The Secret to a Happy Life: What the Ultimate Study on Happiness Reveals

(01:04):

And there are so many new listeners that if you're new, I just want to take a minute and welcome you personally to the podcast. I'm Mel. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's leading experts on change, motivation and habits. And I believe that there are simple things that you and I can do based on research and common sense that will help us both create a better life. And one of the biggest elements of a better life is getting intentional about being a happier you bringing more happiness into your life and the subject of happiness, the science around it. It's really misunderstood. But the good news today for you and for me is that you don't have to dig into the research because I've done it for you. I have read all the latest research and I'm also very, very familiar with the largest longitudinal study, 84 years long and going called the Harvard Men Study.

 

(01:59):

And today I'm going to boil down the decades of research into a powerful metaphor that is going to help you understand happiness at a whole new level. And I'm also going to give you the three elements of happiness based on the research that you can apply to your life. And even though this is all grounded in research and science, I'm not trying to give you a PhD today, you're going to leave with three takeaways that a normal human being like you or me can apply to our already busy and overwhelming life so that we become happier in our lives. And I so believe in what we're about to talk about because these three things that we're going to focus on today, this is what I have been working on for the past three years of my own life and the difference that it has made in the amount of happiness that I'm experiencing. It's kind of hard to describe in words. So I want to say right up front this conversation, it could actually change your life. Absolutely everything we're going to talk about today is accessible to you. And I also want to thank the sponsors of the Mel Robbins podcast because of their support. I can bring all this to you at zero cost. And that brings me to our very first question about happiness from a listener named Andrea.

 

Andrea (03:22):

Hey Mel, it's Andrea. Can you talk about happiness? I can't think of a time that I have felt true happiness. I'm just living, I guess I feel that something is missing and I believe it's happiness.

 

Mel Robbins (03:40):

Andrea, I love the way you framed that question. And for you listening, I'm going to put that question right back to you. Can you think of a time that you felt true happiness or are you like most people, that you feel like something is missing from your life and you can't quite put your finger on it? When I hear Andrea's question, I can totally relate to it because I know I felt the way that she's feeling. And one of the mistakes that I was making when I felt like something was missing is I of course went on the search. I got to find happiness. And here's the first piece of research that I want to talk about. Research says that happiness or that feeling that we're seeking of happiness, it's often fleeting because we are searching for happiness in the wrong places. In fact, researchers at Rutgers and the University of Toronto found that people who pursue happiness, you're chasing it, you're looking for it outside yourself.

 

(04:48):

You often feel like you don't have enough time in the day, and this paradoxically makes you feel unhappy because when you feel like you don't have enough time in the day because you're constantly chasing all these things outside of you, you start to feel like you're not in control of your life. And I think that's what Andrea is talking about, that we're all chasing down some version of happiness that we think we're supposed to be chasing, right? That society has marketed some version of life to us, and that's why you probably are familiar with that phrase. I'll be happy when we all succumb to that thinking I'll be happy when I lose the weight. I fall in love. I land that dream job. I pay off my bills. I get into my dream school, I find the perfect apartment. And there's multiple problems with thinking like this.

 

(05:39):

First of all, if you think that you'll be happier when you achieve something, what always happens is when you achieve it, you're not as happy as you thought you would be. And then all of a sudden because you don't have this big goal in front of you anymore, your happiness plummets. And so the research is very, very clear that these big events that we're chasing that we think are going to give us a boost of happiness, that happiness doesn't last. And there's a second reason why this kind of thinking that you'll be happy at some point in the future, why this is really problematic, it's because you are anchoring your happiness on something that hasn't happened yet. That means your happiness is something you have to earn. Your happiness is something that's outside of you, and that's not what happiness is at all. Happiness is always within your control.

