.

Those who avoid spirituality for whatever reason may want to give it a second look, because it can be an important and powerful part of human experience.

“If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.”
-Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk, theologian, mystic, and social activist

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What Is Spirituality?

Part of the problem is that there’s no widely accepted definition of spirituality, and many people conflate it with religion or dogma. We can think of it very simply as having to do with the human spirit, as opposed to material things. Here are some ways to think about it:

“Spirituality is the measure of how willing we are to allow grace—some power greater than ourselves—
to enter our lives and guide us along our way.”
-Mastin Kipp, author of Daily Love: Growing with Grace
“Spirituality is the process of living out a set of deeply held personal values,
of honoring a presence greater than ourselves.”
-Peter Block, author
“Spirituality for me is recognizing that I am connected to the energy of all creation, that I am a part of it and it is always a part of me. Whatever label or word we use to describe ‘it’ doesn’t matter. Words are completely inadequate.”
-Oprah Winfrey, media entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Many people view spirituality as an age-old quest for inner peace and liberation, for awakening and enlightenment. It can include a search for self-transcendence—or rising above and beyond our ego (what some people call “ego death”).

Spirituality tends to involve asking fundamental questions (e.g., Who am I? Where do I come from? What’s my place in this vast universe? Is there a higher power? What, if anything, gives life meaning?). For many, it entails a recognition of our interconnectedness, and perhaps a quest to reach a higher level of consciousness or experience a sense of oneness with all.

Spiritual routines can range from daily practices to weekly services to personal prayer or faith. They tend to evolve as we age, grow, and have different life experiences.

For some, spirituality is about faith and forgiveness, or ministry and service, or peace and joy. For others, it’s about a search for meaning and purpose, appreciation of truth and beauty, or reverence of the sacred. It can entail connecting with nature, the cosmos, or the divine. And for some people, it’s about mystery, miracles, and revelations—or deeply held aspirations for heaven or nirvana. For most, compassion and love are at the heart of it.

Paul Anderson, University of Minnesota professor emeritus, noted in a scholarly article that the word “spirit” comes from the Latin word spiritus, meaning “breath,” and is defined as “the vital principle or animating force traditionally believed to be within living beings; one’s essential nature.” The definition of the word “soul,” Anderson wrote, is comparable: “The animating and vital principle in the human being, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion.”

Author and social forecaster Patricia Aburdene noted five hallmarks of spirituality: meaning or purpose, compassion, consciousness, service, and wellbeing. According to her, “The quest for spirituality is the greatest megatrend of our era.”

“We suffer when we don’t find ways to allow the concerns of the soul to manifest into our lives.”
-Rabbi Mordecai Finley

 

The Difference between Spirituality and Religion

Some people equate religion and spirituality, but that’s a mistake. They’re related but not the same. Here’s how the Dalai Lama described it:

“Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is the acceptance of some form of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual prayer, and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which brings happiness to both self and others.”
-Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in Ethics for the New Millennium

It’s been said that religion is an institution while spirituality is an experience. The way many people think about spirituality today often includes a sharper break from traditional religious institutions than in the past, and spirituality sometimes comes with an interesting blend of things (e.g., humanistic psychology and mystical traditions, or yoga and workplace wellness).

“Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.”
-Ram Dass, psychologist and spiritual teacher

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The Benefits of Having a Spiritual Practice in Our Lives

Spiritual practice—and living in accordance with deeper truths and our highest values—can transform our lives by bringing us a sense of unity, interconnectedness, awe, mystery, abundance, eternity, unboundedness, lucidity, tranquility, liberation, transcendence, flow, and presence.

“The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. It is a part of every man’s life; and until he has realized it, he is not a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers.”
-Evelyn Underhill, English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist

A deep and lasting spiritual practice can help us realize that we’re whole regardless of the circumstances we happen to find ourselves in—and that we don’t need anything from anyone or the world to be and feel whole. A healthy spiritual practice can:

  • be a source of hope and comfort in hard times
  • provide a sense of meaning
  • give us inner peace
  • enhance our ability to cope with anxiety and stress as well as with difficult conditions or experiences
  • give us a state of expanded awareness and a more pure form of consciousness
  • lead to a clearer and more accurate understanding the nature of the world and universe as it really is, not as we’re conditioned to view it
  • give us a better sense of perspective and help us look beyond ourselves and our petty preoccupations and concerns
  • help us make sense of our life experiences and tribulations
  • help us tap into our inner strength and resilience
  • connect us with a spiritual community that provides not only solace and support but also companionship and joy
  • help us discover our purpose and core values—and build them into our daily lives
  • help us stop reacting so negatively to external events and stop being triggered by the same people and situations over and over
  • help us drop the yoke of judgment—of constantly judging ourselves and others
  • enhance our happiness and fulfillment
  • fill us with a deep and lasting joy
“…scientists have found, again and again, that those with a spiritual practice or who follow religious beliefs tend to be happier than those who don’t. Study after study has found that religious people tend to be less depressed and less anxious than nonbelievers, better able to handle the vicissitudes of life than nonbelievers. A 2015 survey by researchers at the London School of Economics and the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that participating in a religious organization was the only social activity associated with sustained happiness—even more than volunteering for a charity, taking educational courses, or participating in a political or community organization. It’s as if a sense of spirituality and an active, social religious practice were an effective vaccine against the virus of unhappiness.”
-Bryan Walsh, “Does Spirituality Make You Happy?” TIME, August 7, 2017

 

Examples of Spiritual Practices

Some people have never been exposed to spiritual practices, so they don’t know where to begin. Others may have had negative experiences with religious institutions (often involving shame or guilt) that they wish to avoid. So, it’s important to understand our options.  Here are some common spiritual practices:

  • Praying
  • Worshipping at a religious service
  • Meditating
  • Experiencing nature—even just walking and being present with the sights and sounds around us—and savoring it
  • Reading things that engage our heart and soul
  • Creating things (via art, music, writing, film, dance, etc.)
  • Being in community with others where we feel each other’s presence, engage in deep dialogue with trust and vulnerability, and avoid judging or trying to fix each other. (Author Parker Palmer notes that “inner work, though it’s a deeply personal matter, is not necessarily a private matter: inner work can be helped along by community.”)
  • Serving others and giving back
  • Engaging in spiritual contemplation (e.g., reflection on the divine)
  • Practicing yoga
  • Fasting
  • Journaling
  • Chanting
  • Practicing silence and/or solitude
  • Engaging in rituals (e.g., christening, bar mitzvah) or services (e.g., funerals)
  • Embarking on a spiritual retreat or pilgrimage

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Spirituality and Connection

Connection and connectedness are fundamental aspects of spirituality. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, researcher Brene Brown writes, “The heart of spirituality is connection.” To her, spirituality is “recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.”

Martin Buber, an Austrian-Israeli philosopher, once observed that “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.” “True compassion,” wrote Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, “does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.”

“We’re all just walking each other home.”
-Ram Dass, psychologist and spiritual teacher

 

Spirituality and Ego

One of the challenges with modern living is that, if we’re not careful, we can get to caught in our ego, which causes us to focus excessively on things like material possessions, image, or success—all of which lead only to fleeting pleasure for most. In this way, our ego keeps us from living from our heart and soul.

In his book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra distinguishes between the nature of the ego and the soul. The ego, he writes, tends to be rejecting, critical, opposing, clinging, agitated, resentful, selfish, conflicted, and judgmental. By contrast, the soul is accepting, approving, cooperating, detached, calm, forgiving, selfless, peaceful, and nonjudgmental. He notes that the ego and soul have two very different visions of fulfillment. See the table below.

The ego’s vision of fulfillment:

The soul’s vision of fulfillment:
I have everything I need to be comfortable. I am everything I need.
I am serene because bad things can’t come near me. I am secure because I have nothing to fear in myself.
Through hard work, anything can be achieved. The flow of life’s abundance brings me everything.
I measure myself by my accomplishments. I do not measure myself by any external standard.
I win much more often than I lose. Giving is more important than winning.
I have a strong self-image. I have no self-image; I am beyond images.
Because I’m attractive, I win the attention of the opposite sex. Other people are attracted to me as soul to soul.
When I find the perfect love, it will be on my terms. I can find perfect love, because I have discovered it first in myself.

A key part of spirituality is living more from our soul and less from our ego.

“When the ego dies, the soul awakes.”
-Mahatma Gandhi, Indian lawyer and transformational leader

 

Conclusion

For many people, spirituality is an essential aspect of living a good life. There are many different spiritual traditions and practices. For many of us, a disciplined spiritual practice can be powerful and transformative as we take the focus off ourselves, give thanks, stand in reverence, and come back to our true nature, wholeness, and divine source.

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Are you too caught up in the hustle and bustle of modern life?
  2. Do you have a spiritual practice that enriches your life?
  3. What more will you do to live from your heart and feed your soul?

