Happiness Simplified!

Happiness can be defined as the state of being happy, in other words, joy, contentment, satisfaction, cheerfulness, pleasure etc. There are endless ways to define happiness. It is something like love, every other individual would experience it differently.

Researchers who work around Positivity and Well-being found that most people base their happiness on material things, however, this state of pleasure and enjoyment dissipate after a while. (Referred to as hedonic happiness, where the influx of joy that the worldly pleasures bring to you diminish soon)

That is where the need for how to stay happy in the long run, retain the state of contentment without going back to zero came in the picture. A lot of studies have been performed to move from hedonic happiness to a more sustainable state.

Dr.Martin Seligman, through his work around authentic happiness, came up with the five elements listed below, that can help people develop a sense of happiness that stays and can be refuelled with actions. According to him, flourishing people have these five things:

1. Positive Emotions: Smile, joy, comfort, and anything that reinstates happiness. When faced with challenges and difficult situation staying optimistic enables perseverance. Optimism enables intellectual stimulation, creativity, and resilience in difficult times.

2. Engagement: Activities that flood the body with positive neurotransmitters. It helps remain present in the moment and find focus, calm and joy. This happens when people know their strengths and the highest strengths are matched with the highest challenges. In this state flow and learning occurs.

3. Relationships: We are social animals hard-wired to bond and depend on others. Relationships and social connections are crucial to meaningful lives. Isolation can deter affect human health and happiness.

4. Meaning: The sense of belonging and serving something you believe is bigger than self. Imagine waking up in the morning with absolutely no purpose to serve, we will not feel the urge to step out of bed or do anything. Why are we put on earth, what do we want to create, what do we want to give back to the world and so many such questions help people find their inner desire to do something meaningful, something beyond taking care of themselves.

5. Accomplishments: To push oneself to thrive and flourish one must accomplish something. Setting realistic goals and taking the right actions leads to success which in turn adds to the zeal for achieving more.

The acronym PERMA is a combination of these 5 elements put together, how one can use PERMA to stay happy is the question here and as they rightly say to develop / grow something the first step is to measure it. Before I take you to how to implement this (coming up next)

Take the PERMA profile assessment to know your current position @ authentichappiness.org

Once done let us discuss how one can build on each element to shoot up the scores and thereby your happiness.

Happy reading!