HAPPINESS RELOADED

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HAPPINESS RELOADED

• Dr Nash Popovic
• Personal Well Being Centre
• University of East London

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Happiness formulas

• PA NE LS SWB
• PWB (Riff)
• self-acceptance
• personal growth
• positive relations with others
• Autonomy
• environmental mastery
• purpose in life

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The dimensions of human live
External
Existence (being)
Agency (doing)
Internal
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Eudemonic happiness
Hedonic happiness
External
Agency
Existence
Internal
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• Hedonic happiness

• Eudemonic happiness

• Delightful (not pleasure)
• State
• Pursuit of happiness
• Effortless
• Immediate experience

• Meaning, worthwhileness
• Process (progress)
• Happiness of pursuit
• Effort
• Long term goals

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Eudemonic happiness
Hedonic happiness
External
Feeling good
Meaning, worthwhile
Existence
Agency
Personal development
Peace of mind
Internal
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Eudemonic happiness
Hedonic happiness
External
Feeling good Three good things Savouring Flow
Meaning, worthwhile (contribution)
Existence
Agency
Personal development cognitive experiential behavi
oural
Peace of mind Realisation Expectation
Internal
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Feeling good

• Not only pleasant feelings
• Feeling good is more about appropriate feelings,
  so you can feel sad and feel good at the same
  time.
• Even fear and anger can sometimes feel good, and
  pleasant feelings if inappropriate can affect
  negatively your peace of mind
• Not confined to carnal pleasures - playing with
  children, reading a book, even spiritual
  experiences
• Depth

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Three good things today (Seligman at al, 2005)

• Before going to sleep, think of, or write down,
  three good things that happened that day (e.g.
  nice weather, you smiled at somebody, somebody
  smiled at you, you felt healthy or achieved
  something, some good news). Do this for a week.

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What the three good things intervention does
to us

• What is the figure and what is the background in
  your life? The positive or the negative?

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Savouring

• The capacity to attend to, appreciate and
  enhance the positive experiences in ones life.
• Bryant Veroff (2007)

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Flow

• Complete concentration
• An effortless control over your actions
• Action and one who act merge
• No sense of self (or self-consciousness)
• No sense of time
• Being absorbed (rather than absorbing)

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Peace of mind

• Not having internal conflict
• Realisation
• Expectation
• Expectations (desires we are attached to)
• We lose peace of mind when expectation is greater
  than realisation, in
• The past (regret, guilt, shame)
• The present (self-rejection),
• The future (worrying)
• So, peace of mind can be achieved by either
  increasing realisation or reducing expectation.

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Personal Development

• Three dimensions of personal development
• Cognitive (developing knowledge, understanding,
  reasoning, analysing abilities, but also skills)
• Experiential enriching ones experience
  quantitatively (variety) or qualitatively (depth,
  subtlety)
• Conative (will, behaviour) self-regulation, or
  self-discipline

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Meaning

• And that feeling that ones life has some
  meaning and purpose is associated with
  happiness. (Argyle, 1987, p.215)
• Meaningful actions can even transcend death (and
  therefore reduce the fear of death)
• Usually involves some form of transcendence
  (beyond your own interest) and contribution such
  as
• Helping others
• Fighting for a cause
• Creating something of value (e.g. a piece of art)
• Discovery, invention
• Passing knowledge

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Hedonic happiness
Eudemonic happiness
External
Feeling good Three good things Savouring Flow
Meaning, worthwhile (contribution)
PRACTICE
Agency
Existence
Peace of mind Realisation Expectation
Personal development (Cognitive, experiential,
behavioural)
Internal
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