 

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Postscript: Inspirations on Spirituality

  • “Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of invisible game.” -Rumi, 13th century poet and Sufi mystic
  • “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest and scientist
  • “But you are not your bank account, or your ambition. You’re not the cold clay lump you leave behind when you die. You’re not your collection of walking personality disorders. You are Spirit, you are love, and even though it is hard to believe sometimes, you are free. You’re here to love, and be loved, freely.” -Anne Lamott, writer, teacher, and political activist
  • “The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status. Some of my friends are billionaires, but they are very unhappy people. Power and money fail to bring inner peace. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside.” -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
  • “One of our problems today is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We’re interested in the news of the day and the problems of the hour…. When you get to be older, and the concerns of the day have all been attended to, and you turn to the inner life—well, if you don’t know where it is or what it is, you’ll be sorry.” -Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
  • “Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.” -Harold Kushner, rabbi, author, and lecturer
  • “As we become more obsessed with succeeding… we lose touch with our souls and disappear into our roles.” -Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
  • “Everyone has a calling, which is the small, unsettling voice from deep within our souls, an inner urge, which hounds us to live out our purpose in a certain way. A calling is a concern of the spirit. Since a calling implies that someone calls, my belief is that the called is God.” -Dave Wondra, executive coach
  • “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” -Matthew 6:19-20
  • “God takes our willingness and leads us mysteriously down the path where our deepest longings will finally be met in relationship with him and others.” -John Burke, founder and lead pastor of Gateway Church
  • “The deepest desire of our hearts is for union with God. God created us for union with himself: This is the original purpose of our lives.” -Brennan Manning, author and priest
  • “We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. We have to recover our original unity.” -Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk, theologian, mystic, and social activist
  • “Fulfillment is not a matter of self-improvement. It involves a shift away from the ego’s agenda, turning from externals to the inner world. The soul holds out a kind of happiness that isn’t dependent on whether conditions outside are good or bad.” -Deepak Chopra, spiritual teacher and author
  • “…our purpose for being alive is fulfilled by moving more and more deeply into our spiritual hearts and experiencing the presence of love.” -H. Ronald Hulnick and Mary R. Hulnick, Loyalty to Your Soul
  • “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” -Romans 12:2, King James version
  • “My religion consists of a humble admiration for the Superior Spirit who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds….” / “There has to be something behind things, something deeply hidden.” -Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist
  • “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting.” -Warner Heisenberg, German theoretical physicist
  • “The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshiped in the cathedral or the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.” -Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
  • “Amidst all the mysteries by which we are surrounded, nothing is more certain than that we are in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.” -Herbert Spencer, English philosopher and psychologist
  • “Invoked or not invoked, God is present.” Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. (Latin inscription over the entrance to Carl Jung’s home in Switzerland)
  • “God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” -Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat
  • “And then the knowledge comes to me that I have space within me for a second, timeless, larger life.” -Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet and novelist
  • “Man’s aim in life is not to add to his material possessions, but his predominant calling is to come nearer his Maker.” -Mahatma Gandhi, Indian lawyer and transformational leader
  • “…the kingdom of God is within you.” -Jesus Christ to his disciples in Luke 17:21
  • “…spiritual truth is diametrically opposed to the values of our contemporary culture and the way it conditions people to behave…. The collective disease of humanity is that people are so engrossed in what happens, so hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms, so absorbed in the content of their lives, they have forgotten the essence, that which is beyond content, beyond form, beyond thought. They are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny.” -Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher and author
  • “Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” -C.S. Lewis, British scholar, writer, and lay theologian
  • “…underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” -St. Catherine of Alexandria, princess, scholar, and Christian saint
  • “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest and scientist

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Benefits of Nature and Getting Outside

by
Nature – path by water trees and mountains

How much time do you spend inside? How about staring at a screen? These days, we’re spending more and more of our time indoors and online. Many people don’t get outside enough.

Too many of us are nature-deprived. It’s part of a larger historical trend from the Industrial Revolution. With bigger cities and factories and more office work and indoor living, more and more of us have started feeling separate from nature—or even alienated from it. This has real implications. Richard Louv, an author and co-founder of the Child & Nature Network who coined the term “nature deficit disorder,” noted:

“Nature is not only nice to have, but it’s a have-to-have for physical health and cognitive functioning.” (1)

 

The Benefits of Getting Outside and Being in Nature

Being in nature has all sorts of benefits. According to the research, being in nature can lead to a reduction of anxiety, blood pressure, heart rate, stress hormones, anger, attention fatigue, muscle tension, the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (a mood disorder in climates where there’s less sunlight during parts of the year), and more.

Furthermore, spending time in nature can help promote the following:

  1. greater attentional capacity, including focus and concentration
  2. our ability to connect with others (a key contributor to our happiness)
  3. creativity and creative problem-solving abilities
  4. empathy and love (2)
  5. more exercise
  6. immune function
  7. a sense of meaningfulness
  8. physical wellbeing
  9. positive mood
  10. sleep quality
  11. vitality
  12. healthy management of body weight
“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people.
I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’” -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

To be clear, being in nature doesn’t have to mean deep wilderness expeditions. Many people these days live in cities or suburbs, and they’re wise to take advantage of what Linda Åkeson McGurk, author of The Open-Air Life, calls “nearby nature.” That means just getting outside in our local neighborhoods and finding whatever green or blue (water) spaces we can.

Nature – CITY PARK WITH LAKE AND FALL FOLIAGE

Sunlight plays an important role here. Direct sunlight has about 200 times the intensity of office lights. Our body’s internal clock depends on the daily cycle of sunlight and darkness. Getting exposure to sunlight helps us feel more tired at night and shorten the time to fall asleep. Sunlight exposure can help with fatigue and low mood. It also helps us get Vitamin D, which is important for our bones, blood cells, and immune system, as well as absorption of certain minerals (e.g., calcium and phosphorus). Also, it helps keep our serotonin levels up, which keeps our mood calm, positive, and focused.

Getting outside can also help us be more social. When we go outside, we get more chances to see and connect with people, which is essential for our health and happiness. (See my article, “The Most Important Contributor to Happiness.”)

There are different theories as to why being in nature is so beneficial. One is “biophilia theory”: since we evolved in wild, natural settings and relied on the environment for survival, we have an innate drive and need to be in nature. Another is “attention restoration theory”: being in nature replenishes our cognitive resources, like our ability to pay attention and concentrate, when they get depleted.

“If you’ve been using your brain to multitask—as most of us do most of the day—and then you set that aside and go on a walk, without all of the gadgets, you’ve let the prefrontal cortex recover. And that’s when we see these bursts in creativity, problem-solving, and feelings of well-being.”
-David Strayer, professor of cognition and neural science, University of Utah

Most likely, it’s a combination of these and other factors.

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10 Tips for Getting Outside

When we learn about all the benefits of getting outside, it can motivate us to do so. Still, we have work obligations, time pressures, and all sorts of online distractions and temptations. It’s a challenge for many of us. So, here are ten tips for getting outside more:

1. Keep it simple. It doesn’t have to be trekking into the deep wilderness. Take advantage of your nearby nature and do simple activities like walking.

2. Make it a habit and create outdoor rituals, like morning coffee on the deck, mid-day walks, or evening chats on the patio.

3. Exercise outside sometimes, including walks, hikes, runs, bike rides, or other outdoor activities or sports. (See my article, “Exercise and Movement for Health, Wellbeing, and Great Work.”)

4. Limit screen time, since it keeps us from enjoying the great outdoors. Don’t check your phone first thing in the morning. Check those daily screen time stats regularly. And be sure to unplug sometimes when out there walking or running so you can listen to the birdsong and be present where you are.

5. Experience nature with a friend. This comes with several benefits: deepening our social relationships (a primary contributor to our happiness), exercise, and all the advantages of nature.

6. Try gardening. It has many positive health benefits, according to a large body of research. Gardening, with its digging, planting, raking, carrying, squatting, kneeling, and more, entails functional movement that incorporates whole-body exercise, including movements similar to squats and lunges. According to the research, gardening can:

  • lower levels of stress and anxiety
  • improve our cognitive function and mood
  • reduce our body mass index
  • provide helpful structure to our days or weekends
  • increase our psychological wellbeing, quality of life, and sense of life satisfaction
  • enhance self-esteem and creativity
  • reduce the effects of dementia

What’s more, it’s gratifying to plant, tend, harvest, eat, and share home-grown food. It’s healthy and good for the environment as well. Gardening is also a great activity for practicing mindfulness.

7. Visit city parks, nature reserves, and national parks. They’re there for a reason. They can help bring calm, gratitude, or awe back into our lives.

8. Go camping, boating, climbing, or trekking. These are great ways to bring fun and adventure back into our lives.

9. Try forest bathing (spending time in a forest environment). The Japanese call it Shinrin-yoku. Studies show that it can help boost our energy and immune system as well as help us sleep better and recover more quickly when we get sick.

10. Go wild sometimes, i.e., do go to the forests, jungles, prairies, mountains, lakes, seas, or oceans sometimes. As writer Linda Åkeson McGurk points out, the wilder it is, the more restorative it’s likely to be.

 

What about Office Workers?

Thankfully, office workers aren’t doomed to nature deprivation. They’re wise to take breaks (including lunch) outdoors and have walking meetings whenever possible. It helps to have a supportive workplace. (3) For example, managers wanting to support the health, wellbeing, and productivity of their team can:

  • provide a space for employees to relax and get away from the office (e.g., an outdoor area with comfortable seating)
  • give workers flexible hours
  • offer wellness programs
  • have bicycles on the workplace grounds, if applicable, and/or provide incentives for commuting by bicycle
  • employ outdoor team-building activities
  • incorporate nature in company meetings and retreats

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What the Nordic Countries Taught Me About This

When I moved to Sweden many years ago, the temperature dropped to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees Celsius) that first winter. A bit colder, and we could have reached the place where Fahrenheit and Celsius converge (minus 40 Fahrenheit equals minus 40 Celsius). For this man who grew up in southern California, it was a shock. But not as big of a shock as seeing all the Swedes get out into that bone-chilling cold. There’s a famous saying in Swedish:

Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder.
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”

Enter what the Swedes and Norwegians call friluftsliv (which we can translate as “free-air life,” “fresh-air life,” or “open-air life”). Linda Åkeson McGurk wrote a book about it: The Open-Air Life: Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and Embrace Nature Every Day.

Friluftsliv is about connecting with nature in simple ways. It’s a lifestyle in the Nordic countries that’s been passed down across generations, that’s taught in schools, and that’s used as preventive care for mental health (nature therapy), often for people with burnout.

When in the Nordics, you can see it all around you, from people enjoying time in their summer cottages for weeks at a time, to grilling hot dogs outside in the middle of winter (grillkorv), to baby strollers placed outside on the porch of daycare centers and preschools in the middle of winter, with the children swaddled in cozy blankets and breathing fresh air. It’s also a part of the work culture, with gå och prata möten (“walk and talk meetings”). There’s also a conservation aspect: the more connected we are to nature, the more likely we’ll be good stewards of natural places and resources.

