No matter how miserable you are feeling at the moment, if you look back, there have surely been events in your life that have made you happy.  Maybe the time you bought your first car, or the time you received that long-desired promotion.  Or the time you lost fifteen pounds and were able to get back into your favorite jeans without cutting off your circulation.  When good things happen, we feel positive emotions – like excitement, relief, pride, and of course, happiness.  These feelings are essential for our well-being. 

But the problem is, happiness doesn’t usually last.  The excitement of that first car purchase wears off, the thrill of the promotion gives way to the anxiety of handling the responsibilities that came with it.  Sure, you think, it’s nice to be a size 8 again.  But it would be really great to be a size 6…

Psychologists call this phenomenon hedonic adaptation – the idea is that no matter how good something makes us feel (or, for the record, how bad), most of the time we drift back to where we started, emotionally-speaking. One often-cited study famously showed that despite their initial euphoria, lottery winners were no happier than non-winners eighteen months later.  The same tendency to return to “baseline” has been shown to occur after marriage, voluntary job changes, and promotions – the kinds of things we usually expect to change our happiness and well-being for the better in a permanent way.

Why can’t we make the happiness last?  Psychologists (and renown happiness experts) Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky argue in a recent paper that our hedonic adaption occurs for two reasons. 

When a positive change first occurs (say, you move into a great new house), there are usually lots of positive events happening as a result.  You get to break in that new six-burner range, take a long bath in your first soaking tub, and appreciate the roominess of your new garage. But over time, there are fewer positive events to experience, because you get used to all the home’s features, and after a while you just don’t notice them anymore.  With fewer positive events, and thus fewer positive emotions (excitement, pride, happiness), your newfound well-being can’t be sustained.

The second reason happiness fades is that even when positive events continue – if, for instance, your fitness and healthy eating habits leave you looking great, and this results in lots of new opportunities for romance on a regular basis –  the change begins to simply be seen as the “new normal.”   And as a result, your aspiration level shifts – you feel like you need to look even better.  Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has referredto this process as a kind of “satisfaction treadmill.” Because we continuously shift our standards upward once we’ve reached them, we’ve got to keep running in order to feel satisfied again.

But don’t despair – it ispossible to make happiness last, by slowing the adaptation process, or even halting it all together.  Sheldon and Lyubomirsky found in a recent study that two anti-adaptation tools were effective in sustaining gains in happiness over time:  variety and appreciation.

Variety is, as we all know, the spice of life.  But it’s also a potent weapon against  adaptation, because we don’t get “used to” positive events when our experiences are novel, or unexpected.  When, on the other hand, a positive experience is repetitive – when you know exactly what to expect – you don’t get the same kick out of it. 

Positive changes that are experienced in a variety of ways are more likely to lead to lasting happiness.  So you’ll be happier with your new spouse if you spend time doing new things together, rather than getting stuck in a boring routine.  You’ll be happier at your job if you are able to tackle new tasks and challenges – if there is some day-to-day variety in what you do.   You’ll be happier with your soaker tub if you run out and get yourself some new bubble bath, or try lighting candles (or maybe ask someone to join you in it.)

The happiness you get from doing anything will fade if you do it the same way every day, so mix things up.  Think about this beforemaking a change because you believe it will make you happier – will you be able to experience whatever it is in a variety of ways?   Because if the answer is no, don’t expect the happiness to last.

Tool #2, appreciation, is in many ways the opposite of adaptation – it’s going out of your way to focus on something, rather than taking it for granted or letting it fade into the background.  Appreciating can mean paying attention or noticing, but it is even more powerful when you take it further – when you savor something, delighting in its qualities and relishing how it makes you feel, or when you experience gratitude, a sense of being fortunate for being in your current circumstances compared to others, or compared to where you have been in the past.  When we appreciate our positive experiences, when we turn our mind’s eye toward them again and again in joy and wonder, we don’t just make our happiness last – we kick it up a notch, too.

Human beings spend a lot of time trying to figure out what will make them happy, but not nearly enough time trying to hang on to the happiness they already have.  In a way, this is like focusing all your energy on making more money, without giving any thought to what you’ll do with the money you’ve already earned.  The key to wealth, like the key to happiness, is to not only look for new opportunities, but to make the most of the ones you’ve been given. 

2003 was not a good year for me.  It was the year that I turned 30, separated from my first husband, and lived in near-constant dread of not finding a job before my postdoctoral funding ran out.  I coped badly with the end of my marriage and the uncertainty of my career.  I ate whatever I wanted, gave up completely on exercising, and rapidly packed on the pounds.  I went out most nights to bars with friends and drank a bit too much.  Some days I slept until noon.  My apartment was a mess.  My work suffered.  I spent money impulsively, thinking new clothes and dinner at fancy restaurants would make me feel better, and blew right through my savings.  It was the lowest point in my life, and I was miserable.

Eventually, having hit bottom, I began the slow crawl back up again.  Oddly enough, that change began when I brought home a 10-week old puppy.  Lucy is a Miniature Schnauzer, and anyone familiar with the breed, or with terriers in general, knows that the little buggers are verydemanding dogs.   Lucy required a lot of me – regular walks, house-breaking, grooming, feeding, playing, and eternal vigilance to prevent the destruction of yet another of my prized possessions when I wasn’t looking (Lucy is a chewer – my shoes, books, and coffee table were her favorites).  Since I was living in an apartment in New York City, she had to be walked several times a day in order to do her doggie business.  This typically started at around 5am – quite a change from my usual habit of trying to get up before lunch. 

