And why some people happier than others?
Over the past two decades, scientists have been searching for an answer to the question: “Why are some people happier than others?” and “How can their secrets be applied to everyone?”
In this video, we will discuss research findings that reveal what makes people happy, how easily they make friends, build happy relationships, achieve career success, and cope with difficulties. I will tell you how to apply this to yourself and achieve the same success, completely transforming your life.
Everyone around is happy and successful, and only you don’t understand something.
Do you know that feeling that everything is not going as it should? That you’re not successful enough, your relationships aren’t good enough, and you don’t have what you want? Chronic dissatisfaction makes you look at others with envy and at yourself with anger and disappointment. Pop culture, advertising, and social media worsen this, constantly reminding you that striving for anything less than a successful business or a dream job is a failure. That you must constantly experience strong emotions, breathtaking events, travel, make lots of money, have a great body and be attractive, have many friends, and find your soulmate. And, of course, the vast array of self-improvement products subtly implies that it’s all your fault—you’re just not working hard enough on yourself.
But in the past two decades, numerous studies on what makes people happy have proven that happiness isn’t in all these things. You’ve probably experienced this yourself—when you desperately wanted something and thought that once you achieved it, you would finally be happy. You imagined a beautiful picture of an ideal life, like in fairy tales where they “lived happily ever after.” But after overcoming all obstacles and slaying all the dragons, you got the princess, were thrilled about it, but after a while, it stopped bringing you the same emotions. And soon, you became obsessed with a new goal and another promise of happiness.
By comparing yourself to others, you guarantee yourself suffering.
Think about this: your life right now is an unattainable dream for most people on Earth. Almost half of the world’s population—46% or 3.4 billion people—struggle to meet their basic needs and don’t even have enough food, shelter, basic clothing, or essential medicine.
Many people don’t like to think about those who have it worse than them, yet they never miss a chance to dream about the lives of those who are wealthier and more successful. What seems bad to you is only that way because you compare yourself to someone else.
When a child from a poor family enters school, classmates start mocking him for his worn-out clothes and cheap belongings. At that moment, the child learns that he is somehow worse than others and, from then on, begins to compare himself, always feeling dissatisfied. His best time was when he walked happily down the street with his parents in his inexpensive clothes, not even thinking about his “status.”
But once a person experiences comparison, they can never be truly happy again. Because if you compare yourself to others, there will always be someone better, more beautiful, healthier, sexier, wealthier, and more successful. This is a game you cannot win.
What are the things you are grateful for in your life right now?
Achieving our goals, having an exciting life, good relationships with a partner and friends, financial abundance, and a dream job—all of these are not the source of happiness but its consequence.
Once you find the source of happiness, all of the above will be much easier to achieve—it will literally come to you on its own. Because happiness must first be cultivated within yourself through gratitude for what you already have.
Although gratitude might sound like another self-improvement trend promoted on social media, what we’re about to tell you is based on a body of scientific research and studies.
You can feel gratitude for someone who has done something for you, for random events like good weather, or even for nature or fate. This gratitude makes you care for others, and in return, others care for you.
This was evolutionarily crucial for humanity as a species because people needed to cooperate to survive, while selfish individuals were shunned. For example, if you were hungry and someone showed you where to find delicious berries, you felt grateful to them and formed a connection to return the favor in the future. When you repaid them, they felt gratitude toward you. This strengthened bonds and friendships among our ancestors, which in turn enabled the formation of states and empires through cooperation and exchange. Thus, early forms of gratitude were biological mechanisms that helped humans dominate the Earth.
But over time, gratitude became more than just an impulse for human development. Scientists have discovered that gratitude stimulates pathways in the human brain that facilitate the retention and retrieval of positive memories. Moreover, gratitude directly counteracts negative emotions and traits such as envy, social comparison, narcissism, cynicism, and materialism.
As a result, people who are grateful—regardless of what for—tend to be happier and more satisfied. They have better relationships and find it easier to make friends. They sleep better, suffer less from depression, addiction, and burnout, and cope better with traumatic events.
The Cognitive Trap of the Brain That Downplays Achievements.
In a way, gratitude significantly reduces a cognitive bias trap in the brain that makes people forget and downplay positive events.
Imagine that you feel lonely and want more friends or a romantic relationship. In reality, you might already have someone or even several people in your life, but you may feel like it’s not enough. You might underestimate the significance of those around you, seeing them as uninteresting or not smart enough. Instead of deepening your connections with the people already in your life, you keep searching for “ideal people” who match the image in your mind. As a result, you might push away those who are already there for you, making yourself feel even lonelier. However, if you choose to feel gratitude for your existing relationships and overcome the cognitive distortion in your mind, you will start to see the value in these people. They will begin to reveal themselves to you in a new way, and they may even start behaving differently around you.
