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Pursuit of Happyness Analysis

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The Pursuit of Happyness, Essay Example

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To be happy and to have a high standard of living is an American dream, which is based on individual freedom and connected with the concept of “self-made man”. This paper describes Chris Gardner’s story (2006) which is riddled with despair, challenges, cruelty, violence, but is advanced and foremost of love, faith and hope. It proposes up reminders that until now the American dream subsist and gives the opportunity to everyone to find it in themselves and to achieve the highest point in their life performance. This story is a saga of various singers, actors, performers, which are used as the examples of happy and fortunate people. It is a saga of a man who destroyed his family’s cycle of people abandoning their kids. Never giving up and falling into despondency and despair, Chris Gardner did an amazement change from being a part of city’s indigent and poor to being a strong and powerful person. The Pursuit of Happyness (Gardner, 2006) is a true American success and welfare story of a person who overcame difficulties and obstacles.

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happyness (Gardner, 2006) is an encouraging and inspiring autobiography of a person, who overcame all types of misfortune and adversity to become a powerful person in a world of finance.

The Pursuit of Happyness (Gardner, 2006) is an autobiographical honest and humility story which describes Chris Gardner’s long, excruciating, ultimately rewarding travel from poor region Milwaukee to the top of success in a Wall Street. It is faithful and rags-to-riches story of a homeless father who brings up his son on mean and cruel streets of San Francisco and becomes a famous businessmen and moneymaker (Gardner, 2006).

Chris Gardner is a poor and indigent minority who is described as honest-minded, fair and comprehensive person. He is trying to show that it is impossible to buy happiness, but money and prosperity can help in this.

This story shows the contrast between San Francisco’s rich and poor, and the capitalistic rage of Dean Witter office where Chris Gardner’s internship was. It is a description of a person who at no time succumbed to self compassion. He did not surrender to bitter stuff either. He censured nobody for his plight, just pushed ahead and found decisions to each situation and problem he faced (Gardner, 2006).

For better understanding Chris Gardner’s psychology and why he denies giving up notwithstanding of having obstacles and impediments in his path at every turn it is important to answer the following questions:

• How does Chris Gardner’s childhood influenced his path to success?
• What were Chris Gardner’s main principles and goals?

Investigation of these questions will show the inner world of the main hero, interesting patterns of his behavior and the things which influenced his strong desire and thirst to become the number one in the world of finance.

Chris Gardner was born and grown up in the Milwaukee inner-city ghetto. He was a dutiful, quiet and good child who got into the mishap from time to time, but stayed on a stable, upward track (Gardner, 2006). It is a pity that the childhood accounts are all described not from a kid’s foreshortening and perspective, but with the grown-up and adult Gardner’s comprehension inserted regularly.How does Chris Gardner’s childhood influenced his path to success?

Gardner was poor, indigent and fatherless. His worship and adored mother Bettye Jean was strong on church and children and was not all the time near. When she was incarcerated, Chris stayed with relatives (Gardner, 2006).

Chris Gardner’s childhood was wracked with cruelty, brutal treatment and abuse of Freddie Triplett, his stepfather, who plainly and routinely verbally and physically mistreated child and whole family. Violent, spiteful and hateful he denied accepting Gardner as a stepchild and contradicted him at every turn.

Freddie Triplett considers being one of most unpleasant and meanest stepfather. His rages made Gardner constantly blue and afraid (Gardner, 2006).

An expert on psychopathy Dr. Robert D. Hare (1999) explains such antisocial or even criminal behavior of Gardner’s stepfather as a “continuations of behavior patterns that first showed themselves in childhood” (p. 97). He underlines that it is impossible to know why people such as Freddie Triplett become psychopaths and cruel with their family and society, but present evidence takes away from the ordinarily held concept that “the behavior of parents bears sole or even primary responsibility for the disorder” (p. 178). That means that in his childhood Freddie Triplett’s parents were cruel and violent with him. When he became an adult he tried to revenge for such bad treatment and violently abused Gardner and his family.

John W. Livesley (2003) a psychiatrist, whose investigation and research has been orientated at the grading, classification and etiology of individual disorder supposes that antisocial, dangerous and aggressive behavior in people such as Gardner’s stepfather runs in families. He underlines that “many difficult to alter because the environment remains the same” (p. 78). Livesley (2003) believes that the etiology of individual disorders within a wide framework where neither genetic spirited nor psychosocial factors may have considered for their development. Whereas admitting research demonstrating that a lot of patients experience childhood miseries, Livesley (2003) does not clarify and explain an individual disorder as through the sequel of such events. Instead, the author underlines the factors that keep up and support maladaptive features in the present.     Hare (1999) believes that though people can change, “many personality traits and behavioral patterns remain stable through-out life” (p. 97). That means that person’s personality and behavior are determined and fixed early in life, or that maturation, experience and development are not powerful coercion in define what kind of adults the person will become.

At the same time, Dr Stanton E. Samenow (2004), a clinical psychologist, supposes that such kind of people like Freddie Triplett cause offence not because of parents, neighbors, unemployment and television but because of their mind. Samenow (2004) strongly believed that different thinking is the cause of psychopaths violent behavior. On the other hand Samenow (2004) underlines that everything and everyone is responsible for the offence. The environment, economy, policy, poverty are responsible for committing a crime, brutal treatment and abuse.

People like Freddie Triplett “feel that their abilities will enable them to become anything they want to be” (Hare, 1999, p. 39). They want to be “physically and psychologically abusive to others with our society’s glorification of violence” (Wolman, 1999, p. 117). Hare (1999) believes that such people see nothing dishonest or wrong with their personality and find their behavior as “rational, rewarding, and satisfying; they never look back with regret or forward with concern” (p. 195).     Such people like Freddie Triplett do not “feel they have psychological or emotional problems, and they see no reason to change their behavior to societal standards with which they do not agree” (Hare, 1999, p. 195). That means, that Freddie Triplett was well satisfied with his own personality and with his “inner landscape, break as it may seem to outside observers” (p. 195). Samenow (2004) found that criminals, psychopaths and offenders will not change their personality until other options forsakes him / her. The author underlines that if a person wants to change a criminal or offender behavior, he / she should make alternative.

Hare (1999) emphasizes that people like Gardner’s stepfather does not authorize their actions to themselves. Once, Freddie Triplett because of groundless and irrational anger physically abused Chris. During cold winter, he threw him and his mother into the snow. He did it at the time Gardner was taking a bath and was thrown out naked.

The only way to curtail violence in such people is to change their way of thinking. Samenow (2004) found that such people think otherwise from a responsible person. The only appropriate offender’s issues are to continue their behavior, to change their personality or to suicide. Freddie chosen to continue his behavior and to abuse Chris, his family and weak people.

Wolman (1999) found some distinctive features between dangerous individuals, which are cruel and passive and the community which created them. According to his research, Chris Gardner’s stepfather belonged to the first type of such dangerous individuals. Freddie Triplett is an impassive, resourceful, amoral, impetuous and guileful individual. He is represented as no signs of remorse for his disgusting and terrible actions. Wolman (1999) underlines that such people are totally lacking sympathy for a human being. They are self-enamored individuals who have a tendency to consider that they are authorized to another people’s things, and that they merit to be loved.     The growth of sociopath behavior among children and adults, whether in a strained poor district or in a quiet suburban and country setting, is skillfully described by Dr Benjamin Wolman (1999) a famous national psychologist. He supposes that the growth of sociopath individuals is accountable for the moral and ethical collapse, whereas at the same time proposing the contrary hypothesis that the moral and ethical collapse is accountable for the growth in the population of sociopaths.

“Parental psychopathology” (Livesley, 2003, p. 57) growth and increasing the risk of developing individual problems is most extensive for unsociable antisocial feature. Livesley (2003) supposes that personal behavior like Freddie Triplett had toward Chris Gardner is due to regularities and consistencies in the environment. Samenow (2004) underlines that even though they are not able to change their past, they can change their future. When the person is responsible for himself / herself, it allows him / her to believe in changing its personality and life.

Of course Chris Gardner could escape or rescue his realities over any means accessible whether it was drugs or even mesmerism it would work. However, he didn’t. He was really afraid his stepfather. Even so, even during these bad and unfavorable times when everything was against him Gardner continued to struggle for everything better. He found some satisfaction and solace in reading various books in the library. He ran with different crowds being a young person and usually stayed out of difficulty and trouble (Gardner, 2006).

Emotional and physical maltreatment by Freddie Triplett towards Chris Gardner implicated “emotional abuse (verbal assaults and demeaning components) or emotional neglect (the failure of caregivers to meet the child’s needs for love, nurturance, and support)” (Livesley, 2003, p. 58). It means that pari passu with physical abuse and violent, emotional abuse has important, great and prevalent effects. Physical abuse increases the danger and risk of different individual problems, which include an antisocial personality disorder, Livesley (2003) emphasizes. Fortunately physical maltreatment by Triplett towards Gardner didn’t lead to the causes described by Livesley (2003).     Wolman (1999) emphasizes that parents and teachers sometimes may assist to the growth of sociopath and antisocial behavior. The way which parents bring up their children may be significant. The author underlines that parents which allow their children to do whatever they want and those which do not teach their kids the importance of morality will default to tell apart wrong from right. On the other hand, children of cruel and abusive parents, like Chris Gardner are generally very rough, aggressive, and unfriendly and used to hate and detest their parents. However, such children are not able to treat aggressively and rough against their own parents because they feel terror that they may retaliate. Instead such children conduct themselves rough and aggressively against weak people.

What Were Chris Gardner’s Main Principles and Goals?

Inspired by his uncle’s worldwide adventures and trips in the United States Navy, Gardner decided to hire shortly after graduating high school (Gardner, 2006). Thanks to the Navy Chris could leave his native city and start his life from the beginning.

At the age of twenty after the Navy Chris Gardner went to San Francisco where he got married and divorced. His wife was an educated and intelligent woman who was looking-for to sit for her dental boards. Right this time Gardner started a medical career, which led him to the market of medical equipment (Gardner, 2006).     The majority of Gardner’s time in the Navy was spent as a medical man at a military base. He assisted with the surgeon investigation and was honorable as well-informed and intelligent expert in teaching medical interns on surgical methods (Gardner, 2006).

Gardner, a smart and intelligent salesman invests all the family money and savings in bone-density scanners. This equipment was twice as costly as an x-ray equipment but with a little distinct image.

Unfortunately, the money, Gardner earned as a salesman was not enough for him, his girlfriend and their son (Gardner, 2006). Right that time, Gardner decided to change his profession and to earn more money. He was interested in selling, inspiration, business, motivation and social speaking. Gardner was good with numbers and great with people. He became an internship in Dean Witter company. Chris wanted to gain an entry level position, beat each candidate and obtain the position he wanted. Chris Gardner became an interned person just around the time he became homeless. During his internship Chris was paid a little stipend, but it was too small for living in hotels all the time. Right that time, his girlfriend left Gardner, and took their small son Christopher with her (Gardner, 2006).

