According to happiness researcher Dr. Sonja Lyubormirsky, celebrated author of The How of Happiness, three elements comprise the happiness pie.
These are setpoint or genetic tendencies, intentional activity, and circumstances.
- The set point is your baseline happiness. Some people are normally relatively happy, some people less so; it’s part of temperament. According to this theory, the set point is said to make up 50% of one’s total happiness.
- The next aspect is intentional activity—includes things like cultivating kindness and forgiveness, expressing gratitude, and other practices that specifically target our own and others’ well-being. This is said to comprise about 40% of one’s total happiness.
- And finally, there is circumstances, and this includes all the sorts of stuff that happens to us as we go about seeking good conditions, from buying an ice cream cone to a new house. This is said to comprise about 10% of one’s total happiness.
The main message here is that circumstances account for far less than we normally suppose. So if we believe that we are going to increase our happiness by improving our circumstances, we may be in for a rude awakening.
But the takeaway is that working with our intentional activity is our best bet if we want to increase happiness. This has to do with changing our mindset (e.g., feeling more gratitude for what we have or how the world is); or increasing our experience of autonomy, self-efficacy, self-respect, satisfaction, etc., by setting intentions and then following through on them.
What do you think?