169-How Does Purchasing Stuff During The Holidays Affect Happiness?

As the give-giving holidays approach, let’s take a look at happiness and the nice things we like.   

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and as the holidays approach, I’m thinking a lot about stuff, both gift giving and the kids holiday wish lists.  

 

The science indicates that the more we want the less life satisfaction we will experience. The less happy we will be.   But the thing is, we want this stuff and we think the “nice” thing, whatever it is, fill in the blank, will make us happier.  If we didn’t think that we wouldn’t buy it.  Yet, the science (Nickerson Et Al. (2003)) says that’s a total trick and stuff won’t actually make us happier.     

 

As we enter the holiday season I invite you to think about the stuff you are purchasing and ask yourself if this is really what you want and what you want to give.   It feels good to give someone a nice thing, and they may be happy in the moment, but the research indicates that it won’t last and then, they are left with this thing. 

 

Another way to think about the holiday season is the gift of time, spending time with the people you love.  Also, using experiences as gifts instead of things.  For example, we just saw an advertisement for a season pass to an amusement park near us.  My little boy loves roller coasters and he wants to go to this particular amusement park more often.  So, we are going to purchase an annual pass during this holiday sale, something we would purchase anyway next Spring, and wrap it up for him.  This is an experience we can do as a family.  This is something we know the kids will enjoy and we aren’t adding more stuff into our home, that, frankly, I’ll have to dust. 

 

And let’s not forget, all these toys won’t actually make our kids happier in the long run either. It’s never about the stuff. 

 

Now, a confession.  I love the tradition of opening a lot of presents, it brings me joy - it really does make me happy for this moment.  So, I wrap a lot of little presents that don’t even matter, so we have that experience.  Everything from a new toothbrush, socks, a flashlight, these experiences I mentioned are on a piece of paper and wrapped in a box.  So we can still get that joy in the experience of unwrapping gifts while not focusing on the materialistic part of gifts that can waste money and don’t bring us the level of happiness that we expect for the amount of money we just spent. 

 

I’m curious, what is your holiday gift giving strategy?  Connect with us @everydayhappinesswithkatie over on social. 

 

References include:  Nickerson et al. (2003). Zeroing on the Dark Side of the American Dream: A Closer Look at the Negative Consequences of the Goal for Financial Success. Psychological Science, 14, 531-536.

 

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