Abandoned by own father and left to the depraved rage of a mean and cruel stepfather, Chris Gardner sworn that no matter what occurred in his own life, he would be committed and faithful father to his own kids. Induced and motivated by the promise Chris Gardner made to himself as a fatherless kid he took away his son.

Wolman (1999) emphasizes that parental refusal, like Gardner had in his childhood, could adversely affect their kid’s self-reliance and self-assurance. Such children will feel abandoned in case their parents are not sentimental, loving and attentive. That is why Chris Gardner was trying to give his small son more love, attention, protection and stable life (Gardner, 2006). Rather than give up his son, Gardner continued to follow his dream of being a successful and well-to-do businessman.     Livesley (2003) strongly believes that “family disorder, parental psychopathology, and various forms of parenting behavior” (p. 57) like Gardner had in his childhood can be considered as individual confusion. “Antisocial and psychopathic features” (Livesley, 2003, p. 57) in people like Freddie Triplett, are not able to prophesy antisocial features, traits and characteristics in his children.

“Poor parenting and unfavorable social and physical environments” (Hare, 1999, p. 178) may noticeably complicate potential problems and play an intense role in “molding the behavioral patterns” (Hare, 1999, p. 178). However, Samenow (2004) found that indigence, poverty, divorce and cruelty, the factors which Gardner had, were not the reasons of criminality.

Livesley (2003) determines two main types of parenting behavior, which are “neglectful (as opposed to loving and supportive) and overprotective (as opposed to encouraging independence and autonomy)” (p. 58). In his life Gardner used these two types of parenting behavior. The first type of parenting behavior belongs to the relations between Chris Gardner and his stepfather, the second is the relations between Gardner and Christopher.

Livesley (2003) pays great attention that the “higher-order patterns reflect the genetic architecture of personality” (p. 132) and consequently, represent essential and fundamental differences in individual structure. Each state of personality allure a particular pattern of emotions, means of thinking about “the self and others, interpersonal relationships, and coping strategies” (Livesley, 2003, p. 35).

It was difficult and complicated times for Gardner and his son. Because of lack of money they spent nearly a year traveling among hotels and shelters. Gardner had to carry out their clothes on his back all the time they were traveling (Gardner, 2006).

Sometimes Gardner with Christopher slept at the office and was afraid to be discovered by the night guards and cleaning crew. When Chris Gardner lived in shelters and hotels with his son, they used to play different games the main goal of which was to keep quiet, when people were searching them and knocking the door. Chris tried to make his best not to defeat (Gardner, 2006).

Chris Gardner is a personality with a response to the problems and tasks of everyday living. Personality disorder is represented as an inability to get adaptive solutions to life problems and tasks, and domains of sequel psychopathology proposed as coextensive (Livesley, 2003). Livesley (2003) found that the relation and connection between particulars and components of the personality system – “traits, self system, person system, and environment” (p. 76) generate a structure in which modification to one constituent tends to be dampened by its influence on other parts of the system.

Chris Gardner is a real personality. The relations with his stepfather influenced his personality, but it gave him a strong desire not to be like Freddie was. The main principles in his life were to be a human, to be a real father to his son and to be a useful part of the society. Thanks to these, Gardner became an individual with his own views on a human being and the importance to be a person, not a violent and cruel offender.

The story of Chris Gardner is not particularly fresh, but his voice is pleasant and likable, resulting in a virtue and quality African-American. He is the person who he is, and he is a successful and great moneymaker. Wolman (1999) believes that social harmony and true happiness are the main for each person. Chris Gardner succeeded contrary the establishment and became a successful businessman and moneymaker. After Gardner’s talents were estimated at company’s true worth, and he got the job he wanted, his American dream became real. Though all his achievements and progresses Chris Gardner was a prideful father. His own fatherless blues is disappeared now.

Chris Gardner’s Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is a painful, astonishing and amazing story, which describes remarkable frankness, comprehension and intelligent (Gardner, 2006). Best of all is that he is entirely unapologetic about following material benefits and success, and saying that these are pieces of his pursuit of happiness.

Hare, R. D. (1999). Without conscience . New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Gardner, C. (2006). The Pursuit of Happyness . New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Livesley, J. W. (2003). Practical management of personality disorder . New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Samenow, S. E. (2004). Inside the criminal mind . New York, NY: Crown Publishers.

Wolman, B. B. (1999). Antisocial behavior: personality disorders from hostility to homicide . Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

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Why Pursuing Happiness Is the Greatest Goal

We all deserve to be happy..

Posted June 26, 2014 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

I’m sure when you’ve visited your local grocery store, you’ve seen all the tabloids at the checkouts, describing the different lives of people all over the world and how some of them haven’t turned out very well. These newspapers and magazines usually pick on famous people who have done some misdeed or have had something go wrong in their lives, and the tabloid is trying to exploit it to sell papers. I don’t think I’ve ever purchased one of those magazines because I think everyone matters, even famous people, and in their lives I’d love for them to be happy too; we all deserve to be happy. However, I do think these newspapers and magazines have something to teach us.

What almost everyone, and I do mean almost everyone, thinks in their pursuit of happiness is, “When I reach this goal or obtain this, then I’ll be happy.” Often, this goal is in pursuit of a relationship, a new job, a certain amount of money, or great notoriety that we want; then we’ll be happy. Yet the lesson of the tabloids is that the famous people who have many of the things we say we want aren’t happy themselves. But why? What’s going on here?

It’s actually very simple, but it takes a little bit of reasoning. It’s all about what people are pursuing, and when they get it. For example, if someone tells you about one of their friends who has done well in business and now is very wealthy, you’re likely to ask, “But is he happy?” Perhaps someone else you know is a well-known, respected surgeon in the community, but you might ask, “But is he happy?” I have a friend who has five kids—kids he and his wife have wanted their whole lives. Again, you might ask, “But are they happy?” Or perhaps you are told of someone who fell in love and married a high school sweetheart. You’re going to ask, “But is he or she happy?”

Actually, you may not ask this question at all, but it is a relevant question. Are they happy? So, as reasoning people, this exercise reinforces for us that, in and of themselves, these different “things” don’t bring us happiness . Fame, money, success, love; people may have these things, as the tabloids show, but it doesn’t mean that they’re happy.

Interestingly, the reverse is also true. When we know someone is happy, it never occurs to us to ask, “Are they wealthy?” “Are they at the top of their field?" “Are they famous?” “Do they live in a beautiful home?” “Is their spouse gorgeous?” “Did their kids get into an Ivy League school?” A person could be poor, uneducated, living alone, and not be very attractive, but still be happy. We all know people like that. And we envy them.

In my book, Living a Peaceful Life , I talk about a woman I know named Betty, who was physically in pain, very poor, very unattractive, her only child lived in a foreign country, and yet she was clearly one of the happiest people you could ever meet. She even described herself as a very happy person. So this post is really about “logic.” I didn’t start with that word because I didn’t want people to see it and stop reading. Sometimes, when people hear “logic” or “ philosophy ,” they’re out the door! But logic is just wise thinking. Logically, we don’t need anything to be happy. Nothing has to happen to make us happy. There are people out there who don’t have anything, who are extremely happy.

Happiness stands alone.

The tabloids keep teaching us that these people who are wealthy sometimes aren’t happy. These people that are famous sometimes aren’t happy. A doctor friend of mine told me his son got into Harvard and that Harvard students really have a problem with depression . I think what happens there is that good students finally reach the top of the academic world and then find out that being there doesn’t bring them the happiness they expected, so they struggle with depression — serious depression.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all suggesting we should stop pursuing our goals . We just need to understand that when we reach our goals, it may not, in and of itself, make us happy. When I work with young professionals, they sometimes tell me, “Well, when I get there, I’ll feel differently. I’ll be happy.” But it’s always the same; it doesn’t work. It never works. Just reaching our goals isn’t what is going to bring us happiness.

So what is going to bring us happiness then? What can we do instead? It’s actually very simple. It’s just a matter of applying logic. There’s that imposing word again. If happiness is what we pursue and only what we pursue, then what will happen is that we’ll end up being happy if we also have good direction. Other things won’t get us to our happiness. So we have to be careful about how much time and energy we give to these other pursuits. Let me give you a clear example of how this works.

In my work , I meet a lot of professional people: medical doctors, psychologists, professors, researchers, lawyers, etc. What I’ve found along the way is that they spend a lot of time working on their goals of being a professional and reaching the top of their field. But, they don’t spend much time enjoying themselves and being happy right now.

In my own case, I love sunsets. I live in southern California and we have really beautiful sunsets. So I love to watch these beautiful sunsets. Now, you’re not likely to ask me if I’m happy because I’m watching a sunset. You’re just going to see that I’m watching a sunset and that’s making me happy. But when I talk to my professional colleagues, it’s amazing how hard it is to get them to stop and watch sunsets. I often encourage them. You know what the problem is? They know sunsets are awesome, go do it, go watch them; but, they’re too busy pursuing their goals so that someday they can watch sunsets. Really, that’s basically what they do. They think, “ someday I’ll be happy.” I think, “Why not be happy now ?”

Life is replete with things we can do that will encourage us to be happy. Spending time in nature is one of those activities: smelling a rose, watching an animal in the wild. These are things that are so astounding that it’s hard for us not to be happy while we’re enjoying and participating in them.

What we need to decide is this: “I’m going to spend time just working on being happy.” You can use the words I give you to pursue your happiness. My hope is that all of my writings about the pursuit of happiness will help you learn how to be happy right now. That has to be the goal for all of us; not money, not success, not to have the right love, the right looks. The goal has to be pure happiness. When that’s our goal—because happiness stands alone and it doesn’t need anything else—then guess what will happen? We’ll end up being happy, right here, right now.

It’s got to be our goal, and we have to keep pursuing it. So keep coming back and reading my blog about happiness and don’t give up. Happiness is something that any of us can have, right here, right now.

Robert Puff, Ph.D. , is host and producer of the Happiness Podcast, with over 16 million downloads.

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The Lessons Of Success We Can Take From 'The Pursuit Of Happyness'

I recently came across a quote from the movie, " The Pursuit Of Happyness ." It was a good quote, full of inspiration, wisdom and determination. It was about fighting for your dreams, never letting anything get in the way.

As a millennial currently working to find my place in the world, I felt a special connection to this quote and an overwhelming urge to learn more about the story of its owner, Chris Gardner. I had seen "The Pursuit Of Happyness" in theaters when it came out in 2006, and maybe one time after when Blockbuster was still around, but hadn't revisited it or really even thought of it in seven years; so I decided to reexamine the story of Chris Gardner.

You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period. -Chris Garnder, "The Pursuit Of Happyness"

The story of Chris Gardner first appeared in his autobiography in May 2006 and became the number one New York Times best seller for 20 straight weeks. Later translated into over 40 languages, his book took the world by storm with its honest portrayal of a man's quest to better his life. The book was an inspiration to millions, shocking people with this once homeless man's determination to become a millionaire. It was so good they didn't even wait a year to make a movie based on his life; it was released in December 2006.