Very often, we provoke negative behavior in others through our own worst expectations. But when we begin to see the good in people and feel grateful, they, in turn, feel an inner desire to meet our expectations and show their best side.
In this way, gratitude initiates a feedback loop. Our positive evaluation of another person makes them want to present their best self, which, in turn, creates a positive emotional response within us. Overall, this leads to a better social experience and a more positive outlook on the world. By simply changing our attitude toward a situation or a person and expressing gratitude, we rewrite our experiences and change our destiny.
This often happens after serious hardships, such as chemotherapy or a near-death experience. Life may seem incredible once the crisis has passed. Even the smallest things can become endless sources of joy—from tasting food again to simply sitting in the sun or talking with a friend. Objectively, your life may be the same or even worse than before, but your brain compares your current experience with the times when you were on the brink of death and reacts with gratitude simply for being alive.
How to Make Your Brain More Grateful.
Scientists have studied how gratitude levels are influenced by factors such as parenting, lifestyle, genetics, personality, culture, and even behavioral patterns of entire nations. This discovery led researchers to ask whether they could develop exercises to “rewire” the gratitude gene and increase happiness.
The simplest and most well-researched gratitude exercise is keeping a daily gratitude journal. This means taking a few minutes each day to write down five to ten things you are grateful for. At first, this may feel strange, so start small.
Can you feel gratitude for something minor? For example, for a great cup of coffee or for someone’s kindness toward you? Can you appreciate something someone else has done for you? Can you think of things or people you would miss if they were gone—and feel grateful that they are still in your life?
Most people in the world are only capable of feeling gratitude when they lose something. This is due to the way many parents and teachers raise children, believing that praising a child and teaching them to celebrate their achievements will make them lose the motivation to strive for more. As a result, they train children to constantly look for flaws in their own accomplishments, endlessly trying to improve everything.
In the end, these people can never stop and say, “I have already achieved a lot; I did well.” This makes them perpetually dissatisfied and unfulfilled, no matter what they accomplish. In such cases, they can only feel positive emotions toward what they had after they lose it (which is why losses often occur in their lives).
That’s why keeping a daily gratitude journal might initially seem pointless to such people. Praising a waiter for making a good cup of coffee? That’s just their job! Feeling happy about good weather? What nonsense. Keeping a gratitude diary might even feel insulting, as if things shouldn’t be this simple. But it’s precisely this seemingly simple and useless action—learning to be grateful for every little thing—that will ultimately transform your life.
Practicing gratitude with a daily gratitude journal.
In numerous studies, participants reported greater happiness and higher overall life satisfaction after keeping a gratitude diary for just a few weeks. More importantly, the changes in brain activity caused by these practices persisted even months after the studies ended.
Practicing gratitude can be a real way to reprogram yourself. It proves that our emotions are not fixed. After all, the way you perceive life is a reflection of what you believe. If you change your core beliefs about yourself and your life, your thoughts and feelings will change as well, which will automatically influence your behavior. As a result, the behavior of those around you will also shift, and many situations that used to happen to you will simply stop occurring.
It’s incredible that something as simple as gratitude can change the neural connections in our brain responsible for dissatisfaction.
It has long been studied that at least half of all diseases arise from psychosomatic causes. And when people change their core beliefs, their bodies respond by healing. A great number of people have overcome seemingly incurable illnesses just by shifting their perspective on life. And if a change in mindset can even alter the structure of the cells in our own bodies, imagine how much it can transform the reality around us! And if that’s not a reason to be more optimistic, then what is?
Life can be challenging at times, but that doesn’t mean we have to suffer. If you’re curious and want to learn how to be more grateful, we’re here to help.Keep in mind that you don’t need to buy anything from anyone for practicing gratitude. All you need is a notebook, a pen, and five minutes a day. Every day, for a month, simply write down 5–10 things or people you are grateful for at the end of the day.
However, forming a new habit isn’t always easy. Your mind may strongly resist it, especially if you don’t fully believe it will change your life. If that happens, there’s a high chance you’ll give up halfway and never see the results.
To help with this, we’ve created a special Gratitude and Self-Love Journal, designed to make developing the habit of journaling much easier. It’s not just a gratitude diary—it’s a workbook and training tool that will keep you motivated throughout the year and help you achieve incredible results.
It includes:
- Daily gratitude practices.
- A vision board for your goals.
- An action planner with step-by-step goal breakdowns.
- Monthly calendars to stay organized and inspired.
- Weekly reflection and progress assessments.
- Our signature monthly book recommendations for inspiration and growth.
- Weekly exercises for discipline and motivation.
- Daily motivational quotes from great minds and powerful affirmations to help you believe in yourself.
We created this daily gratitude journal with great love, knowing it will help you build the life you deserve. It is based on both research and our personal experiences on what makes people happy.
We hope this video was valuable to you. We do everything we can to improve your life and make everyone who comes to Encaminho a little happier.
