Struggling to find happiness? Here are the most common ways our minds sabotage our happiness according to science.
Life, with all its struggles, disappointments, and sorrows, seems to keep us hopeful that one day we will finally be happy.
All we have to do is to get a better job, make more money, marry the perfect spouse, get the ideal body and then, finally, we will be happy.
Sadly, it never works out this way, according to a 2013 report, Americans are the most unhappy people in the world with 1 in 10 people reported as clinically depressed.
And I don’t think it’s just the Americans.
I spent five years living in Asia, and the folks there didn’t seem any happier than the people I have met here in the states except for the fact that Americans are open about depression.
Do You Know What Will Make You Happy?
So why are we so unhappy when we have more wealth and comfort than all our previous ancestors?
For starters, I think most of the goals we imagine will make us happy are passed onto to us by our parents, environment, and the media.
Blindly we pursue these secondhand ideas about happiness, hoping that the next one will do the trick but they don’t.
Additionally, psychology has previously been busy studying our madness instead of helping us figure out how we can live fulfilled and happy lives.
Fortunately, that is changing, a popular Yale course on Wellbeing by Professor Laurie Santos has helped shed some light on the issue.
According to Santos, we have no idea what will make us happy, which means we are continually setting the wrong goals.
I put together the most common goals we set, believing they will make us happy, but they don’t, at least not for long.
A Good Job Will Make Me Happy
If you are in a job you don’t like, you might be thinking; if only I could get a better job, all my problems will be solved.
You might go on a fantasize about having less financial stress and finally getting that new couch, bag, or going on that trip.
But what happens when you don’t get that dream job? You will feel disappointed for a long time, right?
If you answered yes, you are wrong; it turns out you will not be as crushed as you imagine you would be.
According to a study, participants who applied for a promotion as an associate professor rated from 1 (not happy) to 7 (very happy) how happy they would be if they got the promotion versus how unhappy they would be if they didn’t.
The participants who got the promotion believed that getting the tenure would make them happy, at least in the short-term.
But they were wrong about how happy they would be.
In short, they overestimated how happy they would be.
Consequently, participants also believed that failing to get the promotion would make them unhappy.
But they were also wrong about how unhappy they would be.
In short, they overestimated how unhappy losing the promotion would make them.
Will a better Job make you happy?
No, not in the long term anyway.
More Money
Money is a great tool; if you have an abundance of it, you have the freedom to pursue the things you care about.
However, when you pursue it in the hope that it will make you happy, you might as well resign to never finding happiness.
In The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, Sonja Lyubomirsky reported how much money people said they needed.
The people earning $30,000 said they would be happy and meet all their needs if their salary went up to $50,000.
Consequently, the people earning $100,000 said they needed $250,000 to be happy and have all their needs met. (hint; it’s never enough, you always need more to fulfill your “needs”).
Additionally, Kahneman and Deaton surveyed 450,000 Americans to predict how much money correlates with happiness.
What they found was that after people reached $75,000, they were able to meet most needs.
And, therefore, the increase in income didn’t lead to a significant increase in happiness.
What does all this mean?
You will always want more money no matter how much you make.
Should you give up your goals to make more money?
No, but it will be helpful if you focus on creating remarkable experiences and working on the things you love once you reach the $75,000.
And if you are lucky enough to make more while you pursue the things you love, even better.
True Love, Relationships and Romanticism
How about true Love?
If I could just find the right partner, I would be happy.
It turns out, that won’t make you happy either.
According to a survey of 25,000 people for 15 years, 1716 of them who got married reported being happier than the unmarried participants for only 1-2 years after getting married.
After the honey period, the romance becomes ordinary and the married people eventually felt as happy as the single participants.
In short, don’t count on meeting the right partner to be happy.
More Awesome Things
Another goal/condition we set for before we can be happy is to get cooler stuff; cars, houses, handbags, and so on.
Unfortunately, this cool stuff doesn’t make us happy.
Studies show that thinking about the cool stuff you don’t have actually makes you more unhappy.
