You Don't Find Happiness, You Create It | Katarina Blom | TEDxGöteborg

Summary

In this talk, a psychologist shares insights on creating happiness and well-being through positive actions rather than just positive thinking. The speaker emphasizes that happiness is a skill that can be cultivated, highlighting the brain's negativity bias and the importance of forming healthy habits. By focusing on meaningful relationships and taking small, positive actions, individuals can improve their overall well-being. The talk concludes with a reminder that behavior influences others, encouraging the audience to lead by example in fostering happiness and connection.

Takeaways

• 👋 We often follow actions rather than instructions, highlighting the importance of positive behavior in creating well-being.
• 🧠 Our brains are not always on our side when it comes to happiness due to automatic negative thoughts and a tendency to worry.
• 🔄 Mind-wandering is common, occurring almost half of the time we're awake, which challenges the idea of controlling happiness through positive thinking alone.
• 🏋️‍♂️ Happiness is a skill that requires positive action, not just positive thinking.
• 📊 We have a negativity bias, meaning we prioritize negative feedback over positive, which impacts our overall well-being.
• 🧩 Cognitive biases help us navigate the world but can distort our perception, often highlighting negative aspects over positive ones.
• 🏡 Building well-being involves actions like maintaining healthy relationships, which significantly contribute to our happiness.
• 📱 Simple acts of appreciation, like sending a kind text, can develop into powerful habits that enhance our well-being.
• 👫 Quality relationships are crucial for happiness, as demonstrated by long-term studies showing their impact on flourishing.
• 💪 Cultivating psychological habits, especially around relationships, requires the same dedication as physical health habits.

Q & A

What exercise did the speaker initiate at the beginning of the talk to illustrate a point about human behavior?

The speaker initiated an exercise where they asked everyone to place their hands out and clap them on the count of three. This was done to demonstrate that people often do as others do, rather than always following instructions or doing as they are told.

What was the speaker's profession and what is their area of expertise?

The speaker is a psychologist who trains organizations, teams, and individuals in creating happiness and well-being.

What was the main contradiction the speaker faced after co-authoring a book on the science of happiness?

The main contradiction was that the speaker was in the middle of a life crisis, having broken up with their partner, being homeless and jobless, despite having co-authored a book on happiness.

According to the speaker, why is it difficult to maintain happiness and well-being?

The speaker suggests that it's difficult to maintain happiness because the human brain is not always on our side when it comes to creating happiness, and it requires more than just positive thinking; it requires positive action.

What percentage of time do our minds wander according to the study mentioned by the speaker?

According to the study by Daniel Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth, our minds wander approximately 46.9% of the time we spend awake.

What is the speaker's view on the effectiveness of controlling thoughts versus controlling actions to create happiness?

The speaker believes that controlling thoughts is very difficult, if not impossible, and that well-being is better built by positive actions rather than just positive thinking.

What cognitive biases does the speaker mention that affect how we perceive life and situations?

The speaker mentions cognitive biases that help us categorize and prioritize information, which can affect how we perceive life and different situations.

What is the 'negativity bias' and how does it affect our perception of life?

The negativity bias is a tendency for the brain to focus on unpleasant or potentially threatening information. It evolved to help us survive in dangerous environments, but it affects how we perceive our life, relationships, workplace, and performance today.

What does the speaker suggest as an example of a psychological exercise to cultivate happiness?

The speaker suggests sending a text of appreciation or gratitude to someone you care about as an example of a psychological exercise to cultivate happiness.

What is the 'psychological gym' that the speaker and a friend started, and what is its purpose?

The 'psychological gym' is a place where organizations, teams, and individuals can train psychological skills to create more happiness and well-being. The purpose is to make psychological training as common as physical training.

What does the speaker emphasize as one of the most powerful actions for happiness, based on the Harvard University study?

The speaker emphasizes investing time and heart into relationships as one of the most powerful actions for happiness, as the Harvard University study found that the quality of relationships is more important than wealth, fame, or hard work for personal flourishing.

Outlines

00:00

😀 The Challenge of Achieving Happiness

The speaker initiates the talk with an interactive exercise to demonstrate the human tendency to conform rather than to act independently. As a psychologist, the speaker discusses the difficulty of maintaining happiness, especially during crises, and the misconception that happiness is merely a state of mind. The speaker emphasizes that happiness is a skill that can be developed through positive actions, not just thoughts. The summary also touches on the automatic nature of thoughts and the prevalence of worrying despite its futility, highlighting the need for a more proactive approach to well-being.

