You Can Choose To Develop Happiness & Well-being

Number 153

In Flourish, Dr. Martin Seligman revisits his definition of “positive psychology.” He used to think “that the topic of positive psychology was happiness, and the gold standard for measuring happiness was life satisfaction.”

But living a rich life is about more than being cheerful, and a life of engagement is more involved than maintaining a good mood.

So now, Seligman says, “the topic of positive psychology is well-being and the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing, and the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing.”

Seligman is not suggesting that we look to medical practitioners to help us live better. He is cynical about the efficacy of drugs and much therapy. Instead he suggests that each of us can choose to flourish, and can learn how to take steps to enhance our state of well-being.

First Seligman offers a theory of what it means to flourish, both in your own life and on the planet. He says that well-being encompasses five measurable features, all of which we can choose to build:

• Positive emotion, including happiness and satisfaction with life.
• Engagement, which is about “flow,” where we lose self-consciousness during an absorbing activity.
• Positive relationships, reflecting that humans are not intended to be solitary and that other people are the best antidote to the downs of life and the single most reliable up.
• Meaning, including belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than yourself.
• Achievement, including accomplishments, like games, that are pursued for their own sake, even when there is no meaning.

There is much you can do to be happier and more flourishing. Seligman says that “well-being can be robustly raised” both in your life and in the world.

A starting point is to stop thinking so much about what goes wrong and think more about what goes right. For evolutionary reasons, humans tend to dwell on the negative. As Seligman says, “our ancestors who spent a lot of time basking in the sunshine of good events, when they should have been preparing for disaster, did not survive.”

But our brains’ natural catastrophic bent doesn’t serve us well in daily life, and tends to rob us of happiness. We can develop the skill of focusing on the positive. Seligman suggests a “What-Went-Well-Exercise”:

• Every night for the next week, set aside 10 minutes before you go to sleep, and write down three things that went well today. Writing is an important part of the process, and you do need to create a physical record of what you wrote.
• Next to each positive event, answer the question: “Why did this happen?” For example, if you wrote that your husband picked up ice cream, write “because my husband is really thoughtful sometimes.”
• Even if it feels awkward, try this exercise for a week. And then keep it up. Seligman predicts that, if you keep going, the “odds are that you will be less depressed, happier, and addicted to this exercise six months from now.”