According to a 1976 study, 12000 college participants were asked about their materialistic attitudes.
Twenty years later, participants who had reported materialistic attitudes and wanted more things in 1976 had a lower life satisfaction than the non-materialistic ones.
Additionally, participants with materialistic attitudes had more mental health disorders.
Perfect Body
The weight loss industry is now worth $72 billion, and I would love it to be about getting healthy.
Instead, companies sell the dream that if only we had the perfect body, we would be happy.
In a 2014 study, 1,979 obese people were followed for four years after their weight loss program.
After which they were divided into three; the ones who lost weight, gain weight and lastly, the ones that remained the same.
Surprisingly the results show that most people were unhappy during and after the weight loss program regardless if they lost weight or remained the same.
Will, the perfect body make you happier?
No, not in the long term.
Therefore, pursue good health instead of a perfect body.
Plastic Surgery
We all have parts of our body if given a chance; we would tweak them a little.
It might be your nose or boobs.
Whatever it is, you may think, “if only I could fix my nose, then I would be happy.”
A 13-year survey of 1597 adolescents shows that 5% of the participants who underwent cosmetic surgery reported no increase in happiness and felt worse.
Why aren’t These Goals Making Us Happy?
According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, we are pursuing the wrong goals to be happy.
In her book, she says three factors influence our happiness; genetics by 50%, life circumstances by 10%, and lastly, thoughts, and actions by 40%.
From the data Lyumbomirsky collected, we have control of the 40% (thoughts and actions) which most of us ignore.
So how can we become happy?
By building habits that foster happiness as well as learning to choose our thoughts instead of letting them control our lives.
Mind Tricks that sabotage our happiness
In addition to Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research, other studies show that without awareness, our mind can trick us into pursuing the wrong goals.
Here are some of the tricks our minds play;
Mind Trick 1: Our thoughts represent facts
Our minds continually bombard us with thoughts and suggestions.
Even though we know that these are just suggestions and that sometimes we get things wrong, we believe them as facts every time.
In Muller-Lyer optical illusion, we know from the second image that the lines are the same length.
However, that doesn’t stop us from seeing the middle line in the first image as longer.
In extreme cases such as in alcoholism, the mind continually suggests alcohol to the person whose life is being destroyed by it.
The alcoholic might, go ahead and act on his thoughts even though he knows it is ruining him.
Sadly, we forget that our minds can be compulsive when it suggests we pursue certain goals.
Which is why you have to pay attention to the intention behind every goal you pursue.
Mind Trick 2: We think in fragments
The second trick the mind plays on us is that we think in fragments instead of the whole picture.
For example, if you make $30,000 a year and you work with people who make $100,000, you will be unhappy with how much you make.
However, if you were working with people who make $15,000 a year, then it wouldn’t feel so bad.
Our mind makes comparisons in fragments, to think in absolute would require you to look at the person making $100,000 from the beginning of their career.
And possibly consider their childhood before you start feeling like a failure.
Another example is social media.
When we look at people’s filtered lives, it never occurs to the mind that people are only posting filtered versions of their lives.
Instead, we end up acting like we see the whole picture.
This is why you have to stay mindful and keep in mind that you are never looking at the whole picture.
Mind Trick 3: We Get Used to Things
Remember your first love? I bet you thought you would never be able to live without them, look at you now?
If that doesn’t ring a bell, remember one thing you were so excited to have that has now become ordinary.
No matter what goals you pursue, you will get used to them soon after you achieve them.
And, you’ll be back to square one.
Closing Thoughts
If you want to be happy start adding habits to your life that cultivate happiness.
These include; doing meaningful work, cultivating gratitude, staying present and mindful, building resilience and good relationships.
Material aspects of life are great but as we have seen they are not enough to make us happy.
When we focus on the goals mentioned with the intention of buying happiness we end up sabotaging the happiness we seek.
I would like to hear your thoughts in the comment section.
With Love,
Sania
Dailyzens.
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