In an interview with Chris Garner after the release of the film, he stated that the film was an honest and accurate depiction of his life. He was on set for the filming of it, making sure nothing was distorted or given false representation. Thus, we really can take from the film the true story of the inspirational homeless man turned millionaire.

In the movie, Will Smith plays Chris Gardner at the point in his life when his wife has just left him and he is now a single father, struggling in poverty. Unable to sell many of the bone density scanners he invested his life savings into, he finds himself struggling to pay rent. Within one year, he manages to become a stockbroker at a top firm and goes on to run his own multimillion dollar firm.

People gravitated to the story of Chris Gardner because it's the ultimate success story: the story of the underdog. It's about perseverance, determination and hard work. It's a true testament to the idea that if you work hard enough and long enough, you really can achieve anything. In honor of one of the greatest success stories of our generation, here are the life lessons we can take from Chris Gardner and his "Pursuit of Happyness."

"The Cavalry Ain't Coming, You Got To Do This Yourself."

While trying to sell one of his bone scanners downtown, he meets Jay Twistle, a manager for Dean Witter , whom he impresses after solving a Rubix cube puzzle in a taxi ride. After securing an interview with Dean Witter to become an intern stockbroker, he is arrested for unpaid parking tickets. After spending the night in jail, he must decide between showing up for the interview in his clothes from the day before or not going at all.

After sucking up his pride, Chris shows up to the interview in sweatpants and a wife beater. However, this doesn't stop him. He rises to the challenge, and presents his reasons for candidacy with such strength, determination and passion that his employers were forced to look beyond his appearance.

"Ready Or Not. Tell Yourself To jump."

Chris must struggle with finding a place for him and his son to sleep while maintaining the illusion at work that he is the most put together, normal candidate for the possible job at the end of the internship. He must maintain that he is just like everyone else, he is not destitute. At one point he even has to go so far as lend his last $5 to a coworker for a cab, just to maintain the illusion.

Every day he must run from work to secure a place in line at the shelter so he and his son can have a bed at night, thus putting himself at a serious disadvantage with the other candidates for the job. Due to his limited time, he must find a way to make his sales calls at work more efficient, even going against protocol when he reaches out to very high level prospective clients.

Even at the lowest point of his life, when he was sleeping with his son on the restroom floor of a subway station, he maintained the illusion that he was just as much a viable candidate as the other interns who had homes and all the luxuries of modern day businessmen. He proves that perception really is everything, and how you make people perceive you is a major part of the recipe of success.

"Do something that you love. Whatever you're going to do is going to be tough. Find something that gets you so excited that the sun can't come up early enough in the morning because you want to go do your thing."

Chris Gardner never let anything stop him from his dream, his one true passion. He knew how hard and special it was to find something he not only loved doing, but that he understood. He pursued that goal with everything he had, every fiber of his being. Because what else is there in life if you aren't pursuing your dreams? What's the point of it all? We have one life, one shot, to do what we love and to make the most of our lives.

You must find your path, your focus. It's important that you keep your dream alive and keep a clear eye on the end goal. It's not about the failures and missteps along the way, but how they help to make you stronger on your journey to the end.

Top Photo Credit: 'The Pursuit Of Happyness'

The Pursuit of Happyness

43 pages • 1 hour read

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Summary and Study Guide

Chris Gardner’s memoir , The Pursuit of Happyness , details his pursuit of the American Dream and desire to rise against the challenging circumstances of his birth and attain success. From the outset, life is difficult for Gardner, a poor black child growing up in the Milwaukee ghetto with his mother, sisters and violent, abusive stepfather, Freddie. Gardner’s mother, Bettye Jean, had her own dreams taken away from her, when her father refused to pay for her college tuition and she drew an “unlucky card” when it came to the men in her life (20). The first two men were charming; each, however, was married, and each left her with a child to raise. The third, however, Freddie Triplett , who is drunk and violent to the extent that he runs after Betty and her children with a shot gun, causes the most damage. He is particularly cruel to Gardner, taunting him about his fatherless status.

They all grow to loathe Freddie and, in the instances, that Bettye Jean tries to leave him, he finds some means of reporting her to the police, and the children stay with their uncles and aunts or with foster parents until her release.

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Gardner grows up with a deep fear of uncertainty, but he is also quick, curious and daring. He is an avid reader, goaded on by his mother’s sentiment that “the most dangerous place in the world is a public library” and vows to be a better man than Freddie or his abandoning father (25).

As a teenager growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement and the Sexual Revolution, Gardner gains a sense of himself as a young black man coming of age in a transformative historical period. He also has his first romantic and sexual experiences and falls in love with Sherry Dyson , a woman from Virginia.

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They embark on an on-and-off, long-distance relationship, when Gardner joins the Navy. Instead of seeing the world, as he intended, he is stationed at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, where he gains medical training. Gardner is then invited to San Francisco, to become the assistant for a pioneering heart surgeon, Robert Ellis. Learning as much as he can on the job, Gardner publishes in prestigious medical journals and entertains hopes of becoming a doctor. While Gardner is stimulated professionally, he feels a void in his personal life, so, on impulse, he resumes contact with Sherry Dyson. They soon marry.

Marriage is the wrong choice for Gardner, who finds the institution “too structured, too orderly, too rigid” (163). He craves a wilder life and seeks out the distraction of other women. The most significant of these is Jackie , with whom he enjoys a voracious sexual relationship resulting in his son, Christopher. Gardner feels an instant bond with his son, as though he knew him “from a previous lifetime” (176).

Having left Sherry for Jackie, Gardner finds that outside of the bedroom, they are poorly matched. Jackie demands that he should make more money for them and encourages Gardner to abandon medical research altogether. He enters the world of sales and while he enjoys the competitive aspect of the job, finds upward mobility to be slow going.

One day, in a hospital parking lot, he spots a red Ferrari 308 and asks the driver, Bob Bridges , how he became so wealthy. When Bridges replies that he is a stockbroker, Gardner instantly knows that this is the profession for him. He goes for several interviews and is repeatedly rejected for his lack of experience, but eventually he gets a chance at the brokerage firm Dean Witter.

Meanwhile, Gardner’s relationship with Jackie has broken down and he is left as Christopher’s sole caregiver. Gardner and his son become homeless, staying in cheap hotels and a shelter run by the Reverend Cecil Williams .

As Gardner earns more money, he is able to find a stable home and jumps ship to Bear Stearns, a brokerage firm where he is encouraged to pursue his own investment interests.

Both in San Francisco and, later, in New York, Gardner excels and pioneers his own road in stockbroking, eventually concentrating on wealthy and famous African-American clients. In 1987, he starts his own brokerage firm, Gardner Rich & Company , in Chicago, where his vision is conscious capitalism and philanthropy.

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A better way to pursue happiness, trying to be happy can be a recipe for unhappiness. but researcher lahnna catalino explains how to go about it effectively..

We all want to be happy. And science shows that happiness not only feels great but also predicts better physical health and even a higher paycheck .

But how do we pursue happiness effectively? After all, some recent scientific research actually cautions us against the pursuit of happiness. For instance, a study led by Iris Mauss, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, found that people instructed to feel happier while watching a pleasant film clip ended up feeling worse than people instructed just to watch the clip. Findings like this are echoed in the popular press: Writer Ruth Whippman argued in a recent New York Times piece that the pursuit of happiness is a “recipe for neurosis.”

But is this the whole story? Are we doomed to fail at the pursuit of happiness?

It depends. The difference between effectively and ineffectively pursuing happiness may all be in how we go about it. Research suggests that people who strive to feel happy all of the time may suffer disappointment, and people who pursue happiness as if it were the only thing that matters may, ironically, chase happiness away. 

But these are not the only ways you can go about pursuing happiness. Another approach involves what I call “prioritizing positivity”: deliberately organizing your day-to-day life so that it contains situations that naturally give rise to positive emotions. This way of pursuing happiness involves carving out time in your daily routine to do things that you genuinely love, whether it be writing, gardening, or connecting with loved ones. Prioritizing positivity also involves heavily weighing the positive emotional consequences of major life decisions, like taking a new job, which have implications for the daily situations in which you will regularly find yourself. This way of pursuing happiness means proactively putting yourself in contexts that spontaneously trigger positive emotions. 

For years I’ve studied prioritizing positivity, and through scientific research, I’ve found that it goes hand-in-hand with optimal mental health. That is, the people who pursue happiness by seeking out pleasant experiences as part of their everyday lives are happier. In stark contrast, people who strive to feel good every possible moment, as if it were possible to will oneself to be happy, appear to be following a recipe for unhappiness.

To test whether people are happier if they proactively seek out pleasant experiences as part of the framework for their everyday lives, I developed a prioritizing positivity scale to measure this tendency. The scale asks people how much they agree with statements such as, “What I decide to do with my time outside of work is influenced by how much I might experience positive emotions,” “My major decisions in life are influenced by how much I might experience positive emotions,” and “A priority for me is experiencing happiness in everyday life.” Together with Barbara Fredrickson and Sara Algoe, both professors of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, I hypothesized that people who scored higher on prioritizing positivity would be happier and less depressed. Why did we predict this? One reason is that prioritizing positivity involves monitoring one’s daily itinerary, not one’s moment-to-moment emotional experience. As research has revealed, the mere act of monitoring one’s happiness from one second to the next may get in the way of positive emotions. By contrast, we thought a more effective strategy would be “situation selection,” which involves approaching (or avoiding) situations that naturally trigger certain emotions. Going for a walk with your partner after dinner is one way you might use situation selection to experience a feeling of tranquility. The tendency to prioritize positivity draws upon this strategy.

We also predicted that prioritizing positivity would predict greater happiness and fewer symptoms of depression because of its relevance to daily life. The “highs” we get from one-time events like going on vacation or winning a prize wear off over time. As a result, effectively pursuing happiness may require engaging regularly in behaviors that promote happiness. By its nature, prioritizing positivity increases the chance that we will weave these positive behaviors into our daily lives rather than just maintaining a general desire for happiness or expecting it to come from a few isolated events.

To test our hypothesis that people high in prioritizing positivity would be happier and less depressed, we ran a study surveying more than 200 adults, ranging in age from 21 to 87. The adults completed the prioritizing positivity scale, as well as questionnaires measuring their levels of positive emotions, negative emotions, symptoms of depression, and life satisfaction.

We also administered a questionnaire measuring the extent to which they value happiness to an extreme, obsessive degree—they had to indicate how much they agreed with statements such as, “How happy I am at any given moment says a lot about how worthwhile my life is” and “I value things in life only to the extent that they influence my personal happiness.” This scale measures a way of relating to happiness that previously has been shown by Iris Mauss and her colleagues to predict less happiness and more symptoms of depression. Our team wanted to replicate this effect and also pit prioritizing positivity against the extreme valuing of happiness. Would only one of them be positively related to emotional well-being?

More on Real Happiness

Learn about the relationship between meaning and happiness

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Read Dr. Rick Hanson's essay, "How to Trick Your Brain for Happiness."

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Take our quiz to measure how much you identify with your neighborhood, nation, and humanity.

