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 Uchida, Y., Takahashi, Y., & Kawahara, K. (2014). Changes in hedonic and eudaimonic well-being after a severe nationwide disaster: The case of the great east Japan earthquake . Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 207–221. The present work drew on two large diary studies to examine how daily prosociality was associated with increases in both meaning and happiness in everyday life. Study 1 found that subjective prosociality was uniquely associated with both meaning and happiness. Study 2, using a self-report measure of prosocial behavior, revealed that daily prosocial acts were uniquely associated with increases in meaning, but modestly (though still significantly) related to happiness.

The message is clear: If you want to feel happy, you should focus on your own wishes and desires. Yet this is not the advice that many people grew up hearing. Indeed, most of the world’s religions (and grandmothers everywhere) have long suggested that people should focus on others first and themselves second. Who are you thankful to have in your life? What people, experiences and things make life rich? You can do this anywhere—while on your walk or a workout or while on the bus. Your call. I love doing it while on my morning run.Across all of the research, there is a conflict between whether feeling happier directly leads to better health outcomes, or whether it is merely a correlation (Newman, 2015). Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2005). The pursuit of meaningfulness in life. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 608–618). Oxford University Press. Another measurement of happiness was developed by Ruut Veenhoven. He constructed the model of Four Qualities of Life, which positions and describes the construct of happiness in various dimensions (Veenhoven, 2000, 2010).

To sum up the findings we have so far, it’s easy to see that happiness at work does matter – for individuals, for teams, and for organizations overall. We don’t have all the answers about exactly how the relationship between happiness and productivity works, but we know that there is a relationship there.Happiness is a state, not a trait; in other words, it isn’t a long-lasting, permanent feature or personality trait, but a more fleeting, changeable state. The pursuit of happiness is one place where we should consider ditching the SMART goals; it may be more effective to pursue “vague” happiness goals than more specific ones (Rodas et al., 2018). Hui, B. P. H., Ng, J. C. K., Berzaghi, E., Cunningham-Amos, L. A., & Kogan, A. (2020). Rewards of kindness A meta-analysis of the link between prosociality and well-being. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000298