05:03

🧠 Cognitive Biases and Their Impact on Well-being

This paragraph delves into cognitive biases, particularly the negativity bias, which influences how we perceive and prioritize information. The speaker uses a thought experiment involving feedback from a boss to illustrate how our brains tend to focus more on negative aspects. The speaker references studies by Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile and others to show that setbacks have a stronger emotional impact than successes. The paragraph concludes with the idea that our brains are wired for survival, not necessarily for happiness, underscoring the evolutionary origins of our emotional responses.

10:03

🌱 Cultivating Happiness Through Action and Relationships

The speaker introduces the concept of a 'psychological gym' as a means to train and develop happiness and well-being skills. The speaker suggests that just as we understand the importance of physical health, we should also prioritize psychological health. An example of a simple yet impactful exercise is provided: sending a text of appreciation to someone you care about. The speaker argues that such actions, when turned into habits, can significantly enhance happiness. The importance of relationships in achieving happiness is emphasized, with references to studies showing that quality relationships are as crucial as diet and exercise for overall well-being.

15:04

👏 The Power of Positive Actions and Self-Care

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker reinforces the idea that positive actions are more effective in fostering happiness than positive thoughts alone. The speaker encourages the audience to extend care and understanding not only to others but also to oneself. The talk ends with a call to action, urging the audience to demonstrate positive behavior that can inspire change in others. The speaker suggests that the ripple effect of such actions can start within the room and extend beyond, creating a broader impact on well-being.

Keywords

💡Well-being

Well-being refers to the state of being comfortable, healthy, and happy. In the video, it is the central theme, emphasizing the importance of creating happiness and well-being in ourselves and others. The speaker, a psychologist, trains organizations and individuals to achieve this state, highlighting that it is not merely about positive thinking but also about taking positive actions.

💡Cognitive biases

Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that affect the judgments and decisions people make. The video discusses how our brains have evolved these biases to help categorize and prioritize information, making it easier to navigate life. However, these biases can skew our perception of situations, often focusing more on negative aspects, which relates to the concept of a negativity bias.

💡Negativity bias

Negativity bias is a psychological phenomenon where negative experiences, emotions, or information have a greater impact than positive ones. The video explains that this bias has evolved to help us focus on potentially threatening information for survival, but in modern life, it can hinder our ability to perceive and create happiness.

💡Mind wandering

Mind wandering refers to the mental state where one's thoughts are not focused on the present situation but are instead drifting to other topics or concerns. The video cites a study indicating that our minds wander nearly 50% of the time we are awake, illustrating the difficulty in controlling our thoughts, which is a key point in the argument for taking positive actions over positive thinking.

💡Positive action

Positive action in the video is contrasted with positive thinking, suggesting that taking concrete steps and behaviors can be more effective in creating happiness than merely having optimistic thoughts. The speaker encourages the audience to engage in actions that can cultivate well-being, such as expressing gratitude and building relationships.

💡Happiness

Happiness, as discussed in the video, is portrayed not as a passive state but as an active skill that can be trained and developed. The speaker emphasizes that happiness is not found externally but is something we can work on internally through positive actions and habits.

💡Gratitude text

A gratitude text is a message expressing appreciation or thankfulness to someone. In the video, the speaker suggests sending a gratitude text as an exercise to practice positive action and build well-being. It serves as an example of a simple yet impactful behavior that can foster stronger relationships.

💡Relationships

Relationships are the connections between people, which are highlighted in the video as a key component of happiness and well-being. The speaker argues that the quality of relationships, including being able to be vulnerable and share, is more important than the quantity of connections.

💡Psychological gym

The psychological gym is a metaphor introduced by the speaker for a place where individuals can train their psychological skills to enhance happiness and well-being. It draws a parallel to physical gyms, suggesting that just as we train our bodies, we should also train our minds.

💡Emotional asymmetry

Emotional asymmetry is the idea that negative emotions have a stronger impact than positive ones. The video discusses this concept, explaining how our brains prioritize negative information over positive, which can affect our overall perception of life and well-being.

💡Habit

Habit, in the context of the video, refers to a regular practice or routine that can be developed to support well-being. The speaker encourages forming healthy psychological habits, such as sending gratitude texts, to create a lasting positive impact on happiness.

Highlights

The speaker begins with an interactive exercise to demonstrate the concept of doing as others do, rather than as we are told.

The speaker is a psychologist who trains in creating happiness and well-being, but admits to experiencing a personal life crisis while promoting a book on happiness.

Happiness is not just about positive thinking; it requires positive action, as our brains are not always on our side when it comes to creating happiness.

The mind wanders nearly 47% of the time we are awake, indicating that thoughts are automatic and controlling them is challenging.

