What Increases Long-Term Happiness?

"Happiness is the joy you feel striving for your potential.”

-Ancient Greek definition of Happiness

Our intention for the course is not to tell you what will make you happy - we cannot do that. Only YOU can answer that question. Our job is to facilitate, to coach, to teach from behind; we want to EMPOWER you with the time-honored tools that facilitate a happy, fulfilling, life. We want to celebrate each of your successes, and help you through your failures, with the notion that you are progressing. That is the key – to progress, to practice, to experiment. As it is for physical fitness, it is also for happiness - the only way to make progress is TO DO. Think of happiness as an action word more than a fleeting feeling. An action reminds us that the power is in our own hands and not something that simply happens to us. The question we should be asking ourselves is not where can we find happiness, but how can we cultivate it and expand it out to others.

Some essentials to developing a healthy mindset are: Self-care, a healthy mindset, healthy and supportive relationships, finding an engaging and fulfilling career, finding meaning and purpose in life, practicing gratitude and empathy, developing a “We”, instead of “Me”, mindset, obtaining life wisdom, and challenging yourself to grow without breaking. See the Learning Objectives below for a list of 10 actions we can do to increase our long-term happiness starting today:

• Self-care is more than just a trip to the spa or a bike ride - self-care is treating yourself with unconditional love - looking after your physical, mental, and spiritual needs daily, such as making sure you get enough sleep, exercise, and nutrients. Staying in tune with your body and senses is helpful because when you’re highly anxious/irritated/angry/depressed/etc., this could mean parts of your self-care are depleted.

• Work on changing your perspective on yourself, others, and life - to be more skillfully engaged with your inner mindset and inner world. The quality of our lives is derived not from the external stimuli we encounter, but the meaning we give to that stimuli. Mindfulness and metacognition practices greatly improve our positive engagement with life by distancing ourselves from our unskillful thoughts and feelings, giving us a healthier relationship with our inner selves and how we view and interpret the world.

• Healthy relationships of all types are crucial to our life quality and happiness. Studies show that the quality, not quantity, of our social connections are as high a predictor of our lifespan as obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure.

• Career magic happens when you find something that you enjoy doing, that the world needs and will pay you to do, and that you are stably employed to work with people you enjoy spending time with.

• Finding meaning and purpose go hand-in-hand with basing our lives around “we”. Working towards a greater purpose other than yourself gives our lives extra value, it promotes the mindset that our behavior matters (which it does!), and promotes humanity’s spiritual and neurobiological drive to ensure peace and happiness for all.

• Gratitude is what changes the energy we bring to our world - it conflicts with our culture’s scarcity consciousness and competitiveness. Gratitude reminds us we are born as whole individuals, to see meaning and value in the seemingly mundane, and to appreciate the immense opportunity for love and appreciation that each moment brings.

• Living skillfully requires your awareness of how your thoughts and feelings, acted upon or not, affect you and everyone around you.

• And finally, growing without breaking is essential to our long-term happiness. Having the courage (the whole-heartedness) and vulnerability to put yourself out there - to take risks and to grow. Wisdom is learning how to do this skillfully throughout the ever changing circumstances of your life.