During the winter months, I often feel as if my filter bubble is getting tighter and social media becomes a catalyst for fuck-up stories, wellness videos and self-proclaimed productivity coaches to fill every last corner of the dark season with meaningful, revolutionary and life-changing thoughts.

In moments like these, I try to stick rigidly to my time slots, where I allow myself to immerse myself in this parasocial world in which nobody knows me and yet everyone thinks they know everything about me. When I finally manage to crawl out of the rabbit hole, I desperately try to look back on the last few moments and ask myself more than once: which moment was really worth remembering?

This is another reason why I have returned to my old habit of keeping a so-called “gratitude or happiness diary”.

And before you roll your eyes and want to give yourself the next dopamine shot, give me a chance to offer you a better alternative, far removed from any guru promises and affirmation tips.

Happiness lies in the little things, we are just too “busy” to discover them

Sometimes happiness doesn’t lie in a big career leap, a successful presentation, the next promotion, a pay rise or the next success.

In many cases, it reveals itself quietly and inconspicuously, in the right sentence at the right time, in a chance encounter, in a problem that suddenly turns out to be a door opener.

If that sounds too philosophical for you, grab your favorite hot drink and sit back, because now it’s time to go deep:

As we rush through the day, we unconsciously filter out most of it: opportunities that come our way. Helpfulness that comes our way. Coincidences that have an exciting after-effect or opportunities that come to us unexpectedly. Our autopilot has a job to do (education, work, household, etc.) and our brain rigorously pursues it in a prefabricated belief bubble that we don’t question.

The exciting thing, however, is that we know exactly how to put this automated assembly line mode on stand-by and thereby permanently change our perception, our focus and yes, even our sense of happiness.

It is therefore not surprising that neuroscience, psychology and happiness research all agree on this: Happiness is not a whim of fate, but the result of trained perception.

Facts are neutral, their perception and attribution of meaning are not

Just so we don’t get the wrong idea: There are different people who we encounter in this world with diverse life biographies and not all experiences can be turned into something “positive” with training. Some things, such as illness, emotional stress, structural discrimination, unfortunate experiences or the loss of a loved one, cannot simply be turned into a fond memory by asking: “What’s good about that?”.

However, we must bear in mind that an event that happens to us and over which we generally have no influence is initially neutral. However, our cognitive evaluation gives it an emotional interpretation and thus influences our perception of the situation.

I would like us to learn to appreciate and accept this ambiguity in our world again. I can certainly be of the opinion that living in a village means community, belonging and trust and at the same time recognize that living in the city allows for a diversity of experiences, an exciting dynamic and a sociable exchange of experiences. Two truths in one space, both of which can be perceived very differently emotionally and cognitively.

So if we know that our perception is subject to an unconscious and very rapid evaluation mechanism, it is all the more exciting to deal with a conscious form of cognitive re-evaluation of this perception: So-called reframing. This core principle of positive psychology is used today in leadership programs, coaching and resilience training and, with constant practice, has a lasting effect

Reset the filter: In search of happiness

Our brain is a high-performance organ: it processes millions of sensory information every second, but only a tiny fraction of this reaches our consciousness at all. This means that the world we experience is not an objective representation of reality, but the result of an internal filter system. This filter is strongly oriented towards our beliefs, experiences and expectations, an effect that psychology calls “confirmation bias“.

Another part of this mechanism is the so-called “reticular activation system (RAS)”, a type of neuronal search system. It decides which information actually reaches our attention so that we can focus on it.

When you focus on opportunities, progress or gratitude, your brain begins to search for precisely these signals. It works in a similar way to the example with a new car: if you really want a new, red Ford, your brain will suddenly draw your attention to all the red Ford models that match your desired purchase decision.

In short: we do not perceive what is, we perceive what we “program” our brain and thus our perception to perceive.

And now it gets exciting, because the question arises: “Can we use this knowledge to think ourselves happier?”

What research tells us about “happy people”

British psychologist Richard Wiseman spent over a decade investigating why some people experience themselves as “favored by luck”. His findings:
Happy people are not happier, they behave differently.

In one of his experiments, participants were asked to count the number of photos in a newspaper. On page two it was written in large letters:

“There are 43 photos in this newspaper. You can stop counting.”

Those who described themselves as “lucky” usually noticed the clue immediately, while the others read on intently and overlooked it.
The difference was not in the circumstances, but in the attitude: the “lucky” ones were more relaxed, open and curious and therefore more receptive to potential opportunities that presented themselves.

From this, Wiseman identified four principles that “happy people” have in common:

1. You create and recognize more opportunities. Openness creates coincidences.
2. They trust their intuition. Decisions are made faster and more clearly.
3. You expect positive results. This attitude leads to courageous behavior.
4. They turn setbacks into learning opportunities. Reframing becomes a habit.

According to this, “lucky” people experience more positive coincidences, not because they are objectively luckier, but because they are more open, relaxed and attentive to potential opportunities that present themselves.

Of course, it must also be pointed out at this point that the experiment only shows a correlation, not a causality. It does not prove that “positive thinking generates happiness”, but that an open, relaxed attitude can promote the perception of happiness.