 

(06:32):

Happiness is something that you want to cultivate in your life where you are right now. And the good news is you don't have to wait to be happy when you can learn to be happier now. So let me explain based on the research, how happiness works when it comes to you individually. So there's this formula that's supported by the science that says you have 100% capacity for happiness. That's what you got. Your cup can be full and runneth over a hundred percent baby happiness is for you. 50% of that capacity is genetics. That's your default. So you might be somebody that has 50% genetics that are preset to being very sunny and kind of bubbly and happy. Or 50% of your genetics might be like me. You're kind of grumpy. That's okay because you still have the other 50% to play with. 10% of the rest is based on the circumstances that you're facing right now.

 

(07:39):

And 40% of happiness period in your life right now is completely under your control. And that's what we're going to focus on because that's awesome. No matter what kind of family you were born into, no matter what you're facing right now in your life, 40% of your capacity for happiness right now, completely in your control. And so before we go forward, I want to make sure that as we're talking, that we're in complete agreement about what the word happiness means. Because when you and I use the word happy or happiness, we might be saying totally different things. 

(08:45):

Where are you on the spectrum between laughter and having a great time to feeling completely fulfilled and thriving in life? And so in order for you and I to get on the same page, I'm going to bring a metaphor in Mel Robbins. She loves her metaphors, she loves her visual explanations for these big heady concepts. And thankfully I got a great one for happiness. So whenever you hear the word happiness, I want you to think about an ocean. There are waves in an ocean, and that's one spectrum of happiness. And waves come and they go. 

(09:47):

Or what about the days where the ocean is stormy and you wouldn't dare go in, but on those days that you're on the beach, aren't you so present to the wind, to the salt, to the waves crashing on the beach? That's what I want you to think about, that huge range of how an ocean shows up. And I love this metaphor of an ocean for happiness, the waves being fun and the still ocean being your ability to just experience happiness and you being present even on the stormiest days to the little details. I'd love this range because it ties right back to all of the research, but it gives us a visual. So when you look at the research around happiness, researchers have put happiness into two big categories. One is heon happiness. And hedonic happiness is, am I having fun right now? It's the moment to moment fluctuating experiences that you have.

 

(10:54):

And let's go back to the metaphor. It's like the waves in the ocean. They come and they go, you can jump in, you can play, you can have fun, and then it's over. And then there is the deeper happiness, the onic happiness, which is the sense of your life having meaning of you feeling fulfilled and thriving in that life of yours. And it's important for you to understand that happiness has these two buckets because I think what happens for a lot of us, and this kind of gets to Andrea's question, is that maybe you have one type of happiness. Maybe you're having a lot of fun on the surface, but life doesn't feel very meaningful. Or maybe you're deep in it but you're not having any fun. And so I really want to unpack the difference between these two things and why you need both before we jump into the three different ways that you can increase happiness in your life. And so let's go to another question from a listener named Rachel.

 

Rachel (12:02):

Hey, Mel, I absolutely love your podcast and all of your work. I have a very loaded question, and I know a one size fits all answer might not exist, but I wanted to ask anyway, how can I truly be happy? How do I cultivate happiness? I read so many self-help books, read a lot about the effects of childhood trauma. I journal, I try to be conscious of my habitual thoughts and patterns and work to reframe them. I exercise. I'm always listening to inspiring and transformational content. Like I feel like I do all the things, but I still struggle just to be happy and to feel happy, and I feel very stuck in the same emotions. And I really want to change. I really want to enjoy my life. Do you have any advice,

 

Mel Robbins (12:52):

Rachel? I so relate to you and I want to just pass the mic to you listening right now. When Rachel said, I just want to enjoy my life. Didn't you get the chills? Didn't you nod along and say, yeah, I just want to enjoy my life too. And this is really on my mind because I think that's the point of life, right? To really try to enjoy it. And one of the things that I notice can happen when you are in a period in your life where you're trying to heal, you're investing in yourself in your personal growth. You mentioned that you're working on trauma, you're trying to dig out of some of the holes maybe that you feel like you fell into. You're trying to change your mindset. That's serious work. That was me for years too. Here's the problem with having a big healing journey.

