Sonja Lyubomirsky

Brief Biography

Sonja Lyubomirsky (née Sonya Lyubomirskaya) was born in 1966 in Moscow, USSR (now Russia). In 1975, at the age of nine, she moved with her family to the United States.

The Lyubomirsky family initially settled in Brookline, Massachusetts, and later moved to Bethesda, Maryland, where the future psychologist attended high school in Washington, DC.

Upon graduating from high school in 1984, Sonja Lyubomirsky attended college at Harvard University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in psychology, summa cum laude, in 1989.

For her graduate work, Lyubomirsky studied at Stanford University, which granted her a PhD in social psychology in 1994.

Lyubomirsky has spent her career in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. First hired in 1994, she achieved the status of full professor at UC-Riverside in 2005. Since 2019, she has served there as a Distinguished Professor.

Lyubomirsky’s career has been focused, from her PhD dissertation forward, on happiness and its etiology. She argues that, while one’s propensity for positive or negative affect is partially inherited (genetic) and partially environmentally influenced, one also has the ability to influence one’s own moods by the positive exertion of free will (the “positive activity” model).

Lyubomirsky’s research has extended to the exploration of which positive actions by subjects have a beneficial effect on their own long-term affect and which actions have a neutral or negative effect.

Recently, she has undertaken a study of the effects on mood of long-term use of digital media.

Lyubomirsky has authored two influential books for a popular audience: The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007) and The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does (2013). Both books have been translated into several dozen foreign languages.

Lyubomirsky has also published around 180 peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as many popular essays and commentaries. In addition, she has delivered invited more than 100 lectures and keynote addresses at academic conferences in the US and around the world.

Notable Quotes

Note: The original sources of the following quotations attributed here to Sonja Lyubomirsky are provided where known. If no specific source is mentioned, then the attributed quotation may be assumed to derive from or (perhaps via paraphrase) be inspired by Lyubomirsky’s many academic and popular writings.

Anticipation

People prone to joyful anticipation, skilled at obtaining pleasure from looking forward and imagining future happy events, are especially likely to be optimistic and to experience intense emotions.

Construction of Happiness

I prefer to think of the creation or construction of happiness, because research shows that it’s in our power to fashion it for ourselves.

Every day you have to renew your commitment. Some of the strategies should become habitual over time and not a huge effort.

If we can accept as true that life circumstances are not the keys to happiness, we’ll be greatly empowered to pursue happiness for ourselves.

It may be obvious that to achieve anything substantial in life—learn a profession, master a sport, raise a child—a good deal of effort is required.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Don’t be the person who is waiting for this, that, or the other thing to happen before she can be happy.

Renew your commitment every day. Not only the strategy but the very act of recommitment will become easier and more automatic with time.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

You must resolve to undertake a program to become happier. You must learn what you need to do. You must put weekly or even daily effort into it. You must commit to the goal for a long period of time, possibly for the rest of your life.

[E]mpowering people to develop a positive state of mind—to live the most rewarding and happiest lives they can—is just as important as psychology’s traditional focus on repairing their weaknesses and healing their pathologies.

[H]appiness level is entirely in your hands, that your “unhappy genes” do not doom you to unhappiness or, worse, to depression.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Thus the key to happiness lies not in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and not in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Depression

Depression is an illness, not a failing. It’s what psychologists call a syndrome—that is, a group of signs and symptoms that form a pattern.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

To be sure, depression has been described as a syndrome distinguished by a deficit of positive emotions: a lack of joy, curiosity, contentment, enthusiasm—that is, an empty cup. Indeed, inability to take pleasure in joyful events is a hallmark of depression.

Most people recognize, however, that relief of symptoms is not the depressed person’s ultimate objective. If you are depressed, your goal is not just not to be depressed; your goal is to be happy.

Like interpersonal therapists, marital and family therapists recognize that depressed individuals often have problems with family relationships. Indeed, if you are married and depressed, you are very likely to be experiencing distress in your marriage.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

The second reason to seek help for your depression is that it can wreak lasting damage on your life. Research shows that the toll depression takes is as great as that of a chronic physical disorder like diabetes, arthritis, or high blood pressure.

Empathy

One way to practice empathy in your daily life is to notice every time someone does something that you do not understand. Try to work out such a person’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Forgiveness

Forgiving people are less likely to be hateful, depressed, hostile, anxious, angry, and neurotic.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Forgiveness, at a minimum, is a decision to let go of the desire for revenge and ill-will toward the person who wronged you. It may also include feelings of goodwill toward the other person. Forgiveness is also a natural resolution of the grief process, which is the necessary acknowledgment of pain and loss.