During that first winter in Sweden, my inclination was to hunker down by the fireplace. Eventually, I learned a better approach. In Sweden, you just pile on with about seven layers of clothing, including snow pants and great winter gloves, boots, and hats, and you get out there in that magical winter. And in the dark rains of November. Rain or snow, you just get out. It makes a big difference. Friluftsliv.

What are your favorite ways to get outdoors?
How can you build more of them into your routines?

 

Tools for You

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Related Books and Podcasts

  • Book: Linda Åkeson McGurk, The Open-Air Life: Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and Embrace Nature Every Day (TarcherPerigee, 2022)
  • Book: Linda Åkeson McGurk, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom’s Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (Touchstone, 2018)
  • Richard Louv, Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life (Algonquin Books, 2016)
  • Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin Books, 2008)
  • Podcast: “We Know Nature Is Good for Us. Here’s How to Make Time for It, Scandinavian Style,” Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris podcast interview with Linda Åkeson McGurk, August 28, 2023.

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Nature

  • “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” -Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher
  • “They will forget the rush and strain of all the other weeks of the year, and for a short time at least, the days will be good for their bodies and good for their souls. Once more they will lay hold of the perspective that comes to those who every morning and every night can lift their eyes up to Mother Nature.” -Theodore Roosevelt, former U.S. president, naturalist, and conservationist
  • “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” -Henry David Thoreau, American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher
  • “Nature itself is the best physician.” -Hippocrates
  • “If you wish to know the divine, feel the wind on your face and the warm sun on your hand.” -Buddha
  • “It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.” -Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist
  • “The earth has music for those who listen.” -William Shakespeare, English poet, playwright, and actor
  • “We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” -Henry David Thoreau, Walden
  • “I have just come from four days rest in Yosemite… Lying out at night under those giant sequoias was lying in a temple built by no hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build….” -Theodore Roosevelt, former U.S. president, naturalist, and conservationist

 

Appendix: Research on the Benefits of Nature

A study of 19,806 people by University of Exeter environmental psychologist Mathew White and his colleagues found that people who spent two hours a week in green spaces (e.g., local parks or other natural environments) were substantially more likely to report good health and psychological wellbeing than those who don’t. This finding held true whether the visits to green spaces were all at once or spread out over multiple visits. Source: White, M.P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J. et al. Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Sci Rep 9, 7730 (2019).

“Walk in nature and feel the healing power of the trees.”
-Anthony William

In a Japanese experiment, researchers measured the heart rate and blood pressure of people who were assigned to either walk in a forest or an urban center. The walks were of equal length and difficulty. Those who walked in forests had significantly lower heart rates and reported better moods and less anxiety than the others. Finnish researchers found that city dwellers who walked for as little as 20 minutes through a city park or woodland reported significantly more stress relief than people who walked in a city center.

Dr. Gregory Bratman and his Stanford University colleagues conducted a 2015 study in which 60 participants were randomly assigned to walk for 50 minutes in either a natural setting of oak woodlands or in an urban setting along a four-lane road. The people who walked in nature experienced less anxiety, rumination, and negative affect (likelihood of experiencing negative emotions), plus more positive emotions and better performance on memory tasks. Dr. Bratman and his colleagues noted evidence from a review of the research that contact with nature is associated with increases in happiness, subjective wellbeing, positive social interactions, and a sense of meaning and purpose in life—as well as decreases in mental distress. Source: Gregory N. Bratman et al., Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective. Sci. Adv. 5, (2019).

According to a meta-analysis from Dr. Alison Pritchard at the University of Derby in England and her colleagues, people who feel more connected to nature have greater “eudaimonic wellbeing” (experiences associated with living a life of full flourishing, growth, authenticity, meaning, and excellence). Source: Pritchard, A., Richardson, M., Sheffield, D. et al. The Relationship Between Nature Connectedness and Eudaimonic Well-Being: A Meta-analysis. J Happiness Stud 21, (2020).

Peter Aspinall and his colleagues at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland studied participants while they walked through an urban green space. Mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) monitors showed lowered engagement, arousal, and frustration while in the green space and higher engagement levels when departing from the green space.

Roger Ulrich and his Texas A&M University colleagues conducted an experiment in which participants viewed a stressful movie and then either videos of natural scenes or videos of urban settings. The people who viewed natural scenes demonstrated a much quicker and more complete recovery from their stress. In a study of gallbladder surgery patients, with half of the patients given a view of trees and half given a view of a wall, the patients with the view of the trees tolerated pain better and spent less time in the hospital. Nurses also reported that they had fewer negative effects from the surgery.

Juyoung Lee, Dacher Keltner, and other University of California, Berkeley researchers showed participants nature scenes, independently rated for their levels of beauty, and then observed their behavior in two games, one measuring generosity and another measuring trust. Those who viewed the more beautiful nature scenes experienced greater positive emotions and acted with greater generosity and trust in the games than the others.

Penn State University sound researcher Joshua Smyth has found that when people hear songbirds, the tension in their nervous system falls. The opposite occurs when they hear cars and airplanes. Another study compared participants who listened to nature sounds (e.g., waves crashing and crickets chirping) to those who listened to urban sounds (e.g., traffic and the noises of a busy café). Those who listened to nature sounds performed better on demanding cognitive tests. Source: Van Hedger, S.C., Nusbaum, H.C., Clohisy, L. et al. Of cricket chirps and car horns: The effect of nature sounds on cognitive performance. Psychon Bull Rev 26, (2019).

According to a 2015 study of 2,000 people in the United Kingdom, more exposure to nature was associated with more community cohesion and substantially lower crime rates. Source: Netta Weinstein et al., Seeing Community for the Trees: The Links among Contact with Natural Environments, Community Cohesion, and Crime, BioScience, Volume 65, Issue 12, 01 December 2015.

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
-William Shakespeare, English poet, playwright, and actor

The benefits of nature aren’t limited to green spaces. They also come from blue spaces, including marine and freshwater environments.

(1) According to researchers, concentrations of air pollutants are much higher indoors than outdoors, and there’s a risk of respiratory problems because of that. Being outside can also help reduce the chances of contracting airborne viruses like the flu and covid-19.

(2) When study participants viewed nature scenes, it activated the parts of the brain associated with empathy and love, according to fMRI scans.

(3) More and more organizations are paying attention to and investing in this. We’ve even seen an increase in “forest schools” in many countries. Forest schools are found in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, China, and Japan, among other countries.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Stop Our Negative Self-Talk: 15 Practices

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How to Stop Our Negative Self-Talk: 15 Practices

Many of us struggle with negative self-talk—an inner critic that savagely sabotages us with doubts and harsh judgments. We’re our own worst enemy.

We think we’re struggling with the outer game but it’s actually the inner game that’s tripping us up.

“Happiness is an inside game, literally and neurochemically.”
-Shirzad Chamine, executive and best-selling author

 

How to Stop Our Negative Self-Talk

There are many things we can do to hush the inner critic in our head.

  1. Doing breath work: breathing deeply and intentionally (as in yoga, meditation, and “box breathing”). This will change our physical and mental state.
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
  1. Noticing our thoughts more: observing the things that pop into our heads and spotting the negative patterns that reappear. It helps to label them (e.g., “I’m being overly critical again”) and let them go.
  2. Practicing self-compassion: treating ourselves with understanding and warmth in difficult times and recognizing that we all make mistakes. With self-compassion, we can give ourselves grace, forgive ourselves, and move on.
  3. Being curious about or fascinated with the issue we’re concerned about—a more positive frame.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

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  1. Remaining open to new possibilities and alternate interpretations that don’t involve harsh self-judgment.
  2. Focusing on what we can control, and not worrying about the rest. (Consider reciting the “serenity prayer.”)
  3. Avoiding the trap of catastrophizing (assuming the worst or exaggerating our flaws).
  4. Changing our context to bring a different perspective and renewed energy.

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  1. Asking questions to understand why we’re feeling a certain way and how things might be changed.
  2. Replacing our inner critique with a more charitable and helpful narrative.
  3. Cognitive reframing: shifting our mindset to look at a situation or relationship from a different and more helpful perspective, such as redefining a problem as a challenge or a puzzle or mystery that we can solve.
  4. Playing and having fun. (Play often changes our physiology by moving us into a state of deep engagement or flow.)
  5. Taking action. This naturally interrupts our negative self-talk and rumination and focuses us on our context and next move.
  6. Choosing what to think and be mindful about. Many people become victims of the thought-stream in their minds instead of engaging their “observer” or “witness consciousness” to observe their thoughts and let them go.
“What a liberation to realize that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am.
Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
-Eckhart Tolle, German spiritual teacher and author
  1. Changing the channel on negative thoughts. Sometimes it helps to use a pattern interruption technique like swiping our hand to the side, symbolically signaling that we’re dismissing our negative self-talk.
“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Is your self-talk too negative?
  2. What techniques will you try to address it?

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Tools for You

 

Related Traps and Articles

 

Appendix: Support Resources

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Trap of Not Being Grateful for What We Have

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The Trap of Not Being Grateful for What We Have

With the way our brains work, it’s easy to take things for granted and not be grateful for what we have. We may appreciate things for a while but then start discounting them. The result is that we can go through long periods of our lives without noticing and acknowledging the good things.

When we fail to appreciate what we have, it can lead not only to less happiness but also potentially to self-absorption and a sense of entitlement. Meanwhile, we’re missing out on the incredible benefits of gratitude.

 

What Is Gratitude, Exactly?

Dr. Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, and one of the world’s top experts on gratitude, defines it as follows:

“a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life.”

Jeremy Adam Smith, editor of Greater Good magazine, calls gratitude “the mental tool we use to remind ourselves of the good stuff.”

