Heart Advice

7 Science-Backed Ways to Get Happy Right Now

The happiness model we’re taught from a young age is actually completely backward. We think we work hard in order to achieve success and that achievement makes us happy. That’s what I learned growing up.

We think the process goes like this:

Study hard! → Straight A’s! → Be happy!

Interview lots! → Great job! → Be happy!

Work overtime! → Get promoted! → Be happy!

But it doesn’t work like that in real life. That model is broken.

We do great work and have big success, but instead of being happy, we just set new goals. Now we study for the next job, the next degree, the next promotion. Why stop at a college degree when you can get a master’s? Why stop at director when you can be VP? Why stop at one house when you can have two? We never get to happiness this way. We keep pushing it further and further away.

Now, what happens when we break “be happy” off the end of this sequence and stick it at the beginning?

by Neil Pasricha