 

(13:51):

You're not having any fun. I think about periods of my life when I was going through a lot of change and I was working on myself and I was doing everything that you are doing. Every book I picked up was self-help. Everything that I listened to was I couldn't even remember the last time I read a fiction novel or I went to a concert or I went to a party. Everything got so serious because my focus became so serious. And my focus was about improving my life, improving my life, improving my life, and doing the work to change your life. It's important, doing the work to identify toxic patterns that you have or bad thinking patterns that make you feel like shit, that's super important. But you must also double down on the fun while you're doing the deeper work. And so the first thing that I want you to do is I want you to set an intention that your number one this year is to have more fun to invest in that first category.

 

(14:57):

Hedonic happiness that researchers say is so important because yes, it's meaningful. Yes, it's fulfilling to do the hard work, to change your life for the better, but changing your life for the better also means that you need more moments of fun in your life. And I worry a lot about this based on what we've all experienced in the past three years. We've all become hermits. It's hard enough to get yourself out of your house, but the other thing that's happened is if you're not going into work, if you're still working from home, you're also missing out on all of the spontaneous stuff that happens when you bump into people when you're out and about. In fact, I can tell you a story just the other night. It was Sunday night, and as a bit of background, my husband and I had gotten some really awful news last week that a very, very close friend of ours suddenly died, age 47, heart attack, gone.

 

(15:56):

And I had been holed up in my house ever since hearing the news. I was super sad feeling down, and I hadn't left the house in days. And so on Sunday, Chris says to me, Mel, I made a four 30 reservation at the paddle tennis courts, which is a kind of form of almost like ping pong that you can play sort of pickleball in the middle of the winter on these tennis courts outside with some friends. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to just curl up on the couch and suck my thumb and feel sad. And we got into the car and the entire ride over, I was sitting there thinking, should I tell Chris I'm pissed that he made this date with this couple to go play paddle? Should I tell him this is the last thing that I want to do?

 

(16:46):

I kept saying to myself, should I say this? Should I not say it? And then I would say, no, don't shit on his parade. Just suck it up. It's going to be okay. We pull up, the sun's starting to go down. It's freezing. I've got a hat on and mitten's on, and I'm grumpy and I don't really want to be there. And then I see our friends and I felt a little lighter. Do you know it took about five seconds of hitting that ball around for me to feel totally different. The truth is, I needed the fun. I needed the laughter. I needed to not be thinking about something so heavy. I needed to see people that I really like. I needed to do something that wasn't that serious, like working on myself or feeling sad or grieving. I needed fun and getting out on that paddle court, it was fun.

 

(17:42):

And there's a part of me that is sitting here going, Mel, are we really having a conversation right now on this podcast about the obvious that we need to schedule time to have fun, that we need to force ourselves out of our houses, that we need to break this habit of being isolated and lonely? Yeah, we do have to have this conversation because I don't think you and I have truly grasped the extent to which our day-to-day lives and our happiness has been impacted by these past three years. I mean, even those of us who really enjoyed that period of lockdown where we were trapped inside with our families, this new normal, this part of it where we're sort of back to normal, but we're not, but we're coping. But this situation, the loneliness and isolation, it feels like it's become everybody's new lifestyle. It's our new default.

 

(18:39):

But this isn't just obvious, it's well researched. Researchers have proven that the difference between people who are happy and those of us who aren't is that happy People prioritize doing things that make them happy. I know it's so dumb, but I need the reminder too. So now let's go back to my analogy about the ocean and the beach and waves and happiness. And I want you to just imagine that you're sitting on the beach and those waves are rolling in and they're rolling out, and there's a boogie board sitting next to you At some point, you have to get off the towel and you got to run into that ocean and you got to go play. And the fact is, it just takes one person to get everybody else to go. There's always that one person in a group of people at a beach who stands up first and grabs the boogie board and says, let's go body surfing.