Gratitude

The practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed.

Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present oriented.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

[P]eople who regularly practice appreciation or gratitude—who, for example, “count their blessings” once a week over the course of one to twelve consecutive weeks or pen appreciation letters to people who’ve been kind and meaningful—become reliably happier and healthier, and remain happier for as long as six months after the experiment is over.

The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does (2013).

Happiness

I use the term happiness to refer to the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it’s not out there is that it’s inside us.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

[H]appiness, more than anything, is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

In a nutshell, the fountain of happiness can be found in how you behave, what you think, and what goals you set every day of your life.

If you’re not happy today, then you won’t be happy tomorrow unless you take things into your own hands and take action.

It is equally important to investigate wellness as it is to study misery.

Last but not least, the happiest people do have their share of stresses, crises, and even tragedies. They may become just as distressed and emotional in such circumstances as you or I, but their secret weapon is the poise and strength they show in coping in the face of challenge.

You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Indeed, frequent positive emotions—feelings of joy, delight, contentment, serenity, curiosity, interest, vitality, enthusiasm, vigor, thrill, and pride—are the very hallmark of happiness.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.

The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does (2013).

The face of happiness may be someone who is intensely curious and enthusiastic about learning; it may be someone who is engrossed in plans for his next five years; it may be someone who can distinguish between the things that matter and the things that don’t; it may be someone who looks forward each night to reading to her child. Some happy people may appear outwardly cheerful or transparently serene, and others are simply busy. In other words, we all have the potential to be happy, each in our own way.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Life

[W]e habitually fail to enjoy, savor, and live in the present, as our minds are often someplace else. However, when you think about it, the present moment is all we are really guaranteed.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Lyubomirsky on Lyubomirsky

I meditate every morning for twenty minutes. It is a sacred time that I protect from all intrusions or commitments, and for the rest of the day I am more centered and open-minded, not as sensitive or irritable or tense. I feel a sense of well-being that lasts all day. A day that I miss doing it is not the same, somehow wrecked.

Sometimes when I’m facing a horrendous week or am upset over a perceived slight, I remind myself that I won’t remember it (much less care about it) one month, six months, or a year from now. (The more extreme version of this strategy is to use the deathbed criterion: Will it matter when you’re on your deathbed?)

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Optimism

All that is required to become an optimist is to have the goal and to practice it. The more you rehearse optimistic thoughts, the more “natural” and “ingrained” they will become. With time they will be part of you, and you will have made yourself into an altogether different person.

[Optimism] is not about providing a recipe for self-deception. The world can be a horrible, cruel place, and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant. These are both truths. There is not a halfway point; there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

So go for it. Smile, laugh, stand tall, act lively, and give hugs. Act as if you were confident, optimistic, and outgoing. You’ll manage adversity, rise to the occasion, create instant connections, make friends and influence people, and become a happier person.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Construing benefit in negative events can influence your physical health as well as your happiness, a remarkable demonstration of the power of mind over body. For example, in one study researchers interviewed men who had had heart attacks between the ages of thirty and sixty. Those who perceived benefits in the event seven weeks after it happened—for example, believing that they had grown and matured as a result, or revalued home life, or resolved to create less hectic schedules for themselves—were less likely to have recurrences and more likely to be healthy eight years later. In contrast, those who blamed their heart attacks on other people or on their own emotions (e.g., having been too stressed) were now in poorer health.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Purposefulness

Find a happy person, and you will find a project.

It turns out that the process of working toward a goal, participating in a valued and challenging activity, is as important to well-being as its attainment.

If we observe genuinely happy people, we shall find that they do not just sit around being contented. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. In sum, our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are, over and above the effects of our set points and the circumstances in which we find themselves. If an unhappy person wants to experience interest, enthusiasm, contentment, peace, and joy, he or she can make it happen by learning the habits of a happy person.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).

Unhappiness

The combination of rumination and negative mood is toxic. Research shows that people who ruminate while sad or distraught are likely to feel besieged, powerless, self-critical, pessimistic, and generally negatively biased.

We found that the happiest people take pleasure in other people’s successes and show concern in the face of others’ failures. A completely different portrait, however, has emerged of a typical unhappy person—namely, as someone who is deflated rather than delighted about his peers’ accomplishments and triumphs and who is relieved rather than sympathetic in the face of his peers’ failures and undoings.

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (2007).