What's Your Happiness Set Point?

Are you one those people that are almost always happy, no matter what is happening in your life? Well me neither, but I’ve known a few people like that in my life and it never ceases to amaze me at their natural ability to maintain a smile every day. A friend of mine is like that, and I have to shake my head in amazement when something goes wrong and he just makes a joke as if it was nothing. That is definitely a great attitude!

Is that a natural inborn thing? I think in some people it is, and really if you think about it we all have a “happiness set point” when we’re born, just a genetic predisposition like any other. Some folks have brown hair, others blonde. Some are left-handed and others are weird. Yes, I’m left-handed. Why do you ask? Anyway, it has to be like any other trait we are born with. Studies have been done on twins and results have shown that we’re born with a “predisposition to feel and express emotions within a certain range”, which varies within a certain range. However, the larger part of our happiness set point is thought to be within our power since actions we take and thoughts we control are obviously a huge part of that influence on happiness. A psychologist by the name of Martin Seligman (University of Pennsylvania) was at least partly responsible for research in this area of positive psychology. He also was one of the first to encourage other researchers to pay more attention to this positive psychology instead of focusing so much on the mentally unbalanced. Thanks, Marty!

So if you are not one of the few lucky ones that is born in a great mood all the time, what to do? Luckily there are many ways to boost our happiness, and according to researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon, and David Schkade there is even a happiness equation to illustrate this important relationship:
S + C + V = H (set point + circumstances + voluntary behavior = happiness). What that means is that you are born with a certain happiness set point but you don’t have to be satisfied with your life the way you are born. You can change your circumstances by making changes to your behavior. The question is, what changes should you make? In other words, what makes you happy? That is a question you will have to answer yourself, because everyone is different. Nevertheless, I really believe that is the hardest part for many people!

I know it’s insane, but many people seem to drift through life with no real “long-term” vision, which means they know what makes them happy for the moment, but not what will really fulfill their needs on a long-term basis. That, in my opinion, is the real definition of happiness. Once you figure out the really important things, you can then start making solid plans for obtaining those goals. Do I really love my job? How about my career path? How about my relationship, do I see myself staying where I’m at for the next five years, ten years, even twenty years? Am I spiritually where I want to be? If not, how can I get there? (I know I’m getting off track with the happiness set point topic, but don’t worry I will tie this all together soon). These are questions of course that people have asked since the days of Aristotle. In fact he actually said “all human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.” Well I guess that narrows it down pretty well, thanks Ari. But how much control do we really have, and how much is inborn and thus difficult to change?

The good news is that most modern psychologists say between 50% and 80% of our happiness is really under our control! (In other words, don’t try to blame your parents if you are a grump). And of course we can’t be happy all the time either, in fact it’s probably not even a realistic goal to set. But if you work on a well-defined list of characteristics that most happy people seem to present, your chances are certainly much improved. I have read that the happiest among us have these traits in common:

1. enjoy what they do for a living
2. have close relationships with family & friends
3. have a certain amount of faith (spiritual element)
4. describe themselves as optimists
5. have at least a modicum of good health
6. and last, but not least, have enough material things that they don’t worry about food or shelter for themselves or their family

I hope this helps some people put in perspective what happiness means to them, and how much we really can do to change how we feel about it. Don’t wait, make your list today and get started for your happiness.