Indeed, that’s what the data told us. Our results, published recently in the journal Emotion , show that people who scored higher on the prioritizing positivity scale felt more positive emotions, fewer negative emotions, more life satisfaction, and fewer depressive symptoms than people who scored lower on that scale. People who scored higher on valuing happiness to an extreme showed the opposite pattern: They felt fewer positive emotions, more negative emotions, less life satisfaction, and more depressive symptoms. Both tendencies place a premium on happiness, yet one appears to be effective and healthy whereas the other does not.

So what are the real-world implications of these findings? The science on the deliberate pursuit of happiness is young, so any prescriptions for happiness must be offered with the caveat that the research is still evolving and conclusions might be subject to change. So far, however, I do have some speculations, based on my research, about how people might more effectively pursue happiness.

First, let go of extreme ways of relating to your happiness. Don’t set the unrealistic goal of feeling positive emotions all—or even most—of the time. Just because you’re striving to experience happiness doesn’t mean you should be striving to feel joy, contentment, gratitude, peace (or any other flavor of positive emotion) every second of the day. This is unrealistic, because life invariably contains hassles and disappointments—and, for many, chronic stress. The negative emotions that arise from negative life events, big or small, are natural and help us better understand ourselves—they provide vital information about what we value and what might need to change in our lives. For instance, feeling a wave of anxiety about your physical health may actually motivate you to improve your dietary habits.

Letting go of wanting to feel happy all the time also encourages less self-consciousness about happiness. This may be helpful because many peak, pleasant experiences, characterized by total absorption in an activity, a phenomenon known as “flow,” are marked by a lack of self-awareness.

Second, reflect on the activities that give you joy or contentment. This thought experiment should be highly personalized. For some, the activities that spark happiness are cooking elaborate meals and attending public lectures. For others, the activities are watching basketball and going to their children’s soccer practices. (If you have trouble coming up with ideas, here are two activities that, research has shown, elicit positive emotions in most people: connecting with a loved one and doing something physically active.)

Finally, once you think of a couple of activities, schedule them into your upcoming week. To ensure that you actually do them, consider transforming the activity into a social obligation. If running is something you enjoy, set up a specific time to go running with a friend, so that you’re more likely to follow through. Repeatedly incorporate these activities into your daily life; they don’t have to assume large blocks of your time. If carving out even 20 minutes each day to read a novel inserts a dose of tranquility into your life, then incorporate this ritual into your daily routine.

The pursuit of happiness is not easy. If people attempt it with unrealistic expectations and too much attention, they risk sabotaging it. But this doesn’t mean you should give up on trying to be happy. It may be more effective to adjust your daily routine so that it includes activities that naturally spark interest or contentment. Seeking happiness, although a delicate art, may still be a worthwhile pursuit.

About the Author

Lahnna catalino.

Lahnna Catalino, Ph.D. is postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. She studies the role of positive emotions and emotion regulation in the promotion of well-being and physical health.

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✍️Essay on Success in 100,150 and 200 Words: The Power of Positive Mindset

• Updated on  
• Oct 26, 2023

The concept of success is very simple; if you invest your time wisely and work hard, you will achieve success in no time. But success is not as simple as it sounds; what might sound like success to one might not be the same for another person. It embodies the realization of one’s goals, aspirations, and desires, often accompanied by a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.

Success is manifested in different aspects, such as career achievements, personal growth, or even the pursuit of happiness. It is a journey filled with determination, perseverance, and often a willingness to learn from both triumphs and setbacks. Ultimately, success is a subjective pursuit that reflects the unique path and definition of achievement for each person.

Table of Contents

• 1 What Makes a Person Successful?
• 2 Essay on Success in 100 Words
• 3 Essay on Success in 150 Words
• 4 Essay on Success in 200 Words

What Makes a Person Successful?

Being successful is very subjective and can vary from person to person. Therefore, here are some common factors which contribute to the success of a person.

• Hard Work and Persistence: Success requires effort and dedication and one has the ability to face challenges.
• Setting Clear Goals: It is very important for one to have specific and attainable goals which will provide direction and motivation. 
• Networking: The person should have the capability to build relations and at the same time be open to opportunities which strike. 
• Time Management: Managing time effectively and priorities is essential for productivity and progress. 
• Self-Discipline: One should be very focused and maintain self-control which will help them achieve long-term goals. 
• Management of Finances: Having a basic understanding of finances and managing them wisely is also very important for attaining financial success. 

Also Read: Essay on Water Conservation

Essay on Success in 100 Words

Success is the culmination of dedication, hard work, and determination. It is not merely the achievement of material wealth, but the fulfilment of one’s goals and aspirations. Success varies from person to person; for some, it’s a thriving career, while for others, it could be having a harmonious family life. 

To attain success, individuals must set clear objectives, persevere through challenges, and learn from failures. Success often involves learning, adapting, and embracing change. It’s the result of resilience and the willingness to keep pushing forward. Ultimately, success is a personal journey, and its definition is unique to each individual.

Essay on Success in 150 Words

Everybody wants to be successful in life, but are they willing to put in all their efforts? Success is not solely measured by wealth or fame but by achieving one’s goals and finding fulfilment. True success is often the result of determination, hard work, and resilience. Setting clear, achievable objectives and being persistent through challenges are crucial components.

Education is a common path to success, providing knowledge and skills that open doors to opportunities. Embracing failure as a stepping stone, learning from mistakes, and adapting to change are essential to achieving success. However, it’s important to recognize that success is subjective and can encompass a broader spectrum of achievements beyond material possessions.

Personal growth, happiness, and a sense of purpose are all part of success. Balancing personal and professional life is key to sustaining it. Ultimately, success is a journey, not a destination, and it’s about realizing your full potential and making a meaningful contribution to the world.

Also Read: Essay on Nature: In 100 Words, 200 Words, 300 Words

Essay on Success in 200 Words

Success is a multifaceted concept, often defined by achieving one’s goals and aspirations. It is a subjective and deeply personal notion, as what constitutes success varies from person to person. However, a common thread in success is the continuous pursuit of one’s ambitions, combined with determination and hard work.

Success is not solely measured by material wealth, but rather by the fulfilment and satisfaction that comes from reaching one’s objectives. It is the result of setting clear goals, developing a plan, and facing all the challenges. The road to success is rarely smooth; it is often marked by setbacks and failures. These obstacles are crucial for personal growth, teaching valuable lessons that contribute to success in the long run.

Moreover, success is not an endpoint; it is a continuous journey. It requires adaptability and the willingness to learn and evolve. Success can be found in various aspects of life, from career achievements to personal relationships and self-fulfilment. It is the balance and harmony between these different facets that lead to a truly successful and meaningful life.

In conclusion, success is a complex and individualized concept, rooted in determination, hard work, resilience, and personal growth. It is not defined solely by external markers but by the fulfilment and happiness, one derives from their accomplishments and the journey to achieve them.

Related Articles

Writing an essay on success requires you to describe this multifaceted concept. Success is achieved when one’s goal and objective is attained. Those who are successful, have fulfilled their highest ambitions in life and work, or are actively striving towards doing so. 

Happiness does not follow success. Contrary to popular belief, living a life that makes you happy can help you achieve your goals and be content. 

You gain from success because it gives you the things you want or need. Setting and achieving attainable goals results in a feeling of well-being. 

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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What Is Happiness?

Defining Happiness, and How to Become Happier

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Rachel Goldman, PhD FTOS, is a licensed psychologist, clinical assistant professor, speaker, wellness expert specializing in eating behaviors, stress management, and health behavior change.

Verywell/ Jiaqi Zhou

How to Cultivate Happiness

How to be a happier person.

Happiness is something that people seek to find, yet what defines happiness can vary from one person to the next. Typically, happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction. 

When most people talk about the true meaning of happiness, they might be talking about how they feel in the present moment or referring to a more general sense of how they feel about life overall.

Because happiness tends to be such a broadly defined term, psychologists and other social scientists typically use the term ' subjective well-being ' when they talk about this emotional state. Just as it sounds, subjective well-being tends to focus on an individual's overall personal feelings about their life in the present.  

Two key components of happiness (or subjective well-being) are:

• The balance of emotions: Everyone experiences both positive and negative emotions, feelings, and moods. Happiness is generally linked to experiencing more positive feelings than negative ones.
• Life satisfaction: This relates to how satisfied you feel with different areas of your life including your relationships, work, achievements, and other things that you consider important.

Another definition of happiness comes from the ancient philosopher Aristotle, who suggested that happiness is the one human desire, and all other human desires exist as a way to obtain happiness. He believed that there were four levels of happiness: happiness from immediate gratification, from comparison and achievement, from making positive contributions, and from achieving fulfillment. 

Happiness, Aristotle suggested, could be achieved through the golden mean, which involves finding a balance between deficiency and excess.

Signs of Happiness

While perceptions of happiness may be different from one person to the next, there are some key signs that psychologists look for when measuring and assessing happiness.

Some key signs of happiness include:

• Feeling like you are living the life you wanted
• Going with the flow and a willingness to take life as it comes
• Feeling that the conditions of your life are good
• Enjoying positive, healthy relationships with other people
• Feeling that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life
• Feeling satisfied with your life
• Feeling positive more than negative
• Being open to new ideas and experiences
• Practicing self-care and treating yourself with kindness and compassion
• Experiencing gratitude
• Feeling that you are living life with a sense of meaning and purpose
• Wanting to share your happiness and joy with others

One important thing to remember is that happiness isn't a state of constant euphoria . Instead, happiness is an overall sense of experiencing more positive emotions than negative ones.

Happy people still feel the whole range of human emotions—anger, frustrastion, boredom, loneliness, and even sadness—from time to time. But even when faced with discomfort, they have an underlying sense of optimism that things will get better, that they can deal with what is happening, and that they will be able to feel happy again.

Types of Happiness

There are many different ways of thinking about happiness. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made a distinction between two different kinds of happiness: hedonia and eudaimonia.

• Hedonia: Hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure. It is most often associated with doing what feels good, self-care, fulfilling desires, experiencing enjoyment, and feeling a sense of satisfaction.
• Eudaimonia: This type of happiness is derived from seeking virtue and meaning. Important components of eudaimonic well-being including feeling that your life has meaning, value, and purpose. It is associated more with fulfilling responsibilities, investing in long-term goals, concern for the welfare of other people, and living up to personal ideals.

Hedonia and eudemonia are more commonly known today in psychology as pleasure and meaning, respectively. More recently, psychologists have suggested the addition of the third component that relates to engagement . These are feelings of commitment and participation in different areas of life.

Research suggests that happy people tend to rank pretty high on eudaimonic life satisfaction and better than average on their hedonic life satisfaction.  

All of these can play an important role in the overall experience of happiness, although the relative value of each can be highly subjective. Some activities may be both pleasurable and meaningful, while others might skew more one way or the other.

For example, volunteering for a cause you believe in might be more meaningful than pleasurable. Watching your favorite tv show, on the other hand, might rank lower in meaning and higher on pleasure.