Well-being is better built by positive actions rather than just positive thinking, as we have more control over our behaviors.

Cognitive biases help us navigate the world but can affect how we perceive life and situations, leading to an emphasis on negative information.

People tend to remember negative feedback more strongly than positive, which is a pattern observed in various studies.

The negativity bias is an evolutionary trait that helped us focus on threats, but it affects modern perceptions of life and relationships.

Happiness is a skill that can be trained, but the challenge is turning knowledge into action, even for experts.

The speaker and a friend started a 'psychological gym' to make psychological training as common as physical training.

The psychological equivalent of a green smoothie or exercise is suggested to be the cultivation of healthy psychological habits.

An example exercise is given to send a gratitude text to someone you care about, emphasizing the impact of small actions on relationships.

Relationships are as important, if not more, than diet and exercise for happiness and longevity, according to a Harvard study.

The quality of relationships, including vulnerability and sharing, is what contributes to happiness, not just the quantity.

The speaker concludes by encouraging the audience to turn the talk into action, starting with understanding and caring behaviors towards themselves and others.

The audience is invited to participate in a final clapping exercise, illustrating how observing and mimicking behavior can lead to change.

Transcripts

[Music]

hello everyone I would like us to begin

with a short exercise so can everybody

place their hands like this reach out

your hands

thank you and I will count to three and

when I say three I want you to clap your

hands okay one two three so I did this

to show you that we don't always do as

other people tell us to do we rather do

as other people do and this is important

when it comes to creating well-being in

ourselves and in others I'm a

psychologist and I train organizations

teams and individuals in creating

happiness and well-being and a couple of

years back I co-authored a book on the

science of happiness but when the book

was published I was actually in the

middle of a life crisis I've just broken

up with the person who I thought I'd

spend my life with I had no place to

live and no job and I think this is a

very common human experience we all face

problems we end up in crisis sometimes

and we struggle but at the same time I

think most of us we long for that other

kind of life that entails meaning and

connection and happiness but it's kind

of difficult to live this life to always

be there in this happy place and today I

want to show you why your brain is not

always on your side when it comes to

creating happiness but also what we can

do to counter this and it's not going to

be by just positive thinking

this takes positive action because

happiness is a skill we all can train

and work on I want this to start here

how it's not just about positive

thinking

so let's begin with this have you ever

found yourself in a situation where

you're really worried about something

and you kept worrying even though you

knew that worrying won't change the

situation or help the situation in any

way and nevertheless you just kept on

worrying hands up right we're all doing

this and if we could have total mind

power and just switched over to these

happy thoughts

we just have done that and get on with

our lives but that doesn't really happen

does it and did you know that about half

of the time that you've been listening

to this speech your mind has probably

been wandering off thinking about other

things according to a study by Daniel

Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth our

minds wander forty-six point nine

percent of the time we spend awake so

our thoughts are automatic they have a

life of their own and to create

happiness by just control positive

thinking I think it's hard it's not even

possible impossible and I think it's

time that we start talking more about

this how can we take positive action

actually making the change in our lives

because if I would ask you to keep your

focus on your breath

don't think about anything else for five

minutes I doubt that anyone in this room

would be able to do that but if I would

ask you to please raise your hand like

this for five minutes I think we all

would be better able to achieve this so

it's really difficult to control our

thoughts and we have a better chance at

controlling our actions our behavior

therefore well-being is better built by

positive action and not positive

thinking also we tend to look at

ourselves as if we're these objects

rational beings and that perceived

situations in this objective manner and

we process information almost like a

computer I just take information in but

in reality very far from objective and

that's actually a good thing because if

we would truly be able to process and

perceive reality in all its nuanced

complexity we would be rather lost it

would be an overwhelming experience so

therefore our brain have evolved several

cognitive biases that helps us

categorize and prioritize and sort

information making it more easy for us

to navigate but these cognitive biases

this sorting and prioritizing is really

affecting how we perceive life how we

perceive different situations and I'd

like us to explore this further in a

little thought experiments so I invite

you all to think back at the last time

that you had a evaluated conversation

with your boss or manager and I'm quite

sure that you got to hear a lot of good

things things like how you contribute to

the workplace but I'm also quite sure

that you got to hear something that you

can improve with yourself with your

performance and once you leave this

conversation what do you think that your

brain thinks is the most prioritized

information all the things that you do

really good or the one thing that you

should be improving well if you're

somewhat like me it would definitely be

the latter and this doesn't really have

anything to do with how my brain works

this is actually a pattern that's been

shown among people for example

serious are marbella is a professor at

Harvard Business School she did a diary

study where she got to read people's