The long and short of it is, I was exercising a lot of self-control in order to care for this dog.  It took effort, it took planning, and it took a whole lot of patience.  The first few weeks were incredibly difficult, mostly because I had grown so unaccustomed to being responsible for anything.  But as time passed, it started getting easier.  I got used to my new routines, and after a while getting up at 5am didn’t seem nearly so hard.  The funny thing is, other aspects of my life started improving as well.  I stopped going out so much, started eating better, and rejoined the gym.  My apartment was looking cleaner (despite Lucy’s best efforts to redecorate), my laundry pile was shrinking, and my bank statements grew less terrifying.  I clipped coupons, I looked for sales.  My work improved – I was publishing papers again, generating new ideas, speaking at conferences.  I interviewed for and was offered a professorship at Lehigh University.  And shortly after my 31^st birthday, I met my future husband (ok, that one I can’t really take credit for, other than for recognizing a good thing when I see it.)

I’m telling you all this because I think that year in my life nicely illustrates something about the nature of self-control.  In the beginning of this book, I introduced you to the idea of the self-control muscle.   Just like the muscles in your body, your capacity for self-control dwindles when you don’t exercise it.   When I turned 30 and my marriage fell apart, I basically put my self-control on bed rest, and  it atrophied.  When the time came and I needed to rely on my self-control again to care for a new puppy, it was much like returning to the gym after a years-long absence – it hurt like hell and I was easily winded.  Then, as I exercised my self-control each day, by sticking to my new routines, it started getting stronger.  With that new strength, I found I could start tackling my other challenges and get my life back on track.  

I am not, for the record, recommending that if you’re having trouble reaching your goals, you run out and buy a dog.  There are lots of ways to strengthen your self-control muscle, and I’ll share with you some of the ones psychologists have tested in this chapter.   It’s also important to remember that, like your bicep or tricep, your self-control muscle can get tired-out from exercise, leaving you vulnerable immediately after you’ve given it a workout.  So you’ll need to know how you can help your self-control to bounce back after you’ve done something really taxing.  You may also benefit from learning a few other strategies you can use to compensate in those moments when you’ve used up all your strength and can’t afford to wait for your second wind.    

People have long been fascinated with birth order and how it shapes our lives.  If Abel weren’t the younger brother, would Cain still have jealously murdered him?  Is Alec the most successful Baldwin because he is the eldest?  What role did birth order play in the destinies of the Kennedys, the Bushes, or the brothers Clinton?

There are countless books on the subject, though the claims they make are not always based on objective evidence.  But thanks to recent research conducted in Belgium and the Netherlands, we now know that first- and secondborns do indeed see the world differently in ways that impact their motivation and likelihood of career and personal success.

We all approach the goals we pursue with one of two mindsets: what I call the Be-Good mindset, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and that you already know what you’re doing, and the Get-Bettermindset, where the focus is on developingyour ability and learning new skills.  You can think of it as the difference between wanting to show that you are smart versus wanting to get smarter.

When we have a Be-Good mindset, we are constantly comparing our performance to other people, to see how we “size up.”  A Get-Better mindset, on the other hand, leads instead to self-comparison and a concern with making progress– how well am I doing today, compared with how I did yesterday, last month, or last year?

In a study of over three hundred undergraduates (sets of siblings), the researchers found that firstborn siblings were significantly more likely to have Get-Better goals and use self-referenced standards, than secondborns.  Secondborns, in contrast, were more likely to pursue Be-Good goals and compare their own performance to that of others.  (Incidentally, these differences emerged whether the siblings were describing themselves, or one another other.)

Why do first- and secondborns end up with different mindsets?  At least in part, it’s because when they are young, firstborns generally don’t have anyone to compare themselves to – and neither do their parents.   When little Alec starts crawling, speaking, and walking, he hears things like “Wow, two weeks ago he could only sit up and now look at him go!”  “Last month he seemed to only say a few words and now he never stops talking!”  The focus of attention is on individual progress, with only your own past behavior as a reference – this naturally leads to more Get-Better thinking.

Younger siblings, on the other hand, have someone to compare themselves to from the very beginning.  So little Daniel is more likely to hear “He spoke sooner than Alec did,” or “He’s not crawling as quickly as Alec, is he?”  It’s quite natural for parents (and children) to make these comparisons, but their unintended consequence is the potential for much more Be-Good thinking.

The problem with Be-Goodgoals is while they are very motivating, they tend to backfire when things get hard.  We quickly start to doubt our ability (“Oh no, maybe I’m notgood at this!”), and this creates a lot of anxiety.  Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to ultimately fail.  And if you think you don’t have what it takes to succeed, you give up on yourself way too soon and never reach your full potential.

Get-Better goals, on the other hand, are practically bullet-proof.  When we think about what we are doing in terms of learning and improving, accepting that we may make some mistakes along the way, we stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur. 

Now, of course there will be plenty of firstborns with a Be-Good mindset who feel they need to be better than everyone else (think Cain), and plenty of secondborns with a Get-Better mindset who aren’t obsessed with comparison (Prince Harry seems to be more of a march-to-your-own-drummer type).  But if you are a secondborn who suspects you’ve been a victim of too much Be-Goodthinking, don’t despair!  You can retrain your brain and shift your mindset with patience and practice.

How can you reframe your goals in terms of Getting Better? Here are the three steps:

Step 1:  Start by embracing the fact that when something is difficult and unfamiliar, you will need some time to really get a handle on it.  You may make some mistakes, and that’s ok.

Step 2:  Remember to ask for help when you run into trouble.  Needing help doesn’t mean you aren’t capable – in fact, the opposite is true.  Only the very foolish believe they can do everything on their own.

Step 3: Try not to compare yourself to other people – instead, deliberately compare your performance today to your performance yesterday.  Focusing on getting better means always thinking in terms of progress, not perfection.