Some types of happiness that may fall under these three main categories include:

• Joy: A often relatively brief feeling that is felt in the present moment
• Excitement: A happy feeling that involves looking forward to something with positive anticipation
• Gratitude: A positive emotion that involves being thankful and appreciative
• Pride: A feeling of satisfaction in something that you have accomplished
• Optimism: This is a way of looking at life with a positive, upbeat outlook
• Contentment: This type of happiness involves a sense of satisfaction

While some people just tend to be naturally happier, there are things that you can do to cultivate your sense of happiness. 

Pursue Intrinsic Goals 

Achieving goals that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, particularly ones that are focused on personal growth and community, can help boost happiness. Research suggests that pursuing these types of intrinsically-motivated goals can increase happiness more than pursuing extrinsic goals like gaining money or status.  

Enjoy the Moment

Studies have found that people tend to over earn—they become so focused on accumulating things that they lose track of actually enjoying what they are doing.  

So, rather than falling into the trap of mindlessly accumulating to the detriment of your own happiness, focus on practicing gratitude for the things you have and enjoying the process as you go. 

Reframe Negative Thoughts

When you find yourself stuck in a pessimistic outlook or experiencing negativity, look for ways that you can reframe your thoughts in a more positive way. 

People have a natural negativity bias , or a tendency to pay more attention to bad things than to good things. This can have an impact on everything from how you make decisions to how you form impressions of other people. Discounting the positive—a cognitive distortion where people focus on the negative and ignore the positive—can also contribute to negative thoughts.

Reframing these negative perceptions isn't about ignoring the bad. Instead, it means trying to take a more balanced, realistic look at events. It allows you to notice patterns in your thinking and then challenge negative thoughts.

Impact of Happiness

Why is happiness so important? Happiness has been shown to predict positive outcomes in many different areas of life including mental well-being, physical health, and overall longevity.

• Positive emotions increase satisfaction with life.
• Happiness helps people build stronger coping skills and emotional resources.
• Positive emotions are linked to better health and longevity. One study found that people who experienced more positive emotions than negative ones were more likely to have survived over a 13 year period.
• Positive feelings increase resilience. Resilience helps people better manage stress and bounce back better when faced with setbacks. For example, one study found that happier people tend to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and that these benefits tend to persist over time.
• People who report having a positive state of well-being are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating fruits and vegetables and engaging in regular physical exercise.
• Being happy may make help you get sick less often. Happier mental states are linked to increased immunity.

Some people seem to have a naturally higher baseline for happiness—one large-scale study of more than 2,000 twins suggested that around 50% of overall life satisfaction was due to genetics, 10% to external events, and 40% to individual activities.

So while you might not be able to control what your “base level” of happiness is, there are things that you can do to make your life happier and more fulfilling. Even the happiest of individuals can feel down from time to time and happiness is something that all people need to consciously pursue.

Cultivate Strong Relationships

Social support is an essential part of well-being. Research has found that good social relationships are the strongest predictor of happiness. Having positive and supportive connections with people you care about can provide a buffer against stress, improve your health, and help you become a happier person.

In the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a longitudinal study that looked at participants over 80 years, researchers found that relationships and how happy people are in those relationships strongly impacted overall health.

So if you are trying to improve your happiness, cultivating solid social connections is a great place to start. Consider deepening your existing relationships and explore ways to make new friends. 

Get Regular Exercise

Exercise is good for both your body and mind. Physical activity is linked to a range of physical and psychological benefits including improved mood. Numerous studies have shown that regular exercise may play a role in warding off symptoms of depression, but evidence also suggests that it may also help make people happier, too.

In one analysis of past research on the connection between physical activity and happiness, researchers found a consistent positive link.  

Even a little bit of exercise produces a happiness boost—people who were physically active for as little as 10 minutes a day or who worked out only once a week had higher levels of happiness than people who never exercised.

Show Gratitude

In one study, participants were asked to engage in a writing exercise for 10 to 20 minutes each night before bed.   Some were instructed to write about daily hassles, some about neutral events, and some about things they were grateful for. The results found that people who had written about gratitude had increase positive emotions, increased subjective happiness, and improve life satisfaction.

As the authors of the study suggest, keeping a gratitude list is a relatively easy, affordable, simple, and pleasant way to boost your mood. Try setting aside a few minutes each night to write down or think about things in your life that you are grateful for.

Find a Sense of Purpose

Research has found that people who feel like they have a purpose have better well-being and feel more fulfilled.   A sense of purpose involves seeing your life as having goals, direction, and meaning. It may help improve happiness by promoting healthier behaviors. 

Some things you can do to help find a sense of purpose include:

• Explore your interests and passions
• Engage in prosocial and altruistic causes
• Work to address injustices
• Look for new things you might want to learn more about

This sense of purpose is influenced by a variety of factors, but it is also something that you can cultivate. It involves finding a goal that you care deeply about that will lead you to engage in productive, positive actions in order to work toward that goal.

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Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast , featuring best-selling author Dave Hollis, shares how to create your best life. Click below to listen now.

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Challenges of Finding Happiness

While seeking happiness is important, there are times when the pursuit of life satisfaction falls short. Some challenges to watch for include:

Valuing the Wrong Things

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but there is research that spending money on things like experiences can make you happier than spending it on material possessions. 

One study, for example, found that spending money on things that buy time—such as spending money on time-saving services—can increase happiness and life satisfaction.  

Rather than overvaluing things such as money, status, or material possessions, pursuing goals that result in more free time or enjoyable experiences may have a higher happiness reward.

Not Seeking Social Support

Social support means having friends and loved ones that you can turn to for support. Research has found that perceived social support plays an important role in subjective well-being. For example, one study found that perceptions of social support were responsible for 43% of a person's level of happiness.  

It is important to remember that when it comes to social support, quality is more important than quantity. Having just a few very close and trusted friends will have a greater impact on your overall happiness than having many casual acquaintances.

Thinking of Happiness as an Endpoint

Happiness isn’t a goal that you can simply reach and be done with. It is a constant pursuit that requires continual nurturing and sustenance.

One study found that people who tend to value happiness most also tended to feel the least satisfied with their lives.   Essentially, happiness becomes such a lofty goal that it becomes virtually unattainable. 

“Valuing happiness could be self-defeating because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed,” suggest the authors of the study.

Perhaps the lesson is to not make something as broadly defined as “happiness” your goal. Instead, focus on building and cultivating the sort of life and relationships that bring fulfillment and satisfaction to your life. 

It is also important to consider how you personally define happiness. Happiness is a broad term that means different things to different people. Rather than looking at happiness as an endpoint, it can be more helpful to think about what happiness really means to you and then work on small things that will help you become happier. This can make achieving these goals more manageable and less overwhelming.

History of Happiness

Happiness has long been recognized as a critical part of health and well-being. The "pursuit of happiness" is even given as an inalienable right in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Our understanding of what will bring happiness, however, has shifted over time.

Psychologists have also proposed a number of different theories to explain how people experience and pursue happiness. These theories include:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The hierarchy of needs suggests that people are motivated to pursue increasingly complex needs. Once more basic needs are fulfilled, people are then motivated by more psychological and emotional needs.

At the peak of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization, or the need to achieve one's full potential. The theory also stresses the importance of peak experiences or transcendent moments in which a person feels deep understanding, happiness, and joy. 

Positive Psychology

The pursuit of happiness is central to the field of positive psychology . Psychologists who study positive psychology are interested in learning ways to increase positivity and helping people live happier, more satisfying lives. 

Rather than focusing on mental pathologies, the field instead strives to find ways to help people, communities, and societies improve positive emotions and achieve greater happiness.

Finley K, Axner M, Vrooman K, Tse D. Ideal levels of prosocial involvement in relation to momentary affect and eudaimonia: Exploring the golden mean . Innov Aging . 2020;4(Suppl 1):614. doi:10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2083

Kringelbach ML, Berridge KC. The neuroscience of happiness and pleasure .  Soc Res (New York) . 2010;77(2):659-678.

Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework; Committee on National Statistics; Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council; Stone AA, Mackie C, editors. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience [Internet]. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US).

Lee MA, Kawachi I. The keys to happiness: Associations between personal values regarding core life domains and happiness in South Korea . PLoS One . 2019;14(1):e0209821. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209821

Hsee CK, Zhang J, Cai CF, Zhang S. Overearning . Psychol Sci . 2013;24(6):852-9

Carstensen LL, Turan B, Scheibe S, et al. Emotional experience improves with age: evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling . Psychol Aging . 2011;26(1):21‐33. doi:10.1037/a0021285

Steptoe A, Wardle J. Positive affect and biological function in everyday life . Neurobiol Aging . 2005;26 Suppl 1:108‐112. doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2005.08.016

Sapranaviciute-Zabazlajeva L, Luksiene D, Virviciute D, Bobak M, Tamosiunas A. L ink between healthy lifestyle and psychological well-being in Lithuanian adults aged 45-72: a cross-sectional study . BMJ Open . 2017;7(4):e014240. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014240

Costanzo ES, Lutgendorf SK, Kohut ML, et al. Mood and cytokine response to influenza virus in older adults . J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci . 2004;59(12):1328‐1333. doi:10.1093/gerona/59.12.1328

Lyubomirsky S, Sheldon KM, Schkade D. Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change . Review of General Psychology. 2005;9 (2):111–131. doi:0.1037/1089-2680.9.2.111

The Harvard Gazette. Good genes are nice, but joy is better .

Zhang Z, Chen W. A systematic review of the relationship between physical activity and happiness . J Happiness Stud 20, 1305–1322 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9976-0

Cunha LF, Pellanda LC, Reppold CT. Positive psychology and gratitude interventions: a randomized clinical trial . Front Psychol . 2019;10:584. Published 2019 Mar 21. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00584

Ryff CD. Psychological well-being revisited: advances in the science and practice of eudaimonia . Psychother Psychosom . 2014;83(1):10‐28. doi:10.1159/000353263

Whillans AV, Dunn EW, Smeets P, Bekkers R, Norton MI. Buying time promotes happiness .  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 2017;114(32):8523‐8527. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706541114

Gulacti F. The effect of perceived social support on subjective well-being . Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences . 2010;2(2):3844-3849. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.602

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Finding Success Starts with Finding Your Purpose

• John Coleman

It’s never too early — or too late — to ask the big questions.

Many people work their whole lives to achieve material success only to find their happiness and sense of purpose wanting when that success comes. They often spend their later years looking for purpose in their lives in order to feel a sense of meaning. Searching for meaning late in your life is a missed opportunity. Success without significance — purpose, service, and meaningful relationships — is not really success at all. It’s important to properly reflect on how you can live a life imbued intensely not just with the superficial trappings of “success” but with deep purpose and joy in all we do — starting now. Ask yourself:  What is the core purpose of my work and the ways in which it makes the world better? Who are the key relationships in my life, and how can I deepen them? What more can I do at work, at home, and in my community to serve others? How am I becoming better each day?

