Fourteen years after the first major scientific paper on how we can affect our own happiness, and over more than a decade more research by dozens of scientists, the original authors Kennon M. Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky have reviewed the increased research in this field and revised their findings.  

Transcript:

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2-ish minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and researchers Kennon M. Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky in 2019 revised their infamous pie chart model where they said in 2005 that 40% of our happiness is found in intentional activity.  They spurred on so much great behavioral science research in their initial findings that they revised their perspective in 2019. They say that “this more recent research affirms that people can affect their own happiness, via their deliberate efforts. Admittedly, however, these effects tend to be smaller than we initially believed.” 

Their findings indicate that “[w]hen people change their intentional behavior – that is, doing something new that takes effort – they have a better chance of boosting their well-being and maintaining that boost than when they merely change a factual circumstance (such as moving into a new apartment, buying a car, or asking for and receiving a raise). This is because people are less likely to experience hedonic adaptation in response to life changes …[as opposed to] changes that merely substitute one stable circumstance for another”

What’s fascinating is that if people want to get happier, they have to have the “buy in”.  Simply requiring a person to do things that can boost their happiness is not enough if they haven’t actually bought in.   

So if we need to buy into these techniques to boost our happiness, how does hedonic adaptation play a role?  Well, hedonic adaptation is when we fall back to baseline.  We want to continue to stoke the fire so that we continue to experience that positive emotion of the new car, new house, new job. Maybe we won't go back to our set point if we can continue to stoke the fire.  

In other words, Sheldon and Lyubomirsky find that consistent with the French saying, ‘to each his own taste’ – certain activities appear to work better for certain people (Nelson & Lyubomirsky, 2014). For example, highly extraverted happiness seekers may reap more benefits from positive activities that require interacting with others (e.g. Pressman, Kraft, & Cross, 2015), and interventions delivered via mobile phones may be ideal for younger or tech-savvy users.

This is great news.  This means that we get to take the happiness boosting ingredients and create our own recipe for our fulfilled happiness. 

Today, I invite you to think of one thing that makes you happy and share it with us using the hashtag #everydayhappinesswithkatie 

Inspired By: Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?  

1. Kennon M. Sheldon & Sonja Lyubomirsky (2021) Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16:2, 145-154, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2019.1689421

 http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/files/2019/11/Sheldon-Lyubomirsky-2019.pdf

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