My Scientific Study of Happiness

Well I've kind-of been slacking on posting to this blog recently, and I think it's because I've been happy and busy and haven't felt the need to talk about it, but I did put quite a bit of time and effort into starting this and just because I'm happy now doesn't mean I always will be. Therefore I want to continue with my research to ensure it stays present on my mind and to ensure I continue to do everything I can to be the happiest person.

So, I took the Measures of Happiness assessment and it's been two weeks since I did the first one, and I was actually pretty surprised how much my scores increased. I'm mostly surprised because I haven't been keeping up with my health and wellness goals like I said I would and yet I'm happier. This leads me to think that perhaps other things I've been doing are contributing to my happiness more than the health and wellness. Let's take a look at what I've been doing that I think has been contributing to my happiness:

Connecting with a family member - my husband's grandparents came to visit yesterday and I really enjoyed spending time with them. I had some great conversations with them, and feel closer to them just after the short visit. I talked to my sister-in-law several times on the phone last week and love that I can tell her anything and truly be myself. I talked to my mom on the phone Sunday and it was great to hear her voice and feel closer to her. I got some emails and texts from my step-mom and was happy to hear how things were going at home with my sisters. I texted my oldest sister and just the one text renewed the connection between us.

Work/Career - I've actually been doing all of the work/career factors of happiness over the past two weeks without really meaning to. I just started thinking about what I really want out of work right now and realized that making money is the main priority for me. Once I decided that, I knew I needed to stay in my current field of work, but I've been told that I won't be getting a promotion anytime soon with my employer. So, I know that other companies will often offer more money to try and get you to come over to them, and I applied for 4 positions similar to what I do now but at other companies. I met with some recruiters and have an official interview for one this Friday and another one next week. Even though I don't know what will come of the interviews, I still like the process of looking for other jobs because it gets me excited about having a new opportunity and it makes me feel good about myself that other companies are even interested in me. I'm also appreciating the job I have right now and am making it work for me, which means not working so hard like I normally do and taking more time for myself. I've been keeping up with people on LinkedIn as well and I like looking for people, because even if I don't message them I still feel a connection to them just sending an invite.

Read - I got a Self magazine which I like because it has tips on eating healthy and exercising, and it also has articles on happiness which I think is great. I've also been listening to Audible when I jog and when I'm in the car, and I got so sucked in to the Mockingjay book that I was listening to it even while doing stuff around the house because I wanted to finish it. I'm not sure if the benefits from listening to a book are the same as reading, but it makes my car drives and jogs so much more enjoyable!

Pray - I've been trying to remember to pray before I go to sleep at night because it helps me reflect on my day and it reminds me of everything I'm grateful for. I also can think about things I want to improve on if something didn't go so great.

So I've listed a lot of factors that I think could potentially contribute to happiness, and I'm sure I'll add more as I continue to research, but I don't want to get overwhelmed by trying a lot of things at once. I also want to try to determine if some of the factors contribute more than others, and so I need to be able to determine which factor(s) is affecting my happiness during the week. Ideally I would only test one factor at a time each week so I wouldn't get cross-contamination between the factors, however some of them I feel are really important and I don't want to give up not doing them for several weeks while I'm testing other things. I think I will be able to determine if the factor is making me happy or not, and therefore be able to distinguish the affect each is having on me.

I've decided to start with the first two factors this week, and since today is Valentine's Day I feel it's appropriate to work on Love and Relationships. I'm already a pretty compassionate and forgiving person, however I do need reminders sometimes, so I've set a reminder on my phone for every day this week to be kind, compassionate, forgiving, and non-argumentative. I will also plan to call a family member or friend this week, and I will get out of the house and connect with people at least 3 times this week.

The second factor I'm going to work on this week is Health and Wellness. This is a really important one and also one of the hardest for me. I want to emphasize that being healthy does not have to do with your weight or how you look, but how you feel about yourself. If you feel good about yourself and are confident then I do believe you will be happier. I guess we'll see ; ) For me feeling good about myself does mean getting in better shape. Unfortunately I'm feeling the affects of getting older now, in that I can't just eat whatever I want and not exercise and still stay the same size because of my metabolism. So I've outlined my plan to be healthier on my Factors of Happiness page and to start it off I went for a 30 minute run today, strength trained, and drank a berry, banana, kale smoothie (which is actually really good). I like to run outside because getting some sunshine and breathing in outside air always makes me feel good. I try to cook dinner as much as I can so I'm not eating processed foods, and then I can eat leftovers for lunch which makes things easy. But since it is Valentines Day I might be going out tonight. I'll still make sure I don't fill up too much though or eat anything too unhealthy because I want to feel good about myself come evening!

For as long as I can remember I have wished and wanted to be the happiest person possible, but I have yet to accomplish it. Last night I was watching a video of a lecture on happiness by Fred Luskin PhD and one of the things he said about how to achieve happiness that stood out to me was "It takes a desire to do so (achieve happiness), and then an effort to practice". This "effort to practice" piece of the equation is where I have been stumbling, and believe me I've been working at this for years, but it's not an easy process for me. I'll be the first to admit that in most cases I would rather take the easy way out of something than to work hard and possibly achieve more. I believe this characteristic is what has been preventing me from being completely happy. So I'm ready to change that and to finally be the happiest person possible!