One misconception about happiness is that people think they need to try harder to be happy, but the problem is not the lack of effort. The issue lies in the fact that our minds deceive us about what truly brings happiness. We have strong intuitions that achieving certain things, such as the perfect job, higher salary, or accolades, will make us happy. However, studies show that while these accomplishments may provide a temporary happiness boost, it doesn't last. Lasting happiness comes from something else. This misconception leads people to become 'happy if or happy when' individuals, who believe they will only be happy when they achieve certain milestones. This bias is known as the arrival fallacy, where people believe that happiness will come once a specific event or achievement occurs.
Can you accurately identify what aspects of life make you happy? Would you even know if you found true happiness? Leading psychology professor and happiness expert Laurie Santos dives deep on all the factors that contribute to our happiness, why we spend so much energy pursuing it, some evidence-based methods to boost your happiness, why it’s crucial to protect yourself from unhappy people, and so much more.
Santos is a Professor of Psychology and the Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Since 2018 she’s been teaching Psychology and the Good Life, which is one of the most popular courses at Yale and at one point included approximately a quarter of the school’s undergraduates. She has also turned her course into a popular podcast series, The Happiness Lab.