It was the beginning of the pandemic here in the United States. The world was starting to put an increased focus on wellness and being happy in light of having to isolate from friends and family for long periods of time. However, people often have misconceptions about happiness.
Enter: Huge amounts of publicity for a free Yale course called “The Science of Well-Being”. Being someone who has lately been focused on increasing my own well-being and seeing that it was attached to a very good university, I decided to give it a try.
I was hesitant to give my information to a strange website I hadn’t heard of before. However, Coursera has been pretty great for me. They don’t send hardly any emails, thus not cluttering up my inbox. Plus, the online courses are easy to navigate.
Much of what I learned throughout the course was the background on techniques that had been taught to me during counseling. I love learning about psychology, so I found it fascinating. Plus, I picked up a few additional techniques on how to increase my well-being and happiness.
If you have the time, I highly recommend signing up for the free course and checking it out! I’m going to give an overview here of the main misconceptions about happiness.
Our Misconceptions About Happiness
The course starts off by talking about the misconceptions we all have about what will make us happy. We’ll get into each of the categories below.
Let me tell you, this really hit home for me. These topics didn’t surprise me. However, I do recall the college student version of myself being highly focused on each and every one of these.
My older, wiser self now knows better. However, if you can learn it now instead of the hard way like me, you’ll save yourself years of hassle!
Good Job
The first misconception about happiness we have is that we think getting a good job will make us happy. As a college student, I know I wanted a good job.
To me, a good job meant security, stability, and enough money to live comfortably. That’s part of the reason that I decided to be an accountant.
I always thought getting that good job with one of the highly reputable companies in my area meant I would be happy and would have accomplished “it all”.
In “The Science of Well-Being”, Professor Santos goes over some data on happiness levels from people in studies. They looked at how much their happiness levels changed based on whether or not they got the good job they wanted.
If you do not get the good job you wanted, your happiness levels don’t decrease as much as you think they would.
However, finding a job that will let you use your signature strengths does have an impact on your happiness levels. We’ll get into signature strengths in the post next week.
Money
Another misconception about happiness is that thinking that a lot of money will make you happy. One of the key examples here is to think about how much happier you think you would be winning the lottery.
Here’s the interesting thing about money. Once your basic needs are met, the amount of salary per year after which your happiness levels plateau is $75,000, per the study referenced in “The Science of Well Being” course.
The data showed that extra money won’t do much for your happiness levels. Another interesting point: you tend to think that making $10,000 more than you do now will make you happy.
Well, as it turns out, that amount of money keeps going up the more you make, so you’ll continuously be thinking you need more.
Stuff
A lot of people tend to think that having the next cool thing will make them happy. They like to keep up with the cool stuff everyone else has.
You might think, well if I just had this cool new guitar, camera, a pile of new clothes, etc, you’ll finally feel happier.
As it turns out, people who have that type of mindset actually have lower satisfaction with their lives than people who are less focused on acquiring stuff.
Love
Similar to the other things that we think will make us happy, love is another one. If we just found that person with who we’re meant to spend the rest of our lives, we’ll be happy forever. Right? Just like all those gushy Hallmark movies.
As it turns out, in the studies that Professor Santos references, there is a period of time where you are happier. There’s about a two-year time frame in those years when you meet your partner and right after you’re married that you are happier.
However, after that “honeymoon phase”, your happiness levels actually go right back down to your baseline where they originally started.
Losing Weight
Losing weight is a big one that a lot of companies target saying will make you happier. A lot of times the mindset is, if I just lose 5, 10 more pounds, I’ll be happier. However, this is another misconception about happiness.
As it turns out, in the studies referenced by Professor Santos, those people who lost weight were actually unhappier four years later.
I can actually attest to this since I lost a bit of weight quite a few years ago. I realized that I wasn’t any happier than I was at my larger weight. It actually made me feel sad that I wasn’t as happy as I thought I would be.
What Will Make You Happy?
Now you know all the things that will not make you happy. Did you have any of these misconceptions about happiness?
If you want to learn what will make you happy, tune in next week for the follow-up article! Feel free to share your guesses on what might make you happy in the comments.
