reference points - Adria Biasi

April 21, 2020April 21, 2020The Science of Well-Being

Using Kindness to Improve Happiness

We saw, in our first post dedicated to The Science of Well-Being, that the things we think will make us happier, actually don’t. And maybe this is true because we are miswanting a bunch of things in our life. How do we begin to genuinely identify the thing that will truly make us happier in the long term. And how do we know what things we are actually supposed to want? One way is through the act being kind. Today we are going to discuss using kindness to improve happiness. Kindness We should be seeking out more opportunities to act …

April 18, 2020April 18, 2020The Science of Well-Being

Reset Your Reference Points

How do we get over the annoying feature of our mind that decides to judge ourselves against relative versus absolute reference points? Please read this post if you feel confused about reference points! Let’s talk about how to reset your reference points to help you become genuinely happier. Reference Points Quick reminder, this annoying feature of our mind is the one that compares ourselves, our successes, our dreams, against others and not against what we care about or seek internally. These reference points are affecting our happiness levels, without us even realizing it. We use other people’s lives, social media, …

April 13, 2020April 13, 2020The Science of Well-Being

Annoying Features of the Mind Part 3

Here we are, the final part of week 3, from The Science of Well-Being. And we will be discussing the Annoying Features of the Mind Part 3. So far we have discussed Annoy Features of the Mind Part 1 & 2. Miswanting, absolute vs relative reference points, and social comparison. Go check them out. There is lots of information, but it is really eye opening! Now, let’s dive into, Annoying Features of the Mind Part 3. Annoying Feature # 3 Hedonic adaptation. Have you noticed that our minds adapt over time? That they habituate? Side note, I love the word …

April 12, 2020April 12, 2020The Science of Well-Being

Annoying Features of the Mind Part 2

Welcome to Annoying Features of the Mind Part 2. Last post, we discussed the first two annoying features; miswanting and absolute vs relative reference points. We left off within the topic of reference points. Specifically, social comparison. Social Comparison To review, social comparison is the act of evaluating yourself. Whatever it is; salary, possessions, abilities, beauty, and grades. Whatever it is, relative to other people. We discussed this in relationship to salary in the last post. If we are going to use reference points, we should at least use reasonable ones. But our minds just don’t do that. Our minds, …

April 12, 2020April 12, 2020The Science of Well-Being

Annoying Features of the Mind

Welcome to week 3 of my cliff notes version of The Science Of Well-Being online course. This week will also be broken down into 2 or 3 parts. Let’s get right into discussing annoying features of the mind, shall we? Last week we discussed some misconceptions of happiness. All these things we care about, that we think will make us happy, are not actually making us happy, or at least not as happy as we think. And today, we’re going to walk through why that is. Annoying Feature # 1 Why are our expectations so wrong? Why do we think …