If you’re thinking to yourself: “Great, I’m the unluckiest person there is. How am I supposed to think positively and relax?”, I can reassure you:

You are not alone with this thought, because in evolutionary terms, humans are programmed to recognize danger and not necessarily to look for moments of happiness. This so-called “negativity bias” ensures that negative experiences have three to five times more impact than positive ones. This once ensured our survival, but today it often leads us to overlook successes and overestimate problems.

The good news is:

Our brain is neuroplastic, i.e. it changes with every new experience and way of thinking throughout our lives. We therefore know that a certain “training effect” is definitely effective here. Regular mindfulness, gratitude or positive re-evaluation measurably change brain activity, reduce stress and promote our resilience.

The so-called locus of control is psychologically crucial in this context. This concept was originally developed by the renowned US psychologist Julian B. Rotter (1966). He used it to define the question of whether people tend to see the causes of events in their lives in themselves (internal) or in external circumstances (external).

People with an internal belief in control, i.e. the conviction that they can shape their own lives, are demonstrably more successful, satisfied and resilient. People who have an external belief in control , on the other hand, often feel at the mercy of their external circumstances.

It is therefore fair to say that the attitude with which I approach the evaluation of a situation strengthens (or weakens) my self-efficacy and thus influences how my actions and my perception interact with each other in similar situations in the future.

Five steps to practising happiness in everyday life

Of course, a post like this can’t do without the relevant tips, and I agree with Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.”. So don’t think of these tips as a to-do list, but rather as a store from which you can choose, read the label critically and leave something behind if it doesn’t feel right for you:

1. Make a conscious decision
   Tell yourself: I focus on positive things and the opportunities that come my way. Incidentally, this is the most difficult tip, as the brain naturally cannot be fooled. It helps to remember this resolution in small steps. So if you’re about to pull an all-nighter and get up the next day completely exhausted, the following sentence could help instead: Just because the night wasn’t good doesn’t mean that the rest of the day won’t be good either and I’m consciously looking for evidence of this today.
2. Pay attention to small moments of happiness
   The perfect coffee, an unexpected smile, a good idea at the right moment, the nice colleague who tells an exciting story or the heavenly smell at the bakery in the morning – moments of happiness are everywhere if you take the time to look and notice them.
3. Reframe in the event of (emotionally minor) setbacks
   Ask yourself: To what extent could this (bad) situation be to my advantage right now? How can I learn something positive from it? I have already explained before that this is rather emotionally light fare, because it is not about simply overwriting anger, disappointment or sadness with toxic positivity, but about turning experiences that may no longer have any meaning for you in 10 days, 10 months or 10 years into a learning experience and thereby allowing multiple perspectives (keyword: ambiguity).
4. Speak, write or show “happiness” consciously
   Words shape your perception. Talk about what works, not just about what is lacking, unsuccessful or fundamentally bad. This will strengthen your own awareness of happiness and inspire others to do the same. If, like me, you don’t use empty phrases as affirmations in the bathroom mirror, you can better influence your own perception by writing them down. This is where the “gratitude or happiness diary” mentioned at the beginning comes into play again. It has helped me not only to be aware of the sum of small moments of happiness, but also to consciously look for them and to deal with my inner critic, who is always busy distorting not only myself, but also my perception in a negative way.
5. Act with confidence
   Go ahead boldly, even without a guarantee. People with a “happiness mindset” dare to do more and thus create their own opportunities. The more conscious you are about trusting yourself, believing that positive things will happen to you and that you, like everyone else, are entitled to small moments of happiness in your everyday life, the more likely you are to become a multiplier of your own happiness.

The space between stimulus and response: where happiness arises

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve also created a moment of happiness for me, because as a literary scholar I’m always happy when my readers’ attention lasts beyond the time span of a Tik-Tok video – thank you for that!

So now we know that happiness is not a coincidence, but the conscious perception, classification and evaluation of all the moments we experience every day. It is not a constant, but a special moment that we can increasingly focus on using conscious methods, in the positive assumption that we will be able to experience it more often as a result.

Or to put it simply: When you learn to focus on small, positive moments, you activate neuronal processes that promote creativity, motivation and well-being. This conscious focus changes how you think, feel and act.

In his work Man’s Search for Meaning (1959), psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl described the freedom of people to choose how they react to external circumstances.

The often quoted thought here is:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
(after Stephen R. Covey, 1989, inspired by Frankl)

Happiness is precisely this space, the moment between what happens and what you make of it, and you decide how you perceive it and what feelings you associate with it.

Sources:

• Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C. & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323-370.
• Doidge, N. (2008). Restarting the mind: How our brain repairs itself. Munich: Hanser Verlag.
• Fredrickson, B. L. (2012). Positivity – Why some people blossom – and others sink into stress. Munich: Kösel Verlag.
• Frankl, V. E. (1946/2006). …nevertheless saying yes to life: A psychologist experiences the concentration camp. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv).
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Think fast, think slow. Munich: Siedler Verlag.
• Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1-28.
• Seligman, M. E. P. (2003). The happiness factor: Why optimists live longer. Munich: Knaur.
• Wiseman, R. (2004). The happiness factor: Why some people get more out of life. Munich: Goldmann Verlag.