Gratitude is multifaceted and can include appreciation, being thankful for what we have, thanking people, counting our blessings, savoring things, and even contemplating abundance.

Its power is evident not only in hordes of modern scientific studies but also in centuries of shared wisdom. All the major religions—including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism—celebrate and encourage gratitude. Many of the great spiritual teachers have been powerful exemplars of walking through life with a grateful heart attuned to the wonders of the universe.

“If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.”
-Meister Eckhart, German theologian and mystic

Gratitude isn’t about mindless optimism. Feeling grateful doesn’t make us naïve or willfully blind to the challenges we face or the traumas we’ve experienced. Dr. Emmons noted that even our national symbol of gratitude, Thanksgiving, occurred after nearly half the pilgrims died after a tough year with a harsh winter and scarce food.

Finally, being grateful doesn’t mean passively accepting everything as it is now. We can be grateful for what we have even while we’re working on overcoming obstacles and pursuing exciting opportunities.

“Learn to be thankful for what you already have, while you pursue all that you want.”
-Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and author

There’s also a difference between an automatic feeling of gratitude that we may experience from time to time and a proactive choice to be grateful for what we have as much as possible. In the latter case, it’s a choice, a mindset, and a perspective on life, not just something that occasionally washes over us and fades away. Dr. Emmons, for example, distinguishes between feeling grateful and being grateful.

 

Why We Struggle with Gratitude

Many of us have a lot to be grateful for, potentially including family, friends, health, freedom, safety, and more. Even just being alive.

Why do we take so many things for granted? Enter “hedonic adaptation,” our natural human tendency to become rapidly accustomed to changes in our circumstances and then settle into that new baseline as if nothing had occurred.

We start to take nice things—like a gentle breeze, spring flowers, the change of seasons, the smell of pine trees, a good job, a close friend—for granted. Our positive emotions can fade after a while, and we can start to feel entitled to things. Not good.

Meanwhile, with the way our brains are wired, we tend to focus on what we’re missing instead of appreciating what we have. Our evolutionary biology has given us a “negativity bias,” with positive things having less weight in our thoughts than negative ones.

The trap of ingratitude can also be aggravated by materialism, with an excessive focus on money and possessions, and entitlement. Other contributing factors include our tendency to be self-absorbed or even narcissistic sometimes, as well as our desire to be independent and self-reliant.

Part of the problem is failing to see how interconnected and mutually dependent we are. It’s easy to miss how unworkable our lives would be without schools, teachers, hospitals, doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, custodians, roads, bridges, soldiers, engineers, and more.

Cynicism and envy also inhibit gratitude, as does complaining.

“Entitlement and self-absorption are massive impediments to gratitude.”
-Dr. Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

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The Benefits of Gratitude in Our Lives

Feeling gratitude has an astonishing number of benefits. According to researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky in her book, The How of Happiness, “The expression of gratitude is a kind of mega-strategy for achieving happiness.”

She and other researchers have found that gratitude can:

1. Magnify good feelings and improve our wellbeing, including greater happiness and life satisfaction. (In fact, it’s one of the most important contributors to our wellbeing.)

“If you want to find happiness, find gratitude.”
-Steve Maraboli, author

2. Lead to better mental and physical health (including better sleep, lower blood pressure, and a stronger immune system).

3. Bring us vitality and energy.

4. Expand our capacity for optimism.

5. Reduce anger, bitterness, self-centeredness, materialism, envy, and greed (all of which inhibit happiness). Gratitude tends to reduce our tendency to compare ourselves to others.

6. Lead to greater generosity, kindness, and helpfulness (what the researchers call “prosocial” behaviors), in part due to a desire to reciprocate, in the process reinforcing prosocial and moral behavior.

7. Help us form closer and better relationships with family and friends—and maintain those relationships over time. (It’s been described both as a “booster shot” for long-term relationships and as an “upward spiral,” since when we’re more tuned in to the value of our family and friends, we treat them better, in the process fortifying those bonds.)

8. Give us access to a wider social network, more friends, and greater social support—and make it less likely that we’re disconnected and lonely.

9. Have lasting positive effects on our brains, including an orientation toward enjoying it when other people thrive (a prosocial outlook).

10. Shift our attention away from negative emotions (like fault, lack, criticism, regret) and toward positive ones (like benefit, abundance, joy), making it harder for us to ruminate and dwell in negativity. This works because our minds can only focus on so many things at once: if we’re thinking about good things, we’re also crowding out the bad things.

11. Help us cope with and build resilience in the face of stress and traumatic events (including, according to the research, cancer diagnoses, campus shootings, natural disasters, and wars). Those who feel grateful regularly tend to experience fewer and less intense traumatic memories.

“In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life.
In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize.
In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal.
In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope.
In other words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.”
-Dr. Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis

12. Help us be more forgiving.

13. Boost our self-worth and self-esteem. (We feel more confident and capable when we realize how much others have done for us or how much we’ve accomplished.)

14. Be a great antidote to complaining and feeling like a victim since it focuses our attention on what we value and appreciate.

15. Help us maintain perspective, as we place our trials and tribulations in the larger context of abundance and privilege.

16. Thwart the problem of hedonic adaptation, in which we grow rapidly accustomed to the things we previously wanted. With gratitude, we stop taking as many good things for granted.

17. Help our children and youth. More grateful adolescents and college students show greater interest in school, do better academically, have better relationships, and enjoy their school experience more.

18. Help people with drug and alcohol addiction recovery.

19. Provide some protection against depression and suicidal ideation.

Quality of Life Assessment

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How to Bring More Gratitude into Our Lives: 19 Practices

With all these benefits of gratitude, the question now arises: how to summon it? How to bring more of it into our lives? Here are several research-based techniques to choose from:

1. Enjoying experiences. Several studies have found that people felt more grateful after having an experience (e.g., concert, restaurant outing) than they did after purchasing a material good (e.g., clothing, jewelry). We often enjoy not only the experiences themselves but also the build-up of anticipation before them and the relishing of their memories afterward.

2. Savoring. According to psychologist Fred Bryant from Loyala University, when we savor things (e.g., a brilliantly prepared meal in a cozy setting with friends), it increases their effect on our mood and helps them last longer in our memories—especially when we express our gratitude for the experiences. Even better when we mark the experience with a ritual (e.g., a short prayer before we eat or a cozy bedtime routine with the kids).

3. Silent mental thanks. Just marking our grateful feelings with a silent thought of appreciation can go a long way. We can also try loving-kindness meditation, an ancient Buddhist practice in which we cultivate goodwill and universal friendliness toward ourselves and others.

4. Visual reminders of what we’re thankful for. The idea here is to keep them in front of us, so we don’t lose sight of them. We can use Post-It notes, photos, pictures on the wall, or other simple ways to keep them front and center.

5. Gratitude journaling. Writing down things that make us feel grateful. It doesn’t have to be in a journal. We can simply write down the good things in our life (e.g., what we like about our home, family, friends, pets, work, community, or world; what we’re good at; what we’ve achieved; what opportunities and privileges we have; etc.) A fun way to do this is to write them on scrap paper and place them into a gratitude jar. The things we write down don’t have to be profound. We can be grateful for a cup of coffee on the deck, or the funny little things our pets do. Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky recommends doing this once a week, not daily, for most people, so it doesn’t become rote. But the key is to do it in a cadence that works best for us. (See my article, “Journaling: Benefits and Best Practices.”)

6. Gratitude letters. Write a letter to a person who has helped us, noting what we’re thankful for. It could be a family member, friend, colleague, mentor, teacher, or coach.

7. Gratitude visits. In this case, we not only write a gratitude letter but also take it and share it with the person, even someone we haven’t seen in a long time. These meetings can be very meaningful and powerful for both people.

8. “Three good things.” Write down three things that went well for us and note their causes. Here are some tips on how to do it from the Greater Good Science Center:

“Each day for at least one week, write down three things that went well for you today, and provide an explanation for why they went well. It is important to create a physical record of your items by writing them down; this can be more helpful than simply doing this exercise in your head. The items can be small, everyday events or more important milestones (e.g., ‘my partner made the coffee today,’ ‘My grandparents were happy when I brought them groceries,’
or ‘I earned a big promotion’). To make this exercise part of your daily routine, some find that writing before bed is helpful.”
-Source: “Three Good Things,” Greater Good in Action

9. “Benefit appraisal.” When we receive a gift, consider its benefits and note the intentions of the gift-giver—as well as the costs they’ve incurred in giving it to us (e.g., money, time, effort). This will help provide a fuller appreciation of the gifts we get.

10. Digging in the dirt for gratitude nuggets. Find reasons to be grateful even under tough circumstances. Sometimes that boss who fired us did us a huge favor. Or that person who broke up with us ended up helping us in ways we couldn’t see at the time.

11. “Mental subtraction.” Imagine what our lives would be like if something positive hadn’t occurred. (Researchers call this the “George Bailey effect,” after the classic film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” in which George’s guardian angel shows him all the lives he’s impacted and what life would have been like in his town without him.

12. Loss or death reflection. We can imagine we never got that raise or promotion, or that new apartment or home. In one study, researchers asked people to imagine the sudden disappearance of their partners from their lives. Those who did so became more grateful for their partners. In another study, researchers discovered that undergraduate students asked to imagine dying experienced more gratitude than students asked to reflect on a typical day.

“Because our very existence is a constant benefit that we adapt to easily,
this a benefit that is easily taken for granted.
Reflecting on one’s own death might help individuals take stock
of this benefit and consequently increase their appreciation for life.”
-Araceli Frias et al., 2011*

13. Situational contrast. Compare where we are now with the tough times we’ve experienced. By seeing the contrast, we can more fully glimpse and appreciate the magnitude of the changes. Think of what we’ve learned or gained in the meantime, even if it’s lessons about mistakes to avoid or wisdom earned the hard way—or just the fact that we were able to survive and move forward. Consider how things could be worse—sometimes much worse.