In 1995, Bob Buford wrote the bestselling book Halftime , which popularized the concept of “moving from success to significance” in the second half of life. Buford realized that many businesspeople work their whole lives to achieve material success only to find their happiness and sense of purpose wanting when that success comes. And he rightly encouraged those people to seek out meaning and impact in their later years.

• JC John Coleman is the author of the HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose . Subscribe to his free newsletter, On Purpose , follow him on Twitter @johnwcoleman, or contact him at johnwilliamcoleman.com.

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Success And Happiness (Essay Sample)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Is it at all possible to achieve happiness and success in life? Can we get the best of both worlds, or are we destined to only experience either one of these things? Can you be happy and unsuccessful, or successful and unhappy?

Read these sample papers and think with us. What would people’s lives look like if their pursuit of happiness and success in life proves triumphant? If you want to write those thoughts down too, get in touch with us so we can match you with a writer who can help you out with that essay.

Which Can Create Happiness?

Joyfulness is perceived to be the key to success. Several research studies confirm that cheerful people are likely to challenge themselves more. At the same time, these people develop the positive emotions and drive needed to succeed.

Happiness: More Than a Positive Attitude

While the concepts of happiness and success seem to be related, they are completely different. Joyfulness represents how we feel. One does not need to be successful to be happy because he can still be happy without his accomplishments and without comparison to others. Success is the way we benchmark ourselves against other people and our own standards.

To feel happy comes from personal accomplishments. It is just not a feel-good luxury. This emotion is essential to our overall well-being. Happiness is something that anyone can experience at any point in life. An entire population group could generally be labeled as happy when citizens practice a democratic attitude and are keen on helping others.  

Joyfulness is not just about setting goals and achieving them; it is, first and foremost, cultivating a perspective that causes us to be content and appreciative of things that help us achieve our purpose in life. We can create joy in all circumstances. We have read stories of people who undergo hardship but still find joy. Similarly, we know of people who seem to have successful careers and families, yet are not happy.

True Happiness Paves the Way to Success

The truth is that victory does not necessarily result in joy, but joy can lead you to victory.

Think about people who are successful. These are people with positive attitudes and are contented with and passionate about their personal goals. One of the common assumptions people make is that accomplishments will give you all the joy you need.  When your achievement is associated with your core values, this then defines your purpose. You then learn to embrace each moment of the journey, and as you cultivate that happiness, it will put you on the path to success.

The secret of being happy is to find joy in the simple things in life that give us satisfaction. Joyfulness helps us cultivate behavior that reinforces success-friendly perspectives. If I feel grateful about my health or my family, it makes a difference in my life because the emotion gives me the drive to do everything I can to be successful for their sake.

It is clear that both happiness and success go hand in hand, but it does not necessarily mean that the two concepts are each others’ equivalent. You might not like something you do, but you can still be happy and feel content by the fact that you have a great family to go home to every evening.

On the other hand, one might have a successful career that gives him a lot of income and respect among his peers, but the same person might not have anything to look forward to outside work. This does not mean that you are not successful, but it certainly does not equate to happiness. When a sense of joy is missing in our lives, everything tends to lose its meaning.

Having everything we need also does not guarantee us true happiness. Ultimately, it’s the way we view life that determines our joy. Learning to find what makes us happy motivates us to undertake new challenges and pursue victory. When people are optimistic and grateful, they proactively and passionately move towards their life goals.

Different people value and define both of these terms differently. But personally, I believe that happiness plays an important role in our pursuit of success. Both are important, but cultivating joy is the starting point.

I don’t know your personal life, but I do hope you find whatever it is that elevates your happiness levels. Joyful people tend to thrive better in their relationships, career, and family life. They also attract success like a moth drawn to a flame.

If you are wondering how to achieve success at a young age, know that all roads begin with an optimistic outlook. Believe that you can get to where you want to be and that you have the resources you need.

Happiness Vs Success Essay

We often interchange the terms “happiness” and “success” in our conversations, believing them both to refer to the same experience. While there are indeed a lot of happy people who accomplish a lot of things, achieving goals does not always equate to feeling happy.

The most obvious narrative to break here is this: that you need to be successful to be truly happy in life. However, a game-changing reflection for this storyline is that happiness lies not in the things you do, but the way you see things. We often change our behaviors in an attempt to get a different result.

But what if the key is really our perspective? What would our life look like if we just switched lenses? If we always look at things from a place of feeling defeated, it will come as no surprise that we will see everything as inadequate or falling short of the perfect standards. But if we aim to come from a place of gratitude, then we will learn to focus on the lesson behind every experience, put the past behind us, and integrate the principles as we move forward.

What lenses are you viewing reality from?

Does Success Lead To Happiness?

It’s important to back up first and examine our understanding of being accomplished. What is it to begin with? If success is a place of thriving in our passion, purpose, and calling, then yes, it can lead to joyfulness. It must be said, however, that there is no such thing as 24/7 joyfulness. No person can feel happy at all times. But if he or she is coming from a place of contentment, then he or she can fight for joy no matter the season.

What Is More Important Success Or Happiness?

The world sells us the idea that to feel successful is true power that one must aspire to attain. However,  many of us have seen, with our own eyes, people who seem to have it all and yet don’t appear to be joyful. Despite all the accolades they’ve received and the accomplishments they have under their belt, it never seems to be enough. They always seem to be in a constant race against time and themselves. They try to outdo themselves every day and when things don’t happen as planned, they crumble. Their life becomes a vicious cycle of climbing a ladder and never really finding the top. If your idea of accomplishment is robbing you of joy, then it is not true success to begin with. We need to evaluate what we have labeled as “extremely important” in this life and see if they line up with the true definition of joy.

Success Versus Happiness: What Is More Important?

According to psychologist Daniel Gilbert, who is a psychology professor at Harvard, happiness is the ultimate goal of virtually all the decisions we make in life (Gilbert, 2010).

Gilbert suggests that the measure of a good decision depends on whether that decision brings us pleasure, a sense of wellbeing, happiness or contentment.

Researchers have focused a lot more on happiness in the past few years and science has finally started to pay attention to what it really means to be happy.

According to research done by Sonja Lyubomirsky (2008) in the book The Happiness Diet , some portion of our happiness may actually be within our power to control.

Lyubomirsky has been studying happiness for nearly two decades, and her research is leading the way in scientific study for interventions that can help increase human happiness.

[Reviewer’s update:

Since this post was originally published, there have been several critiques of Lyubomirsky’s (2008) pie chart breakdown of the source and set points of our happiness. While Sheldon and Lyubomirsky (2021) have acknowledged that the original breakdown estimates were off, the core idea remains true: We can affect our own happiness, to some degree.]

But which comes first: Happiness or success?

The real truth is that happiness is often subjective and difficult to measure. Success is often judged externally or by comparison to other people.

Happiness is usually an attribute of an individual whereas success can be attributed to an individual or to a group.

Happiness is a goal that many people aspire to. Most people also have a strong desire to be successful in life and they tend to believe that through this success they will automatically become happier.

While we may never know with 100% certainty which one is more important, we do know that success and happiness are inextricably linked.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Happiness & Subjective Wellbeing Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients identify sources of authentic happiness and strategies to boost wellbeing.

This Article Contains:

The relationship between happiness and success, the difference between the two, which one is more important, does success bring happiness and fulfillment, 9 science-backed ways to become happier, building happiness worksheet, 4 simple activities that can promote happiness at work, recommended books, 10 quotes on happiness and success, a take-home message.

According to Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener (2005) numerous studies have shown that happy people tend to be successful across multiple domains in life, including work performance, health, income, friendship, and even marriage.

The authors have devised a conceptual model that accounts for these findings. They argue that the happiness-success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also from the positive affect engendering success.

The study examined three classes of evidence, including:

• Cross-sectional
• Longitudinal
• Experimental

The results of the findings revealed that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes. Moreover, it was also discovered that certain behaviors tended to parallel that success.

The evidence suggests that the idea of positive affect , the hallmark of wellbeing, may actually be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with such happiness.

The real question then becomes, what comes first, happiness or success? This is akin to the chicken and egg scenario as well.

If happiness comes first, then you must surmise that you have to figure out how to be happy before your success will come rolling in.

On the other side of the coin is the idea of success coming first, before happiness.

What does it take to really be happy? Do you have to be successful in order to be happy? There are most likely millions of people in the world who would disagree with you on that point because success does not guarantee happiness.

There are just as many people out there who deem themselves happy, while not necessarily successful, as there are successful people still trying to figure out how to be happy.

How do these two constructs tie together? That is the issue we will discuss.

According to the fight or flight theory, humans were not wired for happiness, they were wired for survival.

Many of us find ourselves rushing through life, chasing happiness. The problem is that we never quite get there.

For many of us, happiness is something we aspire to. Happiness is somewhere we get to someday. What we fail to recognize is that happiness is a state of mind, not a destination.

We know happiness is not a static state, because even the happiest people feel blue sometimes.

Norrish and Vella-Brodrick (2008) studied whether happiness is even a worthwhile pursuit. Happiness, the pursuit of it, and what it means to live a good life has been long debated.

People are increasingly looking for new ways to become happier.

This is indicated by the growing demand for self-help books and literature.

Only recently have social scientists begun to really study happiness. According to Norrish and Vella-Brodrick (2008), psychology has traditionally been a healing profession that has been mainly focused on pathology, dysfunction and mental illness.

Some social scientists have even gone as far as suggesting that investigating human emotions is a luxurious or even indulgent goal in comparison to the importance and the need to understand human suffering.

Some scholars in the field go as far as saying that psychology’s more traditional negative perspective ignores the more positive aspects of human functioning.

Thankfully this is rapidly changing with the advent of the positive psychology movement.

Everyone defines it differently. Some people may find happiness in simple small things like a day in the park or a happy moment. Other people may find happiness more of an elusive quality.

Research in positive psychology defines a happy person as someone who experiences frequent positive emotions , such as interest, joy and pride, and infrequent negative emotions such as sadness or anxiety (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).

Happiness is also related to life satisfaction, appreciation of life and moments of pleasure.

Overall, happiness has to do with the positive experience of emotions.

According to Norby (2013), positive psychology helps provide methods that help us rethink the way we work. Not only does it provide us with tools that help inoculate us against stress , but it also shows us how we can achieve a state of happiness that is a more effective way to work or accomplish a task.

Norby compares our mind and brain to actors on a stage. The actors on the stage in your brain affect what you are thinking about and how to get to a possibility.

Shawn Achor , the author of “ Happiness Advantage ” undertook an experiment where he delivered three hours of positive psychology training to a group of people.

After the experiment, Achor returned to gauge the success of the training. The testing showed that in a very short period of time, the group measured significantly higher life satisfaction scores and lower stress scores than those who did not receive the training.

Achor’s (2016) seven principles of happiness – each introduced as a chapter in his book – include the following.