Diaries

to explore how they experience everyday

life and she saw a pattern that the

negative effect of a setback was more

than twice as strong as the positive

effects of a success and the same thing

goes with money that we feel way worse

about losing an amount of money than we

feel happy about gaining the same amount

and if you would receive a compliment

from a co-worker and then a complaint

from another co-worker these two

comments don't neutralize each other the

complaint would definitely leave a

stronger emotional mark so now we need

to ask ourselves why why do we carry

this emotional asymmetry why do we have

this preparedness to experience

unpleasant and negative emotions and to

understand that we need to understand

the context the environment where our

brain has been evolving for so many

years today several studies say that we

have evolved a negativity bias which

helps our attention to be drawn to

unpleasant or possibly threatening

information and this was really good

back then and there

when we were at the Savannah fighting

for survival every day but today here

and now this definitely affects how we

perceive our life how we perceive our

relations our workplace our own

performance and ourselves so to simplify

this a bit one could almost say that

your brain is concerned that you survive

throughout this day it's less concerned

that you're a happy survivor so by now

we can understand that it's not strange

that all of us sometimes feel anxious or

tense are we worried in one sense we

were built for this but most of us we

long for this other kind of life with

the meaning and the connection and the

happiness and I'm not sure that we can

have

one thing without the other but there

are definitely things and ways how we

can cultivate happiness and build

well-being but this comes with good news

and bad the good news is that happiness

it's not something you find outside of

yourself and it's not something you have

or don't have it's a skill that we all

can work on but the problem is that we

just don't do it

and this definitely applies for myself

this is the worst part of having written

a book on happiness because whenever I'm

having a bad day there's always someone

who can do like having to read your own

book Katerina you should know better so

I've learned that not even experts on

happiness and knows how to turn

knowledge into action and this is one of

the reasons why me and a friend have we

started a psychological gym where

organizations and the teams and

individuals could come and train these

skills in order to create more happiness

and well-being because we want to make

psychological training as common as

physical training because today we know

so many things about how to eat properly

and how to exercise to sustain a

physical health but what would be the

psychological version of a green

smoothie or of doing 50 situps

is there really such a thing and I would

say yes definitely there's a lot of

different exercises and things we can do

building healthy habits for ourselves

and I would like to present an example

of this so once you finish listening to

this pitch when you're leaving this room

later tonight I'd like you to bring out

your smartphone and takes a kind

appreciative gratitude text to someone

that you care for and maybe you can just

notice how that fits and this is a good

example of an exercise that I often do

with leaders and teams and just a couple

of weeks back I did this at a two-day

leader

conference and later I found out that

one of the participants had texted his

wife writing I love you very very very

much which made the wife think what are

you doing at that Leadership Conference

and it just tests texting one person at

one time it won't change the world in

any way but turning this into a healthy

habit over time can have a large impact

and to dedicate this habit to caring for

your relationships might be one of the

most powerful actions that you can take

when it comes to happiness so this might

be the green smoothie that you've all

been waiting for according to several

studies having functioning relationships

is as important if not even more

important as exercising well and having

a good diet and this can even help us

live longer in a study from Harvard

University which began already back in

1938 researchers followed over 700

people to understand what it is that

makes us flourish as people so they

followed these participants for decades

and in 2012 the results came the

researchers found that happiness doesn't

come from wealth it doesn't come from

fame or working hard

it comes from relationships and it's not

about the number of friends that you

have or whether or not you're in a

committed relationship with a partner

they found that it's the quality of the

relationship that counts

being able to be vulnerable listening

and sharing what's close to your heart

that's what matters and by now we know

that forming good healthy habits when it

comes to physical training or having a

good diet it takes dedication it takes

commitment

and I think we should approach

psychological habits in the same way and

especially when it comes to

relationships so by now we know that the

brain has this tendency to highlight the

negative and that this is really tricky

to revoke just by positive thinking it

takes positive action but some actions

are more powerful than others when it

comes to happiness and investing your

time and heart into the relationships

around you no matter if it's at work or

with neighbors or with family or friends

this might be one of the most powerful

things that you can do for yourself and

I'd like us to do this one more time so

can everyone reach out their hands and

I'm gonna count to three and when I say

three I want you to clap your hands okay

one two three yay great so we learn by

watching others behavior you've just

seen me do this two times and already so

many people change their behavior so the

more you can turn this talk into action

by being more understanding and caring

not just towards others but also towards

yourself I think that others will follow

your example and do as you do and the

people outside of this building they

won't know what just happened they won't

know what changed but we know that it

was here in this talk that everything

started thank you

you