14. Recasting. This means reframing a loss into a potential gain, flipping negativity into positive channels for gratitude. According to researchers, subjects who engaged in grateful recasting had more closure, healing, and redemption as well as less unpleasant emotional impact from upsetting experiences. They also demonstrated fewer intrusive memories (e.g., wondering why the bad event happened, whether it could have been prevented, and whether they caused it to happen).

“Processing a life experience through a grateful lens does not mean denying negativity. It is not a form of superficial happiology. Instead, it means realizing the power you have to transform an obstacle into an opportunity.”
-Dr. Robert Emmons

15. Thought swapping. Observe ungrateful thoughts we have and swap in grateful thoughts instead. (Example: Switch from “I can’t believe she said that” to “I’m thankful for how she works so hard at planning those outings.”)

16. Asking gratitude-inducing questions. For example:

  • What lessons did I take away from that experience?
  • Are there benefits that I can see now even though the experience was hard at the time?
  • Has the experience helped me become the person I want to be?

17. Sharing gratitude. Here are three simple ways to do so:

  • Find a “gratitude buddy” who we can share our cherished moments with—and who can help us stay on track and stick with our gratitude practices.
  • Build the sharing of gratitude into our routines, such as a family dinner. Go around the table and have each person say at least one thing they’re grateful for that day. In his book, The Happiness Advantage, author Shawn Achor tells the story of African CEOs he works with who did this with their kids. They discovered not only that it made them think of more things they’re grateful for but also that their kids held them accountable for it, refusing to eat dinner until the exercise was complete.
  • When a visitor comes to town, share the people, places, and things we love and appreciate with them.

18. Build some variety into our gratitude practices. If we do the same gratitude practice repeatedly, it may become stale. We can counter this by varying our approach.

“Keep the strategy fresh…. Write in a journal some weeks, talk to a friend other weeks,
and express gratitude through art (photography, collage, watercolor) during other weeks.”
-Sonja Lyubomirsky, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Riverside

19. Calendarize our gratitude practices. Enter them into our schedule so it becomes something we do consistently.

Most of these gratitude practices are both easy and free. The point isn’t that we must do all the things above. Not at all. Just doing one can be powerful.

These gratitude practices force our brain to scan for positives in our life, eventually training the brain to notice good things.

 

Conclusion

Feelings of gratitude can be intense as they wash over us and fill us with warmth and light. We shudder with appreciation and love. Our lives are uplifted.

We can choose gratitude regardless of our circumstances. We can redeem our bad experiences by focusing on the good that we still have or that came out of them.

The gold standard of gratitude isn’t just to feel it occasionally, or just to will it into our lives, but to make it a habit that ends up up-leveling our mental outlook in big ways.

“Every day, think as you wake up, ‘I am fortunate to be alive.
I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it.’”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Have you fallen into the trap of taking things for granted?
  2. What are you grateful for?
  3. Which gratitude practices resonate most with you?
  4. What will you do to enhance your gratitude practice, starting today?

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles & Books

 

Videos on Gratitude

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Gratitude

  • “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” -Cicero
  • “Of all crimes that human creatures are capable of committing, the most horrid and unnatural is ingratitude.” -David Hume, Scottish Enlightenment philosopher
  • “The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” -Dalai Lama XIV
  • “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” -Buddha
  • “Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside. No matter what is going on outside of us, there’s always something we could be grateful for.” -Barry Neil Kaufman
  • “What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.” -Oprah Winfrey
  • “It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. Every moment is a gift. There is no certainty that you will have another moment….” -Brother David Steindl-Rast, Catholic-Benedictine monk and scholar
  • “No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.” -Elie Wiesel, writer, activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor
  • “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.” -Maya Angelou
  • “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” -Melody Beattie
  • “When you appreciate the good, the good appreciates.” -Tal Ben-Shahar
  • “The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.” -William Blake
  • “…it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
  • “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” -Gilbert K. Chesterton
  • “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” -Epictetus
  • “When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.” -Sam Lefkowitz
  • “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance disappears.” -Tony Robbins
  • “…it’s when you feel least thankful that you are most in need of what gratitude can give you: perspective. Gratitude can transform any situation.” -Oprah Winfrey
  • “Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace.” -Arianna Huffington
  • “The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.” -Robert Holden
  • “Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude.” -Deepak Chopra
  • “Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!” -Psalm 95:2
  • “What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.” -Brené Brown
  • “Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.” -Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
  • “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” -Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
  • “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” -A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

* Source: Frias, A., Watkins, P., Webber, A., & Froh, J. (2011). Death and gratitude: Death reflection enhances gratitude. The Journal of Positive Psychology. 6. 154-162.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Trap of Dissatisfaction–And Its Surprising Upside

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“I can’t get no satisfaction.”
-The Rolling Stones

We all go through hard times in life, with setbacks and disappointments. It only becomes a trap if we experience a chronic sense of dissatisfaction—not being content or at peace with what we have.

It’s a trap if we develop an enduring sense of disappointment, of never feeling at peace. Or a chronic craving or dwelling on things we lack. In this state, we’re missing a sense of acceptance, of contentment, of serenity.

Such dissatisfaction can be a sign of maladaptive perfectionism—when our personal performance standards are hopelessly high and we’re extremely self-critical in judging ourselves. (See my article on “The Perfectionism Trap—And How to Escape It.”) It can also lead to a negative spiral when things don’t go as we hoped. In this spiral, discouragement accompanies any imperfection. Not a good place to be.

Some people get addicted to the dramas and disappointments of life. It becomes part of their identity. They use them to rile up their ego with outrage or grievance. It can give them a strange sort of satisfaction in the moment, but overall they’re really just making themselves miserable for large swaths of their life.

“Most people are in love with their particular life drama…. The ego runs their life.
They have their whole sense of self invested in it.”
-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

 

What Leads to Dissatisfaction

There are many external triggers of dissatisfaction, but what causes people to fall into the trap of chronic dissatisfaction in which they view life through a lens of disappointment or bitterness?

Here are some of the most common sources of such dissatisfaction:

  • Resisting what happened to us in the past and hanging on to it instead of letting it go.
  • Getting so caught up in hoping for a better future that we neglect the present moment or discount it because it hasn’t yet brought us our desired future.
  • Not distinguishing between our needs and wants, and then lamenting that we haven’t yet attained things which turn out to be fanciful or unnecessary. (Note: We should also be mindful of the doom loop that keeps us in jobs we don’t like in order to meet those supposed “needs.” See my article, “Golden Handcuffs: Stuck in a Job You Don’t Like?”)
  • Getting swept up in “negativity bias.” (Researchers have discovered that negative things like troublesome feelings or frustrating social interactions often influence our mental state much more powerfully than positive or neutral things.)
“Constantly scanning the world for the negative comes with a great cost.
It undercuts our creativity, raises our stress levels, and lowers our motivation and ability to accomplish goals.”
-Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage
  • Having a “scarcity mindset”—a pervasive sense that we don’t have enough (time, money, happiness, etc.), flowing from an often subconscious belief that life is a zero-sum game with a brutal competition for scarce resources.
  • The unrealistic and pernicious expectation that we’re supposed to be happy all the time. In our culture today, we tend to worship at the altar of happiness. Whenever we encounter negative emotions like frustration, sadness, disappointment, or regret, we assume something’s wrong with us, and that it needs to be fixed (often with medication or numbing behaviors). (See my Happiness Series.)
“Happiness is not a mental state that can be permanently won….
By misunderstanding happiness, the modern conception increases the likelihood of disappointment.”
-Nat Rutherford, University of London
  • Falling into the “expectations trap”: When there’s a gap between our current versus expected life satisfaction, and when we go beyond aspirations and into the realm of attachment to our expectations, we feel disappointment or judge our lives negatively, even though our life may actually be going quite well. It stems from what Buddhists call “the wanting mind,” a major source of our own suffering.
  • Engaging in unfair and unhelpful comparisons. Many of us fall into the comparison trap fairly often, comparing ourselves to others on things that are fairly superficial. Even worse, we tend to compare ourselves to an unrealistic standard, such as the richest person we know, or the most outwardly successful or beautiful. A recipe for disappointment.

 

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Signs of Dissatisfaction

How do we know if we’re in such a dissatisfaction spiral? Here are six of the most common signs of it:

  1. Never feeling successful enough.
  2. Constantly feeling behind.
  3. Overwork and burnout in a relentless and grasping pursuit of success, driven by a need for recognition or approval from others.
  4. Resentment at our station in life or at the success of others.
  5. Recurring thinking patterns about being a victim in a world that’s hopelessly unfair.
  6. Habitual patterns of complaining about things, so much that it becomes a routine that defines our relationships with certain people and would leave a gaping hole in that relationship if we didn’t have things to complain about. These neural grooves can be deep in our brains and take time to reprogram.

So far, we’ve seen the signs and causes of negative dissatisfaction spirals. But we should pause here and note an important nuance: while dissatisfaction can make us miserable if taken too far, it also has some surprising and important upsides.

 

Not So Fast—The Important Upsides of Dissatisfaction

What are the potential upsides of dissatisfaction? It can be a source of motivation and urgency for us, helping us move forward and drive progress.

Dissatisfaction can provide needed motivation to change. To overcome.

“Until you get dissatisfied, you won’t do anything to really move your life to another level. Dissatisfaction is a gem. If you’re totally satisfied, you’re going to get comfortable. And then your life begins to deteriorate.”
-Tony Robbins

There’s a signaling function at work here. Chronic dissatisfaction can serve as a sign that there’s a deeper problem in our lives that needs attention. It radiates angst so we’ll pay attention.

In some case, it can also serve as a conduit, via painful feelings and disturbance, to great music and art. We’d be crazy to wish that on ourselves, but we humans are resilient, and sometimes our creative powers are enhanced by dark and painful experiences.

