How To Be Happy? The Only Justice in the World.
August 7th, 2020
Last Updated on August 7th, 2020
This text was fully written by humans.
SUMMARY / KEY TAKEAWAYS
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This article lists a few key findings from the last few decades of research on what determines happiness.
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Meaningful relations with people and sense of purpose are the key ingredients to happiness.
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As humans, we have the ability to foster happiness by actively reinterpreting what happens to us.
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In the famous Dunedin study, self-discipline turned out to be the best predictor of life success.
Table of Contents
How To Be Happy in Professional Life?
In general, this world is not just. Some people are born wealthier than others. Others are born prettier than others.
Indeed, some people naturally have more energy than others. Others learn faster than others. Some people receive more recognition and appreciation for their work than others.
But, there is one thing just for all. That one just thing is this: none of the factors mentioned above substantially influences how happy you are.
Notably, nor do they influence for how long you will live. So, how to be happy – in professional life and beyond?
There was a lot of research dedicated to what makes people happy, and what makes them live longer and in good health. This article lists a few key findings from the last few decades and sums them up to arrive at just one common conclusion.
1. Why Do Meaningful Relationships With People Make You Happier?
The Harvard Study of Adult Development was running for over 75 years. In this study, 724 men enrolled at the point when they were reaching adulthood. (hence, “adult development“) They were then tracked for decades concerning their health, relationships, and overall life satisfaction.
In fact, Robert Waldinger, the chief researcher in the study, found something surprising. It is not fame, wealth, or cholesterol level at age 50 that best predicts health at age 80. It is the quality of relationships with family and friends — a finding that quietly underlines self-development resources for professionals focused on building a life outside of work.
The same study also revealed that job satisfaction has little to do with salary or social status. In fact, the jobs which make people unhappy are usually those that isolate them from others.
The study by Hilbrand et al. (Evolution and Human Behavior, 2016) also referred to this point. Namely, elderly people who are casual caregivers—both within and beyond their family—live longer than their counterparts who don’t carry out similar activities.
It’s hard to disagree with this finding.
Importantly, people met on the way often become the only capital that you gain from your projects.
This point is also reviewed in the blog post entitled “People Is the Answer.”
2. How Does Having a Purpose Help You Live Better?
A recent research study by Alimujiang et al. (JAMA Network Open, 2019) showed that elderly people who believe that their life has a purpose live longer than those who don’t hold such a belief. As the authors put it, “Community, achievement, reputation, relationships, spirituality, kindness — all these can feed into any one person’s life purpose.
As a result, according to Alimujiang and colleagues in JAMA Network Open, a stronger sense of life purpose was significantly associated with lower all-cause mortality. This finding came from a cohort of nearly 7,000 US adults.
So, there is not one specific definition for any one person.” — says the study’s lead author, Leigh Pearce. This might also explain the results of the studies mentioned in point (1). Namely, building meaningful relationships with other people is just one of many possible ways to develop a sense of purpose, which ties directly into how to develop self-awareness for career success.
3. Active Reinterpretation Of the Situation.
In other words, Psychologist Dan Gilbert, author of the book “Stumbling on Happiness,” humans, as the only species in the world, can synthesize happiness. Namely, if we don’t have something we want, we can reinterpret the situation. This way, we can feel better anyway.
And, we should actively use this ability to feel happier in life — a skill closely related to how to build emotional resilience at work. It’s an interesting concept hard to disagree with.
At the same time, as research clearly shows, the level of happiness always relaxes to the same baseline. This holds true even after extremely lucky or unlucky events.
For example, a famous study conducted at NYU by Brickman et al. (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978) has shown something telling. As soon as a year after winning a lottery, the winners typically feel the same or less happy than before their lucky day.
On the contrary, paraplegics don’t seem to experience a long-term decrease in happiness despite their tragic health condition. Happiness is like a thermostat and single events only pull you out of your homeostasis for a little while. Thus, you need to work on leveraging your homeostatic happiness level than chasing after lucky, joyful events that are short-lived and passing.
4. Does Self-Discipline Predict a Happier Life?
The famous Dunedin study is yet another study worth mentioning here. The study started in New Zealand in 1971. In the study, unlike in the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the subjects were tracked from the very day they were born.
Overall, According to Moffitt and colleagues in PNAS, the Dunedin cohort showed a clear pattern. Childhood self-control predicts adult health, wealth, and even criminal records along that gradient.
The major purpose of the study was to find early life predictors and determinants of overall life success, which is exactly the territory covered by how to build a personal growth strategy. We are now talking about “life success” in the broad sense — from health, through relationships, to financial wealth.
Specifically, So, what came out of this huge, 50-year-long research initiative? As it turned out, the best predictor of life success is self-discipline in children (Moffitt et al., PNAS, 2011).
In fact, self-discipline matters much more than your IQ, as this large-scale study shows. It also outweighs the social status of the family you were raised in, or even your emotional intelligence.
5. Patience.
“Follow your passion!” — this cliche sentence is a nightmare of every career advisor. In fact, passion is not a vision hanging in the sky, and knowing how to overcome professional self-doubt is often the first step toward finding it.
Nor is it an item that you pick up from the street.
In fact, passion is a great REWARD that waits for those who sweat for it over the years and win it via: (1) curiosity, (2) patience and resilience, (3) diligence & integrity. So, if you’d like to feel more passion for your work, brace yourself, stop looking around and start working on your “project passion” today!
Summary: So, How To Be Happy in Professional Life?
When looking at the list above, one thing comes out as a striking common factor. Namely, all these things depend on us rather than on external factors!
- No one will choose our life purpose for us.
- No one will build relationships for us. We need to reinterpret our misfortunes to our advantage by ourselves.
- No one will push us to wake up in the morning and go through our morning routine.
- Similarly, no one will choose things well for us in the long term over quick gratifications.
- No one will work on our professional development in our name.
These are all our own decisions, and building them intentionally is really what personal development strategies for career growth are about.
We tend to be so occupied with everyday struggles that we often forget about the most important things in life. These include personal development as well as professional development.
Consequently, sometimes it’s good to get back to the basics and think about these simple truths. After all, happiness — both at work and in life — is the ultimate goal of us all. Yet we often make it harder for ourselves.
Lastly, instead of chasing after one big goal and sacrificing everything else, it is good to invest in harmonious development. Various areas of life support each other, so if you let go of excellence in one of them, all of them will deteriorate. And vice versa: if you work on one of the pillars of your life, all of them will strengthen.
For instance, taking care of your health gives more energy and enthusiasm to build other pillars properly (well, that’s the obvious one). Taking care of your spirituality makes you more sensitive and attracts other passionate people to your life, so your social and professional lives will thrive.
Where To Learn More About Happiness
Indeed, satisfaction with your career leads to more happiness, less stress, and in turn, longer and healthier life. Et cetera.
Notably, You can find more information on how to be happy in two books. The first is “Be Happy: A Little Book to Help You Live a Happy Life” by Monica Sheehan. The second is “Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfill Your Potential” by Carol Dweck.
Please review also our article on related topics: “How To Live a Good Life? A Note On Confucianism and What Can It Teach Us When It Comes To Building Professional Networking Strategies“
In fact, Can you think of anything else in this world that is just? If so, please drop your comment below!
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