The Myths of Happiness was such a phenomenal book at a crucial time in my life. Sonja Lyubomirsky does such a wonderful job showing us what happiness looks like and doesn't look like in many of life's different arenas. Understanding what really makes us happy is an unlock crucial to living a complete and fulfilling life. There is sooooo much in this book, so below are only my top 10 key takeaways. As always, comment or reach out with thoughts or questions!
-DDD
Top 10 Key Takeaways
1. Key things of importance in a Marriage to be “happy” (Ch. 1)
Appreciating/Gratitude, Variety/Surprise and Injection of Novelty, Share Win’s and not just Disappointments, Help Each Other Grow/Build Each Other Up, and The POWER OF TOUCH
2. Forgiveness is SO Important; Negatives of not trickle through forever and into other places including into other relationships; However, if we forgive too hastily and too often we risk losing respect of our values (Ch. 2)
3. See the Big Picture - keep the perspective of the long game and let this guide us to stay the course. & Take Time off - Culture looks down on leaving kids with care for longer than a day. True releases are beneficial for BOTH parties and create more memories and healthier homes (Ch. 3, Parenting)
4. No one person can fill all the roles in our lives at all times - we need meaningful and deep relationships in our lives to fill those roles (Ch. 4)
5. “Grass is greener” is always true and we will almost always get immediate satisfaction from switching jobs. Honeymoon phase essentially. As our satisfaction fades our aspirations also rise causing even more deterioration of happiness (Ch. 5)
6. We also need to stop comparing ourselves to others and focus on the happiness OF THE pursuit, not pursuit of happiness; create intrinsically motivated goals, make them public, take worthwhile risks (Ch. 5)
7. Money isn’t what’s it’s cracked up to be; we can’t even experience something for the first time twice; getting rich wears off and we always get sick of material purchases and often have regret that we didn’t buy the right item (Ch. 7)
8. What our peers make in comparison determines our happiness WAY more than we think. STOP COMPARING! (Ch. 7)
9. Maxizers are not nearly as happy as satisficers. Don’t sacrifice time and energy finding ALL the options. You’ll always regret not picking another one so why over rev on options? (Ch. 9)
10. Strive for personally significant goals; intrinsically motivated, harmonious, satisfy innate human needs, aligned to our own values, reachable and flexible, and focus on attaining something rather than evading or running away from something (Ch. 10)
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