 

(19:41):

Come on guys, let's go into the waves. And thankfully this past Sunday night for me, it was Chris. He was that one person. And look, being intentional about enjoying your life, about having fun, particularly during those periods of time where you're grieving, where you are going through something difficult, where life feels heavy, prioritizing fun is critical, but that's just one of the three things that you and I are going to discuss when it comes to getting intentional and amplifying up the 40% of happiness that is within your control right now. And if you're sitting there scratching your head going, oh my God, this is so me, but Mel, I think I forgot how to have fun. Don't worry about it. I've got an entire episode that we did a while back called How to Have More Fun, and I will link to that along with all the studies that we're talking about in the show notes.

 

(20:40):

And so now that you and I have been playing in the waves and you understand that dragging yourself out of the house to the beach, off the towel, into the ocean, and forcing yourself to do things that are fun, that that is part of happiness that we cannot escape, you and I are now going to go deeper into the ocean and we're going to talk about the two other elements that you can tap into to create more happiness in your life right now. And we're going to do that using more questions from fellow listeners of the podcast when we come back. Welcome back, I'm Mel Robbins and you and I are talking about what research says about creating more happiness in your life. We've already talked about the fact that researchers have identified two types of happiness, hedonic happiness, and onic happiness, both of which are critical to your overall feelings of happiness. And we've talked about why getting intentional about having more fun is critical to you, feeling happier now. Now we're going to jump into the deeper part of happiness, and that is the onic happiness, whether or not your life has meaning, because when you go through periods of life where life is monotonous, it just feels kind of blah, you're on autopilot. You're not going to feel that happy, just ask Jenna.

 

Jenna (22:04):

Hey Mel, my name is Jenna, and my question for you is, how do you truly find happiness in everyday ordinary life? I'm a mom of two boys and I struggle most days with being as joyful as I was when they were very little.

(23:20):

You use the word ordinary. And the reason why I think it's important for us to focus in on the word ordinary is we often make the mistake of thinking that happiness is this big thing, this big burst, the big wave. And when it comes to the onic happiness, the deeper meaning in your life that creates the sense of happiness and fulfillment for you. I want to flip this perspective because true happiness comes from finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. That's right, true happiness is actually pretty ordinary, and researchers have identified the number one factor in you living a happy life, and it is the most ordinary thing on the planet, which is why most of us miss it. And that's the quality and depth of your relationships. So let's unpack this. The Harvard Study of adult development is the longest in-depth longitudinal study of human life that's ever been done.

 

(24:35):

I mean, this has been going on for 84 years and counting. And for those of you super geeks like me out there, this used to be called the Harvard Men Study. So when you hear people talking about the Harvard Study of Adult Development, that's the new name for this, and it now includes three generations of people that they've been studying. The original 724 participants now include 1300 descendants. How cool is that? And here's the thing about this study. This study followed people through their life asking them all kinds of questions as people aged. And one of the reasons why this study is so profound is because it tracked people as they lived. Most studies have people looking backwards, which means when you look backwards, you often change the details. That's why the Harvard Study of Adult Development is so exciting and so accurate and the most accurate and important study of happiness that's ever been done.

 

(25:35):

Not only because they have so much data and brain imaging scans, but they've also been studying people in real time, tracking them forward as they're living their lives. And Dr. Robert Waldinger is the fourth director of the study, and he and past study leaders have published these amazing findings that you and I can apply to our lives. These results from the Harvard Men's Study, they've been replicated in five other huge global studies. And I'm telling you all this because there's one singular conclusion from all of this data, all of this research, all of these fancy institutions, and it's this good relationships keep you happier and healthier. Good relationships make you happier and healthier. The single best decision you can make to improve your health and happiness is to cultivate what researchers call warm relationships. I know what you're thinking, Mel. What the hell are warm relationships?

(27:36):

I can boil 84 years of research down to one takeaway. You want to be happier. Put all your energy into warm relationships, building them, strengthening them, spending time with those people in the warm column. You do that, you will be a happier you right now. And the second way that you can do that, by the way, prioritizing the warm is spend less time with people in the cold column. You either need to stop hanging out with them because they're sucking your energy dry, or you got to put some effort into warming them up by forgiving them or reframing how you see them or working on your boundaries so that you're not triggered by them and their negativity doesn't impact your happiness. So keep that visual of a warm and a cold column. And as you meet people in your life, you can immediately feel what they're like.

