Let’s use science to bust up some popular myths about –
- how to be happy in life,
- why these popular notions don’t work, and
- what to do instead
because even though you may know happiness is about getting our needs met, how we go about it can make all the difference.
How to be happy in life
Myth #1: Money can't buy happiness
As an emotion, you definitely can’t buy happiness because emotions can’t be bought…BUT buying time can make us happier. Like, spending money on time-saving things.
Imagine having to go through a sink-load of dishes when you are bone-tired and all you want to do is just go to bed. Wouldn’t it make you happier if someone else did that for you without grumbling, like the dishwasher?
Whatever frees up more time and energy for us to do the things that you really want to do can make us feel happier.
A 2017 study published in the National Academy of Sciences journal PNAS – ‘Buying time promotes happiness’ by AV Whillans et al, found that spending money on things that buy time can make us happier and feel more satisfied with life.
What to do instead:
- Bigger expenses – This idea shows us how to be happy by simply auditing and editing what we are already doing. So, check what are you spending your money on.
- What’s the motivation – Find out the real motivation behind those expenses. Are the bigger expenses more on things that are good to own, or do they make life simpler, easier, free up more time and energy for you to do the things that you really want to do.
- Change relationship with money – Money isn’t the root of all evil, the love of money is! Money can make us happy if we use it as a tool. How to be happy in life is a lot about changing our relationship with money. Instead of letting it set the tone of our life, we start looking at it simply as an enabler that will help us do the things we really want to do. And when the focus shifts from money as something desirable to what it will enable us to do…our choices in life start to change. They start leaning more towards those that will make us feel truly happy and satisfied in life.
Myth #2: How to be happy in life? Less problems means you are happier
If someone seems happy most of the time, we instinctively think they don’t have any problems. Because, if they had, they surely would look stressed or worried more? But, it’s not how many problems we have in our life, but how skilled we are at handling those, how resilient we are that makes all the difference. Our thoughts drive our emotions. Knowing how to bounce back from tough situations is the key to how to be happy.
Playing it safe to limit the number of problems… trying to avoid anything that doesn’t feel comfortable… that is simply adding to our regrets in life… and definitely not the way to be happy.
Like, we hear about people who went through something very similar, but where one of them let it limit what they did with their life, the other let the emotions play, but then they took it up as a challenge and adapted to the changed situations… and made it work for them becoming happy again – that’s resilience in progress.
How to be happy in life instead:
- Use everyday problems – The more challenges we go through, the more resilient we become. But it doesn’t mean going out of our way to look for challenges. It simply means not avoiding those little everyday problems. You know, those awkward conversations or tough decisions we would rather avoid. Because that gives us a framework to use when tougher situations pop up. And the more competent we feel about handling anything that comes our way, the happier we generally are with life. Because feeling competent is one of our core psychological needs and being happy is about getting our needs met, right?
- Automate it – To make it easier, we can tweak some things we are already doing and build them up as simple habits to automatically approach any situation more effectively. Like, snapping out of the worry loop, or making anything easier to handle.
Myth #3: Achieving your goals will make you happy
We think getting what we set to get… achieving goals will make us happy. Like, I will be so happy when I have finally done that. That can be so, but it depends on 2 things.
Watch the video up top to know what these key things are and how to use them to be happy in life.
Meet you right over there,