Seven principles of happiness

• The happiness advantage: How happiness gives your brain and organization the competitive edge
• The fulcrum and the lever: Changing your performance by changing your mindset
• The Tetris effect: Training your brain to capitalize on possibility
• Falling up: Capitalizing on the downs to build upward momentum
• The “Zorro” circle: How limiting your focus to small, manageable goals can expand your sphere of power
• The 20-second rule: How to turn bad habits into good ones by minimizing barriers to change
• Social investment: Why social support is your single greatest asset, or not to retreat into yourself

For additional information about what constitutes “happiness,” I would recommend Corey Keyes and Martin Seligman’s work on flourishing and the PERMA model (e.g., Keyes, 2002; Keyes & Haidt, 2003; Seligman, 2011; Seligman, 2018). For a nice summary, check out our article on Seligman’s PERMA+ model explained .]

What is success?

Defining success can also be challenging. The dictionary defines success as:

“The fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame.”

However, this definition falls short in many ways. Success is much more than mere financial success because you must also feel successful in other areas of life such as love and relationships, health, and more.

In the end, success is much more than just wealth and power.

• Barbara Bush defined success as how you treat others, from family to strangers.
• Albert Schweitzer defined success as loving what you do.
• Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh says success is all about living in accordance with your values.
• Author Maya Angelou believed success is about enjoying your work.
• Billionaire Richard Branson believes success is about engagement.

Thomas Edison recognized that success is a grind in his quote:

“Success is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration.”

The best definition of success may just be author Stephen Covey’s definition when he stated that success is deeply individual.

“If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.”

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When it comes right down to it, success and monetary wealth don’t necessarily equate to happiness and security.

It doesn’t do you much good in terms of your level of happiness if you are successful monetarily, but miserable in your personal life.

On the other hand, you may be incredibly happy with your personal life or other relationships, but still struggling with success or struggling financially.

Both of these indicators are interconnected in a sense. Happiness affects your level of success and your level of success affects your happiness.

The happiness set point

Norrish and Vella-Brodrick (2008) talk about the happiness set point, also called the dynamic equilibrium theory.

This idea surmises that despite changes in your individual circumstances, your level of happiness remains remarkably constant over time.

This happiness set point is believed to be caused by our tendency as humans to rapidly adapt to changes in our environment.

This process of constant adaptation is commonly referred to as the hedonic treadmill or homeostatic control.

In support of this theory, researchers found that happiness levels of lottery winners, although initially high, soon returned to their normal range of happiness.

The same thing was found with paralysis victims, who were initially high on negative affect.

If each of us has a happiness set point that concept challenges the viability of undertaking research or doing interventions designed to increase individual happiness.

Despite the assertion that attempting to increase happiness is challenging, recent research has resulted in some important new developments regarding the happiness set point.

Diener (2006) provided a revision of the original hedonic treadmill theory. This information was based on an evaluation of data from the Victoria Quality of Life Panel Study and the 1990 World Value Survey.

Diener’s 5 revisions to the original hedonic treadmill theory:

• Happiness set points are thought to be above neutral, with most people being relatively happy a significant portion of the time.
• Happiness set points may differ from individual to individual.
• Life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect may each have their own unique set points. Each of these may also exhibit different rates of hedonic adaptation.
• Certain life events such as the death of a spouse or the onset of a disability can result in significant changes to one’s happiness levels.
• The rates to which someone adapts to changes in circumstances may differ from individual to individual. (Those with positive coping strategies may return to baseline levels of happiness more rapidly than those who do not.)

Looking at these revisions we can surmise that happiness may actually be quite amenable to intervention.

Richard St. John, a marketer and success analyst talks about the idea that success is not a one-way street but a constant journey.

In his TED Talk , St. John talks about his personal journey of success.

St. John talks about the concept of reaching success and the fact that the work does not stop once you reach this point.

In order to continue being successful, you have to constantly create new ideas and new passions. You have to remember why you started doing what you are doing in the first place.

If you reach the pinnacle of your success and stop – you will not be able to keep the success going.

Each of us is taught at a young age that achieving certain milestones of success in life is important.

We work to do well in school, work to get into college, work to have a prestigious career, and then work on living in the right house or marrying the right person.

This happiness and success quest continues throughout our lives.

There is a misconception that each of these things will make us happy. The truth may very well be that none of these things really have anything to do with our level of happiness.

What really happens is we reach our individual goals and feel happy for a while. Eventually, we discover we need to set new goals to achieve an even higher level of success to get the same buzz.

All of this begs the question: Does success bring happiness and fulfillment?

Our happiness may have its own set point. When we achieve success, we feel happy, but this happiness doesn’t often last. Once the condition is met, we start looking for that next goal to pursue.

What we might eventually discover is the idea that happiness is not only about setting goals and achieving them, but in finding that sense of happiness and joy within ourselves and in our daily life.

Knowing this, it’s also important to examine some things you can do to feel happy at the moment.

It’s important to note that while accomplishment is indeed a necessary component of happiness, it’s just one piece of the puzzle, along with positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, and meaning (Seligman, 2011).]

• Express gratitude.
• Practice something challenging.
• Connect with someone.
• Stop procrastinating.
• Be intellectually curious.
• Be open to new experiences.
• Express physical affection.
• Have compassion.
• Strengthen your relationships.

Expressing gratitude and feeling grateful can go a long way to happiness and joy. You can be thankfu l for many things such as your health, your children, your home, or even the fact that you have food to eat.

Thinking about the good things in life and stopping to smell the roses along the way can help you feel happier in the moment.

Keeping your brain active by practicing something challenging is another good tip.

Learning a new language, or playing an instrument or even learning yoga , can help you activate your natural endorphins or feel-good chemicals in the brain. Try doing something you can improve upon to challenge yourself.

Making powerful connections and connecting with other people is integral to your level of happiness and fulfillment in life.

It doesn’t matter if you connect over the phone, or in person, just the act of connecting can help you feel better.

Those who don’t continually put things off until tomorrow may also be happier. Getting things done helps you feel proactive and prideful. When you get things done, you feel a sense of accomplishment, which can help you feel happier.

Never stop learning or being curious! Reading a new book , watching a documentary or having meaningful conversations can help you feel better too.

Being open to new experiences can also help you boost your level of happiness. It doesn’t matter if you are trying a new food or trying out something like scuba diving. Trying new things can be fun and encouraging.

Expressing physical affection is also important. According to Virginia Satir, a respected American therapist, each of us needs four hugs a day just for survival! Eight hugs a day are suggested for maintenance and twelve hugs a day are suggested for growth.

Hugs create a sort of trickle-down effect and release of oxytocin, which can reduce stress and elevate your mood.

Developing compassion is also important. Those who are interested in other’s lives and other’s stories are usually happier than those solely concerned with themselves. Try doing little random acts of kindness for strangers or those you love, and notice how that makes you feel.

Strengthening your relationships is also important for your happiness. In one 80-year long study of 268 Harvard undergraduate males, researchers looked at every aspect of life from lifestyle to political views.

Scientists began tracking Harvard sophomores in 1938 during the great depression. They hoped that the longitudinal study would reveal clues to leading a happy and healthy life.

What they discovered was that relationships and how happy we are in these relationships have a very powerful influence on our health.

Close relationships mean even more than money or fame, and relationships are what keep people happy throughout their lives.

These important ties to other people help protect us from life’s discontent. They also protect us from mental and physical decline.

What this tells us is that relationships are integrally important for both our happiness and wellbeing.

Making it a habit to nurture your closest relationships and letting go of those that cause you pain or those that feel toxic can go a long way to helping you live a better life (Cherian, 2018).

Success and happiness | Motivated – The Official Steve Harvey

There are many ways to build happiness. The Building Happiness Worksheet includes a list of activities that have been found to help build a sustained level of happiness when practiced on a regular basis (Therapist Aid, 2012).

These may seem like simple things, but they can make a big difference when it comes to your level of happiness.

Getting a promotion, a new relationship or winning the lottery will only provide a temporary boost when it comes to happiness. Each of has a baseline or a set point we continually return to when it comes to happiness.

Maintaining a sustained level of happiness takes a little effort. Trying these exercises on a regular basis is a wonderful way to build lasting happiness and joy.

• Acts of Kindness
• Positive journaling
• Fostering relationships

Gratitude is a wonderful practice to engage in. Try writing down three things for which you are grateful for every day. These can be simple mundane things or big things.

The point is to get something down on paper, every day. Writing down statements of gratitude, even on your worst days, can help you focus on the positive aspects of your life.

Acts of Kindness are another thing you can do. Making a conscious effort to do something nice for someone for no reason at all can help you feel good. You might be shocked at how a simple act of kindness can turn your whole day around.

Exercise has many positive effects as well. Being physically active can help you increase your energy, boost your immune system, and give you a sense of accomplishment. Exercise can also reduce insomnia, stimulate brain growth, and act as an anti-depressant. Try taking a walk or a bike ride the next time you feel you need a boost.

Meditation has been linked with reduced anxiety and more positive emotions. Those who meditate on a regular basis may even permanently restructure their brain to create a sustained level of happiness.

Taking the time to engage in positive journaling is another happiness booster. Writing about the happy events in your life, or writing about a good day with friends can help you get into the habit of focusing on the positive.

Strong social connections and fostering relationships can also help you feel happier. It turns out that strong social connections are thought to be a powerful influence on our mood.

Those who dedicate time to spend with family or friends tend to show the highest levels of happiness. If you can’t spend time with someone in person, pick up the phone or send an email. Nothing is more powerful than spending time with those you care about.

• Connect with your peers.
• Get into the habit of thanking people.
• Walking meetings.
• Get into the habit of putting yourself first.

Connecting with your peers and taking steps to get to know them better can go a long way toward building happiness.

Moss suggests using your coffee break time to socialize at least once a week. She also suggests finding opportunities to drop by someone’s desk you are not familiar with to say hello.

A quick connection might also lead to more opportunities for collaboration.

It’s also important to get into the habit of saying thanks. You can do this by sending out a quick email of thanks before you leave for the day or texting someone about a job well done. A little praise goes a long way.

Taking a walking meeting is also a great option. We often feel tied to our desks, so walking and talking is a great option to get the juices flowing.

The more we get up from our desk and stretch and move, the more productive we are.

Finally, Moss suggests getting into the habit of you. What this really means is learning to put yourself first. Taking 20 minutes to read something that provides nothing but joy, taking 5 additional minutes to have a cup of coffee or enjoying a 15-minute nap can help you feel better.

Starting with small bits of time can give your brain the rest it needs to be more productive for the rest of the day.

Emotional control and good leadership, according to Moss, comes with a well-rested and productive brain. Moss (2016).

Happiness can even help us navigate change more effectively, according to Moss.

Emma Seppala, Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and author of the book “ The Happiness Track ” describes change like this:

“We can’t control our external circumstances, and things change constantly whether at work or in our personal lives. The only thing we can have a say over is our state of mind.”

Seppala also talks about the importance of building resilience and the ability to generate more inner peace, to stay calm in the face of chaos and to remain emotionally intelligent as we communicate with others.

We must cultivate this even in the midst of conflict or hurt feelings. All of this helps us make good decisions even when we’re feeling upset.