 

(28:31):

Are they warm? Are they bringing out the fuzzies or are you feeling on edge? Because when it comes to happiness, your happiness right now, not the I'll be when happy, the happiness that truly matters, standing in that deep end of the ocean, the quality of your relationships is truly the most important thing that matters. And I can explain why at an even deeper level, the reason why this matters so much. It is the number one indicator of a happy life, good warm relationships floating in that ocean with your warm buddies keeping you buoyant. The reason why is evolution. See positive or warm interactions with people. You know what that does, that warm fuzzy feeling, those kind of people in your warm column, they make you feel safe. When you're around those people, you're not on edge, so your body feels safe. And the opposite is true when you're around people that you would put in the cold column.

 

(29:31):

Because when you're around negativity, when people trigger you, when they put you on edge, when you feel like you can't be yourself, you're now in a stress response of fight or freeze. And this response to other people, it's wired in you. Early homo sapiens survive because their bodies and their brains, they not only encouraged connection, but they also signaled when somebody might be unsafe. You and I survived because we're social beings. So this is hardwired into us. And here's where it gets interesting. 

(30:55):

And I want to tie this back to evolution. Loneliness feels threatening because you're meant to survive in a tribe of people. You're meant to be connected with people that make you feel safe and warm. It's not only part of happiness. This goes down to your mind and body needing protection. And they've even proven that when life is really hard, when it can come at you in full on attack mode, when you're in survival mode, warm connected relationships protect you from the stress of life. So how do you do this? How do you tap into relationships? It sounds simple, but again, make the column warm and cold and then call your friends, text them, arrange time to meet them. So when you feel a pang of loneliness, I want you to understand it's an alarm. Just like anxiety, it's a signal that you're missing connection. Please do not ignore it.

 

(32:04):

You may be surprised to hear that I felt this way for a very long time. I kept saying out loud, I'm not happy, I don't feel fulfilled. But when I dug deep into what was really going on, for me, the core issue is loneliness. I was having fun. I was really busy. I was doing meaningful work, but deep down inside, I was really lonely. And it may also surprise you to hear that it was during one of the most successful stretches in my career. I was on the road all the time. I was booked nonstop to give speeches. I was working on all kinds of projects with Audible. The business was booming. I was making lots of money, and I have never been unhappy because I was lonely. I was traveling so much chasing success, chasing achievement, going for the next thing, staying busy, that I never saw my friends.

 

(33:06):

I barely saw Chris. I missed out on a ton of time with our daughters while they were in high school. It was just go, go, go. Now, I had a lot of fun on the business trips. I would laugh a lot. I was always traveling with colleagues, so I wasn't alone and I was having fun in the waves of life. But when you talk about floating in the deep end of the ocean, I was profoundly lonely. And that meant I was profoundly unhappy. And it can be powerful when you admit this to yourself because when you realize what you're dealing with is loneliness that helps you identify the issue you need to improve, which is you need to start reaching out to people. We underestimate the impact that simply getting an unexpected text from an old friend can have on you. Think about how amazing it is when you have a birthday and everybody on social media that gets the kind of notification that it's your birthday, they come out of nowhere and they wish you happy birthday.

 

(34:20):

It's like, that's unbelievable. It feels so good. You haven't talked to that person since high school. But it feels good to have somebody just give you a quick comment on your birthday. And so if you're sitting around saying, I'm really lonely, but you're not reaching out, you're not calling people, you're not the one making plans or inviting people over for dinner, guess what? You're going to stay lonely. Because when I really looked in the mirror and said, I'm lonely, I need to do something about this. I never get invited anywhere. I don't see anybody. Well, I wasn't inviting anybody over, I wasn't making any plans. It starts with you.