Learn How to Be Happier - Tal Ben Shahar

Here are eight of Dr. Ben-Shahar's happiness tips:

1. Ask yourself questions to foster awareness about what actions and attitudes will make you happier. Dr. Ben-Shahar offers several examples in his book "Happier"--which also functions as a workbook--such as the following:

Complete the following sentence: "To bring five percent more happiness into my life . . ."

2. Happiness must combine both pleasure and meaning, providing both present and future gain. To further illustrate this point, Ben-Shahar uses a hamburger analogy. He explains how certain things, like an unhealthy but tasty hamburger, will bring immediate short-term pleasure but have the opposite effect on our long-term feelings.

Similarly, an unappealing but healthy veggie burger might bring us negative emotions while we're eating it but bring us long-term benefits. Too often people bounce back and forth between these two without finding out what things in their lives can bring both immediate and long-term happiness; that is, a meal that is both tasty and healthy.

3. Ben-Shahar argues in his book that happiness is not an end state, but rather something you work towards your whole life. Thus, you can be happier each day. Even happiness is a journey, not a destination.

4. Allow yourself to feel the full range of emotions, including fear, sadness, or anxiety. Ben-Shahar advises that an expectation of constant happiness is unreasonable and sets us up for disappointment.

5. Simplify. Identify what's most important to you and focus on that; stop trying to do too much. People who take on too much experience time poverty, which inhibits their ability to derive happiness from any of the activities they participate in.

6. Remember the mind-body connection. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

7. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on your state of mind. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on and by our interpretation of external events.

8. Show gratitude.

(Image taken from here.)

Dr. Ben-Shahar argues in "Happier" that there are four basic archetypes of happiness decision making. These are the following:

1. Hedonism These people believe that they can sustain happiness by going from pleasurable activity to pleasurable activity with complete disregard for any future meaning or purpose.

2. Rat Race. These people are on the opposite side of the spectrum: they postpone present happiness in order to pursue goals which they believe will make them happy in the future. They believe that reaching a certain destination will lead to sustained happiness.

3. Nihilism: These people believe that no matter what they do they will not be able to attain happiness. Basically, these are the ones that have lost all hope of being happy.

4. Happiness. As stated previously, happiness requires that we live for both today and tomorrow. These are the people who engage in activities which they find meaningful and pleasurable today, which at the same time "feed" into a future that is also meaningful and pleasurable.

People experience their work in one of three ways: as a job--a chore done so you can pay your bills--, as a career--motivated by money, prestige, and advancement--,or as a calling. A calling is work done as an end in and of itself.

To find your calling, first ask "What gives me meaning?", then ask "what gives me pleasure?", and finally ask yourself "what are my strengths?" Most job-seekers first ask what they're good at, which then generates a list from which they select the option which they perceive will bring them the most pleasure. The question of meaning somehow doesn't make it into the equation. This is why most people end up with a job or a career instead of a calling.

In recent years there has been an explosion of research on happiness, optimism, positive emotions and healthy character traits. Dr. Martin Seligman is Director of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center and founder of Positive Psychology. He was one of the experts featured in Time Magazine's January 2005 issue devoted entirely to "The Science of Happiness".

While psychology has traditionally concerned itself with what ails the human mind--such as anxiety, depression, neurosis, obsessions, paranoia, and delusions--, Dr. Seligman proposed a new goal for psychology. He asked the question: "What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish?" That is, his goal was to create a branch of psychology that would study what actively made people feel fulfilled, engaged and meaningfully happy.

In "Happier", Ben-Shahar writes the following about time affluence:

"Time affluence is the feeling that one has sufficient time to pursue activities that are personally meaningful, to reflect, to engage in leisure. Time poverty is the feeling that one is constantly stressed, rushed, overworked, and behind. All we have to do is look around us - and often within ourselves - to realize the pervasiveness of time poverty in our culture."

There's often a rush to trade time for money. However, there comes a point at which having more money has a very small impact on our level of happiness. On the other hand, the time that we're using in order to make more money could be spent on activities which have been shown to increase happiness, such as the following:

• Spending time with your family and friends;
• Pursuing a hobby or leisure activity that you enjoy;
• Exercising;
• Volunteering; and so on.

When measuring your wealth you have to find a way to balance your material well-being with your spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. You can try to find this balance by applying one of the techniques which Ben-Shahar recommends in his book "Happier": life-mapping.

For life-mapping, keep a log of the number of hours which you devote to different activities during a typical week: working, commuting, watching television, family time, paying bills, and so forth. Also, keep a record of how much pleasure you derive from each activity. Do this for a pre-determined period of time, such as a month. At the end of the time period, analyze what you discover about how you're spending your time.

Wealth isn't just about having the money that you need in order to be able to buy anything you want. It's also about having the time to spend in activities which you enjoy. There's a point at which spending more time making money, instead of doing other things, decreases your well-being. Wealth is about finding the right allocation of your time between income-producing activities and other activities.

If you'd like to purchase the poster on Zazzle, just click on the image, or click here: How To Be Happy.

Top Stories