Everyone wants to be happy. And yet, according to recent Harris Poll surveys, only one third of Americans say that they are.
Work pressure, financial stress and loneliness are just a few things that hold us back from being truly happy. But, according to experts, these stressors may be counteracted by simple daily steps to improve our overall happiness.
"Happiness is the feeling of joy, delight, satisfaction, well-being, fulfillment, or contentment," physician and happiness expert Dr. Alphonsus Obayuwana told Newsweek. "It is a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences momentarily because of a specific event, or more broadly because of positive self-appraisal. Overall, happiness is a consequence of our thoughts, actions, reactions, perceptions, judgment, and conclusions—all in the context of the prevailing internal and external factors of everyday life."
To nurture his own happiness, Obayuwana follows a five-step routine.
"Each day, I follow my PDR (Personal Daily Routine)—which is:
- Do something—no matter how small—to advance my life mission or calling.
- Do something, anything—no matter how small—to put a smile on somebody's face.
- Do something—no matter how small—to acquire some new knowledge, skill, or capability, each day.
- Do something—no matter how small—to acknowledge my many blessings and demonstrate good stewardship over what I have.
- Do something—no matter how small—to observe a religious tenet and nurture my spirituality.
Obayuwana, based in Ohio, is a physician, happiness coach and founder and CEO of the Triple-H Project LLC—an entity that trains and certifies happiness coaches. Obayuwana has held faculty tenures at numerous medical schools across the U.S., including Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and is a retired major in the U.S. Air Force reserve.
Through his efforts to support other people's happiness, Obayuwana has devised a groundbreaking tool to reliably quantify our own happiness via what he describes as a happiness score.
"It is useful to have a happiness score because no one can effectively improve what cannot be accurately measured," Obayuwana said. "Your happiness score tells you where you are on the happiness spectrum and where you would rather be."
The numerical score, termed the Personal Happiness Index (PHI), is assigned based on an individual's unique hopes, hungers, assets and aspirations.
In his new book, The Happiness Formula, Obayuwana talks us through how to calculate our own happiness scores and provides happiness seekers with proven routines for achieving and sustaining a "flourishing" life.
"For full disclosure, my own PHI is 2.923, and that means I am a 'very happy' person but not yet 'flourishing' by definition," Obayuwana said. "Like everybody else, I could be happier, and with the formula revealed in this book, I now know where I am compared to anyone else in the world—who also knows his or her PHI."
Obayuwana hopes that this measuring system will offer a strong theoretical basis for happiness coaching and allow happiness seekers to self-assess their own happiness levels in a scientific way.
"When one has a life mission or calling and learns to boost one's hope, life fulfillment is not only predictable but inevitable," Obayuwana said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Pandora Dewan is a Senior Science Reporter at Newsweek based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on science, health ... Read more
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