Everyday Happiness - Finding Harmony and Bliss
Education:Self-Improvement
We all want to boost our happiness! That is why I am providing you with a mini-series on how to improve your happiness. In this episode, we talk about experiences over materialism.
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 I was listening to the Yale happiness course by Dr. Laurie Santos and what I’ve learned and shared in the previous episodes on How Our Mind Hinders Our Happiness, is that our minds are constantly getting it wrong when it comes to happiness. And now, we are going to talk about how we can counterbalance this phenomenon with tools to tip the scales in our happiness favor.
We know that our mind plays tricks on us, and miswants what we think will actually make us happy. It also compares our wants against reference points instead of absolutes, and then, our minds have this terrible tendency to get used to stuff, and we don’t even realize it. But, the good news is that if we are intentional, we can overcome these human biases.
When we think about the ways we try to make ourselves happy, Dr. Santos says the first way is to not invest in awesome material stuff. This stuff, scientifically, won’t make us as happy as we think. Our minds trick us into thinking it will, but it just doesn’t. The new car, just becomes the car. Being aware of it is half the battle. So this stuff that lasts, it sticks around, the new house, the new car, the expensive handbag. Because it sticks around, we get used to it and over time, there just isn’t that much happiness to derive from this stuff.
On the flip side, forget about the stuff and instead, consider investing in experiences. Because they don’t stick around, we don’t have time to adapt to them. So what we are left with is this wonderful memory of this experience.
The science indicates that people who invest in experiences are in fact happier.
So instead of thinking about how you might treat yourself with stuff, change it around and think about experiences instead.
Also, it’s hard to have a social comparison when you are talking about a trip versus a new pair of shoes or your car v. someone else's car. So if we are the type of people that invest in experiences, we are more likely to not compare ourselves to other people’s awesome experiences.
And, the science says, we will just be happier.
Life is heavy enough, we shouldn’t have to search for happiness. Get the exclusive happiness email, delivered with a smile twice a month to your inbox. https://www.katiejefcoat.com/email
And, let’s connect on social at @everydayhappinesswithkatie and join the community on the hashtags #IntentionalMargins and #everydayhappinesswithkatie on Instagram
Links: https://onamission.bio/everydayhappiness/
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