Can money buy happiness?
To answer this question, Harvard Business School Professor Michael Norton approached students on the campus of the University of British Columbia and gave them envelopes of cash. They were asked to, by the end of the day, either (a) spend the money on themselves, or (b) spend the money on someone else. Which group do you think felt happier?
At the end of the day, people who spent the money on others felt happier, regardless of the amount of money spent or the type of things it was spent on. People who spent on themselves did not experience any difference in happiness. The same result was found in Uganda and Belgium.
So yes, money can buy happiness – if you spend it on other people!
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy – Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
Besides spending money, there are other things you can do to make people happy. The question is, how can you do it meaningfully and ensure it is meaningful to the other person?
Know your strengths
If you’re going to do something for someone else, you might as well enjoy the process. When you feel confident and competent in doing something, you experience more enjoyment and motivation – so think about what your strengths are. They most likely show up in the things you do naturally every day.
Are you the go-to person for organizing gatherings? Maybe you have a knack for persuasion. Or maybe you can intuitively sense how people are feeling without them saying anything. Are you the one whom people trust to get things done?
You may not even realise your strengths since they come so naturally to you that you think everyone else has them too. To know for sure, take the StrengthsFinder assessment and find out your top talent themes are.
Know that it doesn’t have to be something major
You don’t have to do something extravagant to reap the happiness benefits. People in the Harvard study who spent on others experienced the boost in happiness after spending the money in simple ways, like buying coffee or stuffed toys, making donations to the homeless. Regardless of whether they spent $5 or $20, they got the same happiness boost.
Besides improving happiness, doing things for others can also protect you from stress! A recent study published in Clinical Psychological Science gives evidence that performing simple acts of kindness towards others in the day mitigates the negative impact you experience from stressors at work. “Stressful days usually lead us to have a worse mood and poorer mental health, but our findings suggest that if we do small things for others, such as holding a door open for someone, we won’t feel as poorly on stressful days,” says Yale University professor and author of the study, Emily Ansell. Other acts of kindness include helping a child with schoolwork or asking someone else if they needed help.
Spend kindness like money, and pretend you’re a billionaire – Scott Dinsmore
What’s one thing you can do for someone else today?
(Article Contributed by Clare Sim)
