The #1 Predictor of happiness
In The Practice of Groundedness by Brad Stulberg, which is easily one of my all time favorite books, there’s a chapter that details the value of presence. Included in it is a Harvard Study by psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert that looked at how presence relates to emotion. Here’s an excerpt:
“Killingsworth and Gilbert found that the quality of one’s presence determined the quality of their life. ‘How often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged,’ says Killingsworth. The more present we are, the better.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
How PRESENT your mind is throughout the day means more for your happiness than what you’re actually doing.
That’s pretty wild.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had legitimate DAYS where I have spent very little time being present in what I’m doing. More than I care to admit. Days where my mind is constantly elsewhere, distracted, stressed, or thinking about the next thing, instead of being calm and focused on the task at hand.
The fact that presence is so important for feeling happy shouldn’t come as a shock to me, because deep down I already know that it’s true. If you asked me what the 5 happiest moments of 2024 were for me, the common theme across them all would be that I was present. I was IN the moment, both mentally and physically.
Ask yourself that same question—what were your happiest moments last year? Who were you with, what were you doing…but perhaps most importantly, what was your mind doing? Were you present?
I’m willing to bet that you were.
What’s insane is that in our current world, you could go for days, months, years, without ever really being present. Our daily screen time is off the charts. Distractions abound. Work stress is high. Something that should be so simple—just being present in what you’re doing—is increasingly harder to come by.
So here’s my challenge to you (and to myself): be present today, even if it’s just in 1 moment, for 1 minute. 100% guarantee you’ll be happy you did. And it’ll be just a little bit easier to do the next time.