So let’s clarify that, while we can use dissatisfaction as motivational fodder when necessary, we want to avoid the dissatisfaction doom loop that has us walking around in a fog.

There’s a beautiful tension here. We can do both. We can love our lives as they are, as Hal Elrod entreats us, even while we’re working on creating the life of our dreams.

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What to Do

How to avoid or escape the trap of chronic dissatisfaction? Here are 21 of the best dissatisfaction destroyers that we know of:

1. Let go of our reactive, automatic, negative thought patterns that only make things worse for us in already difficult situations (e.g., rumination).

2. Recognize our negative thoughts when they appear, let them go, and rewire them by bringing in newer, better thoughts, over and over again, until new thought patterns appear.

3. Focus on what we have instead of what we lack, and on what’s going well instead of only on what’s not (remembering that we have a negativity bias to compensate for).

4. Cultivate an abundance mindset, recognizing that things like love, happiness, connection, and opportunity can be renewable resources when approached wisely.

5. Engage in centering practices, like deep breathing, meditation, savoring, and raising our gaze to the sky or horizon, helping us regain perspective and calm.

6. Recognize that happiness doesn’t come from our circumstances being perfect or always in line with our expectations but rather from crafting our life and work so that we lead a good life as we define it.

7. Avoid setting unrealistic expectations.

8. Let go of rigid expectations about how things will go and leave more room for the unexpected—and even challenges, recognizing that they can help sharpen and improve us.

9. Recall that outcomes are outside our control and that we can only control our own actions and mindsets.

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
-Marcus Aurelius, emperor and Stoic philosopher

10. Cultivate a growth mindset (a belief that our intelligence, abilities, and talents can be developed, which tends to come with an appreciation for challenges instead of resentment of them).

11. Focus on serving and giving to others instead of whether we’re satisfied or not.

12. Cultivate a gratitude practice in which we regularly return to the things we’re thankful for.

13. Design our work and leisure activities to facilitate more “flow” states in which we’re so absorbed in activities that we lose track of time. In such a state of optimal experience, dissatisfaction is impossible.

14. Build more of our passions into our life and work.

15. Apply our strengths to projects, groups, and causes that feel meaningful.

16. Rewrite the story we tell about ourselves from one of disappointment and lack to one of appreciation and hope.

17. Stop taking things so personally; we all face ups and downs, and it turns out that we’re not actually the center of the universe.

18. Work at being more accepting of things as they are, as opposed to how we predicted or hoped they would be.

19. Develop practices for detaching from heated situations and rising above them without getting engrossed in them, including meditation or mindfulness practices.

20. Recognize that being judgmental—about ourselves as well as others—is a trap that only leads to misery (for us and others).

21. Reduce the call of our ego (which is focused on accumulation, praise, winning, success, and control) by tapping into the call of our soul (which is grateful for the abundance of life and not interested in petty dramas or comparisons with others).

“Fulfillment is not a matter of self-improvement. It involves a shift away from the ego’s agenda, turning from externals to the inner world. The soul holds out a kind of happiness that isn’t dependent on whether conditions outside are good or bad.”
-Deepak Chopra

 

Final Thoughts

In the end, we can use dissatisfaction when it suits us to light a motivational fire, but not so much that we walk around in a fog of angst all the time, lamenting the sorry state of our lives or the things we don’t have. Is that really a good way to answer the gift of life?

Here’s the key: use dissatisfaction to fuel us when necessary, and don’t let it vanquish our spirit.

If we can learn to let go of the chronic dissatisfaction that follows many disturbances, or at least reduce its effect and frequency, perhaps we can create our own personal weather system around our overactive minds more conducive to enjoying our days and uplifting others.

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Dissatisfaction and Serenity

  • “It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.” -Stephen R. Covey
  • “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is…. When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.” -Eckhart Tolle
  • “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” -Oprah Winfrey
  • “Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates.” -Stephen R. Covey
  • “We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.” -Audre Lorde
  • “Chronic dissatisfaction is how you sense that you are living a lie.” -David Deida
  • “What a liberation to realize that the ’voice in my head’ is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.” -Eckhart Tolle
  • “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” -Lao Tzu
  • “Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
  • “To become mindfully aware of our surroundings is to bring our thinking back to our present moment reality and to the possibility of some semblance of serenity in the face of circumstances outside our ability to control.” -Jeff Kober
  • “We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy.” -Sri S. Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali

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* Featured image source: Adobe Stock.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Why Is Happiness So Elusive?

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(This article is part of a series on happiness. See the end of the article for more articles in the series.)

We want to be happy. To live well. And enjoy life.

We have our moments, and if we’re fortunate some long stretches of happiness.

But it’s harder than it sounds. There are struggles. Highs and lows. And not just because of the swirling vortex of challenges around us, from the pandemic to a depressing news cycle, with endless waves of shocks and worries.

No, it’s not just that. (As if that weren’t enough.) In our day-to-day experience and its accompanying thought streams, there are many other factors that get in the way.

Here are eight of the most important factors making happiness elusive.

 

1. The Ups and Downs of Positive Emotions

We’re not wired to be happy all the time. Life has its ups and downs.

Positive emotions are an important component of happiness. They include pleasant feelings or situational responses such as interest, serenity, amusement, hope, pride, love, joy, and awe. But we have negative emotions too: concern, disappoint, frustration, regret, anxiety, and more.

Nat Rutherford from the University of London notes that “Happiness is not a mental state that can be permanently won, but instead it’s a practice which we hone, imperfectly, in circumstances only partly of our making…. By misunderstanding happiness, the modern conception increases the likelihood of disappointment.”

As we can learn from the research of Sonja Lyubomirsky, the key is to give ourselves many experiences of contentment, wellbeing, and joy. And if we work at living well and honoring our nature, we’ll also naturally develop a sense that our life is good and meaningful—a sense of life satisfaction.

 

2. Hedonic Adaptation

Researchers point to “hedonic adaptation,” in which we become accustomed to changes in our circumstances. Then we settle into that new baseline as if nothing had happened. Our positive feelings diminish and settle back into neutral.

This leads to a “hedonic treadmill” in which, like a hamster, we run faster and faster but get nowhere in terms of happiness. We end up right where we started.

Why? Part of the problem is our rising aspirations. We may want a bigger house, for example, and then a much bigger house with a nicer view.

Another issue is social comparison. If our new friends have upgraded their smartphone (or car, or vacation destination), we see our own things in a diminished light.

 

3. Our Mistaken Beliefs about What Brings Happiness

As noted in my article on “The Most Common Myths about Happiness,” we have many mistaken beliefs about what will bring us happiness, and these get us into trouble. Our theories of happiness are often wrong.

My top ten list of the most common myths:

  1. Myth: We must pursue happiness.
  2. Myth: Happiness comes from changing our circumstances.
  3. Myth: When we’re successful, we’ll be happy.
  4. Myth: Having certain things will make us happy.
  5. Myth: Money will bring us happiness.
  6. Myth: Happiness is a destination.
  7. Myth: We always revert to our “happiness set point.”
  8. Myth: We can’t be happy when we’re experiencing negative events.
  9. Myth: Happiness is a solo endeavor.
  10. Myth: Happiness declines with age.

There’s nuance when it comes to happiness. These simplistic notions fail to deliver the happiness.

With a flawed road map, we end up far from our intended destination. And lost. Better instead to be aware of the many research-based happiness practices.

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4. Negativity Bias

Researchers have discovered that negative things like troublesome thoughts, sour feelings, or unpleasant social interactions often have a greater effect on our mental state than positive things (or neutral ones). This “negativity bias” darkens the skies of our lived experience.

What’s more, negative feelings narrow our thoughts—and thus the range of actions we’re likely to take.

“Constantly scanning the world for the negative comes with a great cost.
It undercuts our creativity, raises our stress levels, and lowers our motivation and ability to accomplish goals.”
-Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

 

5. Fear

As noted in my article, “Getting Good at Overcoming Fear,” fear is universal. We all feel it. It’s hardwired into our neurobiology.

Fear comes with an array of chemical reactions in our body, including a flood of stress hormones and impairment of our cerebral cortex. When feeling fear, we’re far from a mental state conducive to positive emotions and happiness.

In today’s world, sophisticated operators (from demagogues to technology platforms) have figured out how to hijack our attention. They’ve monetized and weaponized fear. They constantly broadcast alerts or promote shrewd narratives designed to elicit our fear response by threatening our identity or tribe. The result is a far cry from happiness.

 

6. Putting Stock in the Wrong Things

Much of the modern world is pushing the message that the accumulation, consumption, and display of material things will make us happy. We conflate wealth with success. And we assume that money and success will bring us happiness.

Wrong. The research says otherwise. (See “The Surprising Relationship between Success and Happiness” and “The Most Important Contributor to Happiness.”)

Happiness will continue to elude us if we insist on putting stock in the wrong things.

 

7. The Problem with Pursuing Happiness

It’s baked into our cultural programming that we must pursue happiness. As logical as it sounds, it turns out to be counterproductive.

Some things become more elusive the more we pursue them. It turns out that some things play hard to get.

As the old saying goes, happiness is like a butterfly. If we pursue it, it remains beyond our grasp. But it may alight upon us if we sit quietly and forget out it.

The reality is that happiness is more likely to arrive when we focus on other things, such as purpose, deep connection with others, serving others, and contributing to something larger than ourselves—and something we value.

“Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming at something else, they find happiness by the way.” -John Stuart Mill, English philosopher

 

8. The Expectations Trap

Scholars warn about the “expectations trap”: when there’s a gap between our current life satisfaction and our expected life satisfaction, It causes us to feel disappointment or view our overall life satisfaction unfavorably, even though our life conditions may be positive. The problem is that we can set our standards too high, such that they’re unrealistic and destined to disappoint.