Seppala suggests building internal resilience by:

• Meditating.
• Doing breathing exercises.
• Engaging in an activity that helps train the nervous system to be calmer.

Doing so helps us calm that overwhelming feeling and navigate the ebbs and flows of life.

From a great selection of books on happiness and success, the following are highly recommended:

Unlocking Happiness at Work – Jennifer Moss and Shawn Achor

The book demonstrates how happiness can have a real impact on the bottom line. Unlocking happiness at work can:

• Fuel higher performance.
• Provide a greater sense of purpose.
• Spread passion throughout organizations.

Moss talks about how to be happier and make others happier through the power of habits, emotional intelligence and an innovative approach to work/life flow.

The book contains valuable case studies from companies like The Body Shop, Misfit Inc., Zappos, and Lululemon.

According to Moss, we are looking at happiness all wrong. In Moss’s opinion, happiness is a choice we must consciously make every day. Moss infers that society has fallen victim to false branding when it comes to happiness.

Moss suggests that happiness:

• Is intangible.
• Cannot be attained or achieved.
• Not something you chase.
• Happiness is sequential.

The more we pursue happiness, the harder it is to obtain. Happiness, in Moss’s opinion, comes after you work on building up traits like resilience , efficacy , optimism , hope , gratitude, and empathy .

So much of our time is consumed with work, that it behooves us to look at ways we can pursue happiness where we spend the bulk of our time.

Find the book on Amazon .

• The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg

By building positive habits we can turn the emotional state and bundle the fast-firing neurons in our brain to make happiness a permanent trait.

Drawing from the science of neuroplasticity, habits are built by modifying and repeating behaviors until we can move our conscious actions into the subconscious mind.

The book encourages us to focus on building new habits, one at a time. Although this may take a little time, according to Moss, once happiness is achieved the positive impacts are felt almost immediately.

To experience the book yourself, you can purchase it from Amazon .

Books about success

Books about success include old classics as well as new ones:

• How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
• The Magic of Thinking BIG – David J. Schwartz, PH.D.
• Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
• When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing – Daniel H. Pink

Carnegie shows us how to go after the job we want, and get it, how to take the job we have and improve it and how to take any situation and make it work better for us.

His words can help you achieve success in both your business and personal life. The book also includes:

• Six ways to make people like you.
• Twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking.
• Nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.

The book can help you achieve your maximum potential.

The 7 Habits book describes each habit step-by-step:

• Habit 1: Be Proactive.
• Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind.
• Habit 3: Put First Things First.
• Habit 4: Think Win-Win.
• Habit 5: Seek First To Understand Then Be Understood.
• Habit 6: Synergize.
• Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw.

Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits book is both inspiring and impactful.

The book contains strategies that can help you:

• Believe in your own success.
• Cure yourself of the fear of failure.
• Think and dream creatively.
• Believe that you are what you think you are.
• Make your attitudes your allies.
• Learn how to think positively.
• Turn defeat into victory.
• Use goals to help you grow.
• Think like a leader.

In the end, magnifying your thinking strategy can be a great recipe for success.

Hill’s study of these “best practices” was revolutionary for the time it was published in 1937.

In the book, Hill talks about a 13-step program that will set you on the path to wealth and success.

• Auto-suggestion
• Specialized knowledge
• Imagination
• Organized planning
• Persistence
• Power of the mastermind
• The subconscious mind
• The sixth sense
• How to outwit the six ghosts of fear

“All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination. Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.”

Napoleon Hill

Called the greatest motivational book of all time, the book outlines the path to success for hundreds of America’s most affluent people.

According to Pink, the time of day can have a big impact when it comes to the decision-making process.

Timing can also come into play in how well we learn and our ability to be effective and productive.

Pink’s research is drawn from psychology, biology, and economics. Pink offers helpful strategies in how we can best time our lives to succeed. The book also offers strategies for self-improvement and helps us understand how we can we use hidden patterns of our day to build the ideal schedule.

Books about happiness are also wide-ranging:

• The How of Happiness – Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Flourish – Martin Seligman
• Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
• The Happiness Advantage – Shawn Achor

According to Lyubomirsky, happiness is the Holy Grail of science. In her research, she not only presents the scientific literature but also has a self-help component where she gives advice and recommendations on what to do based on research results.

Some of the research-based exercises in the book include things like practicing optimism when imagining the future, instructions in how best to savor life’s pleasures in the here and now and a thorough explanation of the importance of staying active to be happy.

The book outlines the four components of wellbeing:

• Positive emotions.
• Engagement with what one is doing.
• A sense of accomplishment.
• Good relationships.

The book is filled with research and stories that help illustrate each component. It is a rich resource for living a life that makes you happier.

Kahneman describes system 1 as fast, intuitive and emotional and system 2 as slower, more deliberate and more logical.

The book talks about the overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what might make us happy in the future and the profound effect of cognitive bias.

The book also reveals how we can tap into the benefits of both parts of our mind to facilitate change.

Published in 2010, the book helps you think differently in terms of what happiness and success are truly about.

According to the book, chasing after success, in the hopes that it will make you happy is not a plan that works for most people.

The book focuses on strategies that help create happiness in the moment while capitalizing on its many benefits when it comes to becoming more successful.

Many of us think that when we hit that next sales target or lose that five pounds that we will then be happy. We have learned to put success first and happiness second.

Achor believes that formula is broken. He promotes happiness first, success second. In Achor’s opinion, happiness leads to success much more than success leads to happiness.

According to the author, we become more successful when we are happier and more positive.

To recap, the book covers ten main points:

• Why we have the formula for success backward.
• How happiness promotes productivity.
• How happiness can improve our physical health.
• How we are primed for high performance.
• How happiness can undo the negative aftereffects of stress.
• How we can become happier and believe change is possible.
• Using meditation as a permanent happiness boost.
• The benefits of physical exercise.
• Turning away from the news.
• Realizing money can buy happiness if it’s spent on experiences versus things.

According to Achor, more than a decade of groundbreaking research in the field of positive psychology and neuroscience has proven that the relationship between happiness and success works the opposite of what we think, which is very refreshing thought.

17 Exercises To Increase Happiness and Wellbeing

Add these 17 Happiness & Subjective Well-Being Exercises [PDF] to your toolkit and help others experience greater purpose, meaning, and positive emotions.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas A. Edison

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

Today is life–the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.

Dale Carnegie

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.

Tony Robbins

Happiness doesn’t depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel toward what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much.

William D. Hoard

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.

Albert Einstein

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Albert Schweitzer

Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy with what you have.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

Helen Keller

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.

Ingrid Bergman

When it comes right down to it, both happiness and success are interconnected in a sense. Happiness affects your level of success and your level of success affects your happiness.

Happiness is really a choice you can choose to make.

Many of us are so wrapped up in trying to get ahead that we forget that we can choose to be happy in the moment.

You can steal time out of your day to simply take a walk and enjoy nature. You can hug a friend or sit with a cup of tea.

You can take stock of your life and realize that you are very lucky to be exactly who you are.

Things don’t always make us happy nor does money or possessions or that perfect job. Relationships don’t necessarily make us feel happy if we are not already feeling that happiness within.

When it comes to the relationship between happiness and success, we can surmise that success is something we pursue while happiness is something we acquire.

According to Boehm and Lyubomirsky (2008) past research has demonstrated a relationship between happiness and workplace success.

For example:

• Happy people earn more money when compared to their less happy peers.
• Happy people also tend to display superior performance and perform more helpful acts.

Past research has often assumed that an employee is happy and satisfied because he or she is successful.

In the author’s review of the evidence, an alternative hypothesis may actually be more accurate, that happiness is a source of why particular employees are more successful than others (Boehm & Lyubomirsky, 2008).

The authors conclude that the evidence suggests that happiness is not correlated with workplace success, but that happiness often precedes measures of success and that the induction of positive affect leads to improved work outcomes.

In the end, we can’t always control our external circumstances because life is ever-changing.

The only thing we can have a say over is our state of mind. Whether or not you believe that happiness attracts success or not, choosing happiness is something you can do every day.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Happiness Exercises for free .

• Achor, S. (2016). The happiness advantage. Retrieved from http://goodthinkinc.com/resources/books/the-happiness-advantage/
• Boehm, J. K., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). Does happiness promote career success? Journal of Career Assessment, 16 (1), 101-116.
• Cherian, D. (2018, March 18). International Happiness Day: Science-backed ways to be happy. Gulf News. Retrieved from https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle/international-happiness-day-science-backed-ways-to-be-happy-1.2190116
• Diener, E. (2006). Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and ill-being.  Journal of Happiness Studies ,  7 (4), 397-404.
• Gilbert, D. (2010, May). Stumbling on happiness. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/05/happiness.aspx
• Keyes, C. L. M. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life.  Journal of Health and Social Research , 43(2), 207–222.
• Keyes, C. L. M., & Haidt, J. (Eds.). (2003).  Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived.  American Psychological Association.
• Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin ,  131 (6), 803.-855.
• Lyubomirsky, S. (2008, April). The happiness diet. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/04/overthinking.aspx
• Moss, J. (2016). Unlocking happiness at work : How a data-driven happiness strategy fuels purpose, passion and performance. London, UK: Kogan Page.
• Norby M. (2013). Brain-based behavior: Our choices determine our happiness and success at work. Contract Management , 53 (8).
• Norrish, J. M., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2008). Is the study of happiness a worthy scientific pursuit? Social Indicators Research ,  87 (3), 393-407.
• Seligman, M. E. P. (2011).  Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being.  Free Press.
• Seligman, M. E. P. (2018). PERMA and the building blocks of well-being.  The Journal of Positive Psychology ,  13 (4), 333–335.
• Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2021). Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and pie chart: can happiness be successfully pursued?  The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16 (2), 145–154.
• Therapist Aid. (2012). Building happiness (exercises). Retrieved from https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/building-happiness-exercises

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What our readers think.

Ok. The article was ok, I just feel as though it didn’t really answer as many questions as I would think, and some of the sentences were unfinished I didn’t really like it

“Success is not Happiness, Happiness is Success” Happiness is not a destination, it is the journey itself You can’t have Happiness, it is not something to possess You can’t go to Happiness, it is not a place You can’t be with Happiness, it is not a person You can’t buy Happiness, it is not a product You can’t achieve Happiness, it is not a transaction You can only be Happy, it is a state of being.

OMG!!! I so much love this, its so educating

Wow, I love the article. I was actually looking for counter claim if people with more meamingful lives agreed that relationships are more important than achievments. And I have found this helpful…. Thank you. MAY HE GOOD LORD BLESS YOU.

It’s really helpful…thanks

It`s a Bible of success! Great!

Very useful & informative , explains happiness & success in many different ways. The references are treasure of knowledge , thank you for sharing.

Al grano. No da espacio mas que a la acción. Que personalidad o manera de escribir tan clara! Se ve tan sencillo. Escribe y dices las cosas donde el tiempo de pensarlo es hacerlo o accionar. no hay otro tiempo mas que hoy. Gracias infinitas.

Fantastic explanation n mind-blowing examples. Extremely intresting, educative & comprehensive .

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