One of the recurring goals in coaching sessions is to live a happier life. My clients sometimes doubt if happiness exists or if it is a utopia, impossible to attain. The truth is that it exists and is measured all over the world.

The 2019 United World Happiness Report places the Netherlands in the 5th position of happiest countries.  The report includes GDP, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perception of corruption. Hurray for my fatherland, and congrats to the Fins!

At an individual level, happiness is measured differently and can be defined as 'Perceived Subjective Well-Being.'  It is the difference between ‘Experiential Reality’, the total of everything that a person experiences as seen from its perspective, and ‘Expectation from Life’, what a person wants from life. When the distance between Experiential Reality and Expectation from Life is large, the level of happiness is low.

My math teacher taught us that if a picture may be worth a thousand words, a formula is worth a thousand pictures (the math and art teacher in my school didn't get along very well).  So, let’s express happiness in the following formula:

Happiness = 100 + Experiential Reality - Expectation from Life

An example. Someone has high expectations from life: money, success, and health. Let's give it a number 90 (out of 100). Now let's assume that the business went sour, and there is feels financially insecurity. Furthermore, due to a knee injury the individual won't be able to run marathons anymore. At this moment, Experiential Reality may be rated at 30.

Using our formula: Happiness = 100 + 30 – 90 = 40. Pretty low, right?

What can be done to increase the happiness score?

Firstly, augment Experiential Reality and focus on what one has and can do instead of bemoaning what one doesn't have or can't do. If running as a sport is out of the question, maybe it's a good idea to take up swimming or cycling.  If a business failed, consider this as a learning opportunity for future ventures. If money is an issue, ask what options are there? Selling an asset, reducing costs, finding work?

Secondly, recalibrate the Expectation from Life. Maybe it is time to ask how important the original objectives were. Are they still valid? What can one do without? What is a priority now? What is adding meaning to life and gives a sense of fulfillment? What is the learning so far? What could be exciting to spend more time doing? How do friends and family fit into the life going forward?

It is a fact of life that nobody becomes spontaneously happy. There must be a purposeful intention to search for well-being. The conversion of reality must be the result of personal effort. If, for example, money is a problem, consider earning an extra income through individual effort, not by expecting to win the lottery. A person negotiates for a 'yes' instead of a 'no' through hard work.  One becomes a fit swimmer or cyclist by exercising, not dreaming or reading about it.

If positive things happen through personal efforts, the gap between reality and expectations gets smaller, and happiness will increase.

The U-shape of happiness

People in their early twenties are, in general, the happiest. There is growth perspective, future, dreams, many things to develop, experiment, and construct. They reach full potential physically and feel invincible. In this stage of life, there are lots of emotions and feelings going around.

After that, the perception of plenitude, of “glad, confident mornings” goes steeply downhill.

Between the ages of forty and fifty years, the U is bottoming out. Midlife is a time ripe for crises. This age group realizes that not all dreams will be fulfilled. Maybe the career did not reach the expected level, and perhaps there are marital problems on the horizon. There is an urging towards reasoning, rationalization, lots of self-questioning, and doubts among the mid-lifers.  

In the middle fifties, the end of the bottom is in sight. Raj Sisodia describes in his book "Firms of Endearment"[1]how the personal status-quo is disturbed by a shift from social actualization, i.e. gaining social acceptance and subordinating a part of our inner self to the demand and expectation of others, to self-actualization, i.e. connecting with yourself.

Well-being becomes better again for the over-sixties. The U is sloping upwards. Between sixty and seventy years, people see things from a different perspective. They appreciate what they have and don't seek more. The friends they have are enough to bring joy. Life expectancy is also different. Realizing how much time is left makes people live the current moment. Feelings and creativity take over from rationalization and analyses.  It seems easier to reach a state of well-being in this age group.

In his book "The Seasons of a Man's Life", Daniel Levinson[2] writes "as man reviews his life and considers how to give it greater meaning, he must come to terms in a new way with destruction and creation as fundamental aspects of his life. His growing recognition of his own mortality makes him more aware of destruction as a universal process. Knowing his own death is not far off, he is eager to affirm life for himself and for generations to come. He wants to be more creative. The creative impulse is not merely to make something. It is to bring something into being, to give birth, to generate life."

Interestingly enough, the U-shape of happiness is applicable all over the world[3] and it seems that the twenty and sixty-plus years-old reach the same happiness level, but for different reasons.  

The question is, how to spend less time at the bottom of the U-curve, and if the curve can be be reshaped into a V?

One way of achieving faster recovery from the U-dip is by shifting the mindset and creating fresh awareness about life through perspective and visualization exercises.

In a perspective exercise a person sees himself through his own eyes but at another age. What would he observe about his current life through the eyes of his twenty-year-old alter ego? What would he notice? What would surprise him? What would he be happy about?  What would he applaud?  

Similarly, he could imagine being ninety years-old. What would he advise his younger self about life? What would he recommend doing differently? What would he suggest worrying less about? What encouragement would he give?

In a visualization exercise, a person may celebrate her birthday twenty years forthcoming. There is a big party with many guests.  Who is attending the party, and where is it being held? What are have been achieved with respect to family, friends, career, business, and community? A friend wrote a speech for the birthday. What does it say? What would she want it to say? What would disappoint her if it was not said? What would make her most proud? What are some of the mistakes that she can now laugh about?  What is the essence that she wants to be captured in that birthday speech?

By prodding deeper into the information revealed from these exercises, a positive shift in a person's awareness may happen. Changing one's perspective and seeing one's life through a different set of lenses will result in a faster recovery to well-being and happiness.

Does happiness exist in quarantine?

I would like to end this blog with a final thought. Happiness does not exist in isolation!  It is fundamental for any person's well-being to have frequent social contact with family, friends and neighbors. That's why the current social distancing is so hard, especially for the elderly. Their clock is ticking, and their Experiential Reality is low. Therefore, we should take extra care of our elderly living in isolation during this holiday season. They are the real victims of the current pandemic. We can increase their well-being and state of happiness with our caring presence and love.

[1] Sisodia, Wolf, David,  Rajendra, Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose

[2] Daniel J. Levinson, The Seasons of a Man’s Life 1978

[3] Blanchflower, D.G. Is happiness U-shaped everywhere? Age and subjective well-being in 145 countries. J Popul Econ (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-020-00797-z

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