According to clinical psychologist Jennifer Barbera, we may set ourselves up for failure when we focus on the pursuit of happiness. Since feelings of happiness are likely to wax and wane, as she says, we’re headed for trouble when the highs fade. We’ve fallen into the expectations trap.

“But the most important finding of all is that happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health, or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.”
–Yuval Noah Harari, author and historian

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What to Do about It

As we’ve seen above, happiness can be elusive. For many reasons.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s hopeless. In fact, researchers have identified a number of happiness-inducing activities (summarized in the article, “What Leads to Happiness”). Here are some of the main ones:

  1. Regular exercise and physical activity
  2. Acts of kindness, caring, service, and generosity
  3. Purpose and meaning
  4. Relationships with others
  5. Goals and aspirations
  6. Authentic expression of self
  7. Anticipation
  8. Gratitude
  9. Experiences
  10. Learning and developing
  11. Meditation and mindfulness
  12. “Person-activity fit”
  13. Seeing the positive and reframing the negative
  14. Journaling
  15. Resilience
  16. Savoring
  17. Self-care
  18. Strengths (knowing and doing the things that we’re good at)
  19. Intentional and effective use of time
  20. Variety

It turns out that there’s no magic recipe for happiness. We’re all different, with varying values, personalities, and contexts.

What if we need a tailored recipe for our own unique tastes, drawing on common ingredients but in different proportions?

Why not get busy crafting our life and work so that we lead a good life as we define it? And capture in the process some of that elusive happiness and joy.

“Many of us persist in searching for ‘the one’ true secret path to happiness (or to career success or to spiritual fulfillment and so on), like the one diet that will work when all others have failed. In truth, there is no one magic strategy that will help every person become happier…. If there’s any ‘secret’ to becoming happier, the secret is in establishing which happiness strategies suit you best.” -Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness
Sonja Lyubomirsky

 

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Surprising Relationship between Success and Happiness

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Many people believe in the logic:

When I’m successful, I’ll be happy.

Sounds reasonable. After all, professional success will bring a sense of accomplishment and status. Nice. It tends to come with higher income and more wealth. So it’s likely to make us happy.

The logic is sound. But wrong. Not only wrong, but backwards.

According to an extensive review by researchers over many years, it works the other way around:

When I’m happy, I’m more likely to be successful.

Researchers Lisa Walsh, Julia Boehm, and Sonja Lyubomirsky did a massive investigation of the potential relationship between career success and happiness, published in a 2005 paper. In a follow-up 2018 paper, they revisited the research with updated evidence from different kinds of studies around the world, including cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental studies.

 

The Benefits of Happiness

From this extensive research, they found that happier people have a wide array of benefits and advantages, including:

  • More investment and involvement in their work
  • More job satisfaction
  • More social support from their supervisors and colleagues
  • Greater optimism, creativity, originality, confidence, flexibility, and curiosity
  • More ambitious goal-setting
  • Increased perseverance at challenging tasks
  • Higher performance and productivity in an array of work settings
  • Greater sales
  • Better work evaluations from their supervisors
  • Higher incomes
  • Less burnout, absenteeism, and job turnover

It’s an astonishing array of benefits. Here are some of the main conclusions from their research:

“First, the cross-sectional literature supports a correlational link between happiness and various success-related outcomes. Happiness is positively associated with job autonomy, job satisfaction, job performance, prosocial behavior, social support, popularity, and income….
Second… The longitudinal research suggests that people who are happy at an initial time point are more likely to find employment, be satisfied with their jobs, acquire higher status, perform well, be productive, receive social support, be evaluated positively, engage in fewer withdrawal behaviors, and obtain higher income at a subsequent time point….
Finally… The experimental research demonstrates that when people are randomly assigned to experience positive emotions, they negotiate more collaboratively, set higher goals for themselves, persist at difficult tasks longer, evaluate themselves and others more favorably, help others more, and demonstrate greater creativity and curiosity than people assigned to experience neutral or negative emotions.”
-Lisa Walsh, Julia Boehm, and Sonja Lyubomirsky in their 2018 paper

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The Happiness Advantage

Author Shawn Achor has famously called this the “happiness advantage.” He writes:

“When we are happy—when our mindset and mood are positive—we are smarter, more motivated, and thus more successful.”
-Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

It gets even better. Many researchers have noted that there’s an “upward spiral” at work here. There are different factors providing positive reinforcement to other factors:

 “several pieces of evidence… suggest the presence of upward spirals—that is, where positive emotions trigger an adaptive outcome related to career success, which in turn triggers more positive emotions and further success.”
-Lisa Walsh, Julia Boehm, and Sonja Lyubomirsky in their 2018 paper

Since we’re talking about complex phenomena like people, their emotions, and their performance in social settings, there are nuances. A 1999 study noted that there’s likely a “bidirectional relationship” between happiness and job performance, with happiness helping to drive high performance, and high performance likely to boost happiness. It may be more complicated than that. There may be what Lyubomirsky and her colleagues call a “chain of reciprocal relationships.” Sets of variables affect other factors over time iteratively.

 

Biology at Work

That this makes sense from a biological perspective. For example, Achor notes that “positive brains have a biological advantage over brains that are neutral or negative.”

When we feel positive emotions, we’re flooded with the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. These activate and stimulate the learning centers in our brain, helping us think more quickly and creatively, organize new information, and improve our analytical and problem-solving skills. Essentially, we prime our brains to become more thoughtful, creative, and open to new ideas. Other people see this, and we can work more effectively with them.

These findings are powerful, with profound implications for how we should live and work—and how we should think about approaching them. We can begin by engaging in happiness-promoting activities backed by research.

But let’s not take this logic too far. This isn’t about simplistic positive thinking. Having a positive outlook is a related factor but not central to the drivers here. Just because happiness promotes career success doesn’t imply that it’s the only factor in success. Surely, there are many. And it doesn’t imply that unhappy people can’t be successful.

It doesn’t mean that organizations should hire only outwardly happy people. Or that they should mandate happiness activities for all workers. This can turn Orwellian quickly.

The researchers cited above note that there’s an area where the benefits of happiness and positive emotions appear mixed: when workers attempt to perform complex mental tasks. Some research has found that positive emotions can inhibit local reasoning and scramble attempts to distinguish between strong arguments and weak ones.

And there may be an advantage to negative emotions in some settings and on some tasks, such as ones that require careful execution of steps when decision-making is structured. Sometimes the critical lens of skepticism and doubt is wildly valuable.

 

Focusing Too Much on Success

We can also look at this from another angle: there are risks that come with the pursuit of success.

As I noted in my article, “Are You Trapped by Success?”, there are many potential traps associated with chasing success, including:

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

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Conclusion

Many of us invest a great deal of our identity and self-worth in our work. Including a sense of whether we feel successful. Including whether we believe we’re perceived as successful in the eyes of others and relative to our peers. Relative to the expectations we have for ourselves—and the expectations of family and friends.

We seek happiness, and we believe that becoming successful will make us happy.

So we must unlearn this. We must rewind and rewrite the script, recognizing that we’ve had it backwards all this time. Recognizing that it hasn’t been serving us.

Now that we know that when we’re happy, we’re more likely to be successful, we can get back to the basics of living a good life, knowing and trusting that good things are likely to flow from that naturally.

If we live well, happiness and success are likely to follow.

 

Tools for You

 

More Articles in this Happiness Series

 

Postscript: Quotations on Happiness and Success

  • “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” -Albert Schweitzer
  • “Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” -C.S. Lewis

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Most Common Myths about Happiness

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Happiness is a universal aspiration. We all want happiness, including a sense of wellbeing and overall life satisfaction.

Here’s the problem: we’re bad at knowing what will actually bring us happiness.

There are many happiness myths that get in the way. Here are 14 of the most common happiness myths—and their corresponding realities.

 

Myth: Happiness is the goal of life—the be-all and end-all of human existence.

Many of us view happiness as the point of life.

Understandable. But flawed. Having happiness as our goal in life is destined to disappoint.

A better goal, I believe, is to live a good life, by becoming a good person. Leading a life of purpose, connection, and service. A life in which we learn, grow, and develop. Days of appreciation, joy, and savoring. A life of caring and action in the world to make things better, with others.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate,
to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, transcendentalist essayist, philosopher, and poet

 

Myth: We must pursue happiness. (And find it.)

The “pursuit of happiness” is pervasive. It’s even written into the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and it underlies much of our thinking about how to live.

Many of us are relentless pursuers of happiness. But pursuing it turns out to be counterproductive. Pursuing it won’t bring us the happiness we seek. And it’s not really something we find.

“Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end.
Aiming at something else, they find happiness by the way.”
-John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and politician

Social psychologist Iris Mauss has shown that the more we strive for happiness, the more likely we are to feel disappointed, in part because we’ve set standards that are too high.

Happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky prefers the phrases “creation of happiness” and “construction of happiness” to “pursuit of happiness.” She notes that we can create our own happiness.

Writer Chris Guillebeau flips the script from the “pursuit of happiness” to what he calls the “happiness of pursuit.” He says that the path to happiness involves pursuing a “quest,” a significant long-term goal or higher purpose.

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Myth: Happiness comes from changing our circumstances.

The logic goes like this: “When I get X, then I’ll be happy.” When I get a…

new job
promotion
raise
new boss, house, spouse, or partner
more money
better body
fame

Here’s the problem: Happiness doesn’t come from external events or circumstances, at least in ways that endure. It’s an inside job.

“Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it’s not out there is that it’s inside us…. Happiness, more than anything, is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world….”
-Sonja Lyubomirsky, researcher and professor

Why don’t we derive enduring happiness from positive circumstances? A big reason is a well-documented phenomenon called “hedonic adaptation,” in which we become rapidly accustomed to changes in our circumstances and then settle into that new baseline as if nothing had occurred.

“If you cannot be happy right now, in the present, no matter what your circumstances,
then you will never be happy ‘one day.’”
-Dannie De Novo, author

 

Myth: When I’m successful, I’ll be happy. (Corollary: Our happiness depends on what others think of us.)

The logic sounds reasonable: success leads to happiness. This belief is common, especially among high-performers and ambitious professionals whose identity is tied to their work and success.

But surprisingly, it works the other way around, according to the research: When we’re happy, we’re more likely to have success.

“When we are happy—when our mindset and mood are positive—we are smarter, more motivated, and thus more successful. Happiness is the center, and success revolves around it.”
-Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

 

Myth: You either have happiness or you don’t.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it gives away our agency.

Researchers have found that there are many contributors to happiness, including our genes, our circumstances, and our activities and practices.

Since some of these are out of our control, the key is to create our own happiness, as noted above, by engaging in happiness-promoting activities and in leading a good, full, and meaningful life.

“If you do the work, research shows you can become happier.”
-Sonja Lyubomirsky, researcher and professor

 

Myth: Having things will make us happy. (Corollary: Happiness comes from things outside of us.)

Does having things fill us up? Is accumulation and display of things likely to give us a sense of deep satisfaction and fulfillment that endures?

These are myths fabricated by certain types of advertisers looking to cash in on our vanity and insecurity.

“Society teaches us that having more will make you happy, and that having more is the measure of success. Having more increases your level of stress because of the amount of energy it takes to maintain things. A lot of times when people get more things, the more they are unhappy.”
-Dee Doanes, author and small business owner

The reality is that connecting with people—with deep, lasting relationships and a sense of belonging—is a much more powerful contributor to happiness and life satisfaction.

“Here’s the most fundamental finding of happiness economics: the factors that most determine our happiness are social, not material…. Social connectedness is the most important of all the variables which contribute to a sense of wellbeing in life. And that is true at any age.”
-Jonathan Rauch, The Happiness Curve

Caring for others can help us be happier and healthier, if we also engage in self-care and don’t overcommit, burn out, or care so much that we lose ourselves in the process.

Helping others is a source of deep and lasting happiness, well beyond collecting or accumulating things. According to Professor Stephen G. Post at Stony Brook University, “When people help others through formal volunteering or generous actions, about half report feeling a ‘helper’s high,’ and 13% even experience alleviation of aches and pains.”

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know:
the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
-Albert Schweitzer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician

Together, these connections and contributions give us a sense of meaning and deep satisfaction.

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Myth: Money will bring us happiness.

Many people live today as if the point of life was the accumulation of money. Wealth is conflated with success, making life a game in which the aim is to maximize wealth. Then we’ve won.

Not so fast.

A study of 12,000 first-year students at elite universities looked at their attitudes when they were eighteen years old and then measured their life satisfaction at age 37. The findings: those with materialistic aspirations at 18, with making money as their primary goal, were less satisfied with their lives two decades later.

Don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with money. It’s a powerful tool. A means to larger ends. But money alone doesn’t lead to the happiness promised land. Not by a longshot.

“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”
-C.S. Lewis, British scholar, writer, and lay theologian

 

Myth: Happiness is a destination.

The idea here is that happiness is a place we’ll arrive at. A magical land where we can bask in rays of joy. If only we could all book tickets to that magical land….

Alas.

There’s no such place. Happiness is more of a mindset and way of life, with daily intentional activities, than a destination we arrive at.

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance. The wise grows it under his feet.”
-James Oppenheim, poet and novelist

 

Myth: Happiness is pleasure.

Let’s be clear. Pleasure is great. We should savor it. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a pleasant life and pleasurable experiences. But that alone won’t suffice.

In his book, Authentic Happiness, prominent psychologist Martin Seligman taught us that a full life includes not only the pleasant life but also a good life and a meaningful life.

“Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
-Helen Keller, writer and disability rights advocate

 

Myth: Happiness is mostly about how we feel.

When we think of happiness, we’re transported to the emotional realm. We think of pleasant feelings, and perhaps nostalgia-soaked memories of good times. Professor Barbara Fredrickson identified the ten most common positive emotions: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.

But it turns out that much of happiness, especially enduring happiness, comes from who and how we are, not just how we happen to be feeling.

Many ancient Greek philosophers wrote extensively about “eudaimonia.” It’s commonly translated as “happiness,” but what they meant by it goes well beyond what we think of as happiness today. They meant happiness through virtuous action, habits of moral excellence, and a full flourishing of self. It includes fulfillment of our nature.

Eudaimonia is about actions and habits, whereas the way we think about happiness today is about feelings and mental states. From this vantage point, a good life is something we should work toward every day, through our mindsets, actions, and relationships.

 

Myth: We always revert to our “happiness set point.”

There’s a common belief that we can’t do much about our happiness, so why try? “Happiness set-point theory” is the notion that our happiness level is determined primarily by our genes. The idea is that our happiness remains relatively constant throughout our lives, and we inevitably return to a fairly stable “happiness set point,” regardless of our circumstances. (This relates to “hedonic adaptation,” in which we rapidly accustom ourselves to changes in our circumstances and then settle into that new baseline.)

Researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon, and David Schkade developed the “sustainable happiness model,” which posits that we have more agency over our happiness levels than happiness set-point theory seems to suggest.

“…just because your happiness set point cannot be changed doesn’t mean that your happiness level cannot be changed….. Our genes do not determine our life experience and our behavior…. There’s a great deal of room to improve our happiness by the things we do, our intentional activities.”
-Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

 

Myth: We can’t be happy when we’re facing negative events.

Some view happiness as a pleasant state free from pain or negative circumstances. Sounds reasonable. But a closer look reveals that happiness can sometimes depend on negative events—or the absence of positive ones.

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
-Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American writer and poet

The truth is that difficulty, struggle, and loss are sometimes necessary on our path toward a life of greater fulfillment and worth.

 In The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes about the “adversity hypothesis”: the idea that people need adversity and setbacks to develop and rise to their potential.

Adversity can strengthen relationships and lead to feelings of love, connection, and gratitude for help provided. It can also cause us to revisit our priorities.

In the end, happiness isn’t about having positive experiences and circumstances and avoiding negative ones. Why cede our happiness to outside circumstances, many of which are out of our control?

“The most unhelpful myth out there is that the normal state for most humans is to be happy all the time. Those who are able to accept their pain as a part of life are much better equipped to handle it and move through it.”
-Karly Hoffman King, mental health counselor

 

Myth: Happiness is a solo endeavor.

Sometimes the way we think about happiness is insular. Narcissistic even. Sometimes happiness is all about me, and how I feel, and how things are going for me.

Me, me, me.

But that misses the mark. For most people, the most important contributor to enduring happiness is the quality of our relationships, according to the research.

We can feel love or compassion when we connect with others. And we can derive a sense of meaning and belonging. We can give and receive support when we’re connected to others.

According to a 2020 Charles Schwab survey , Americans reported that relationships are the most important factor for their overall happiness. All told, 39% of respondents ranked relationships as the top driver of overall happiness, compared with 27% reporting health, 17% money, 14% lifestyle, and 3% career.

 

Myth: Happiness declines with age. (The best years of our life are over.)

There’s a pernicious but common belief out there that with age comes decline and misery. We slow down. Or lose our faculties. We become unhappy or even bitter.

Sometimes true, sure enough, but mostly a profound misconception about adult development that underestimates the tremendous growth and generativity that can accompany aging.

“aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”
-David Bowie, legendary singer and songwriter

But biases against aging persist. According to a 2020 global report based on a survey of 83,034 people in 57 countries, “At least one in every two people included in this study had moderate or high ageist attitudes.”

The reality is that older people are generally happier and more satisfied with their lives.

Journalist Jonathan Rauch writes about the “happiness curve,” which shows that for most people happiness follows a U-shaped trajectory, starting high but dropping from youthful sentiment and optimism about life into a long, low slump in midlife, and then rising again in our fifties and continuing mostly on an upward slope from there.

In his book, The Happiness Curve, Rauch writes about the “paradox of aging,” including the following:

  • “Stress declines after about age fifty…
  • Emotional regulation improves…
  • Older people feel less regret…
  • Older people are not depression-prone.”

Rauch also notes that aging tends to come with wisdom and tools for dealing with disappointment, anxiety, and depression based on lived experience.

It seems that part of this phenomenon may be that our values change as we age. In her book, A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity, Stanford Professor Laura Carstensen writes that old age “has its share of hardships and disappointments. It’s just that by the time people get there, they’re more attuned to the sweetness of life than to its bitterness.”

“Most people think that the older you get, the less happy you are. But the truth is, the older we get, the happier we are…. Women discuss how they will take more risks and get out there more. Men discuss how they calm down a little and are less stressed.” -Diane Lang, author and counselor

Rauch characterizes aging as “crossing toward wisdom,” including less ego-centric thinking and more orientation toward others.

Clearly, there are many myths about happiness. It’s long past time to debunk these myths and their accompanying mindsets and behaviors so we can lead our lives intentionally toward happiness, meaning, and fulfillment.

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Tools for You

 

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Postscript: Quotations on Happiness

  • “You must try to generate happiness within yourself. If you aren’t happy in one place, chances are you won’t be happy anyplace.” -Ernie Banks
  • “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” -Dale Carnegie
  • “Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.” -Benjamin Franklin
  • “The word ‘happiness’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” -Carl Gustav Jung
  • “There are times when you are going to do well, and times when you’re going to fail. But neither the doing well, nor the failure is the measure of success. The measure of success is what you think about what you’ve done. Let me put that another way: The way to be happy is to like yourself and the way to like yourself is to do only things that make you proud.” -Marc Lewis, professor of clinical psychology
  • “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” -Albert Schweitzer
  • “Happiness does not depend on outward things but on the way we see them.” -Leo Tolstoy
  • “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” -Dennis Waitley

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!