We welcome Professor Catherine Sanderson as a guest blogger this week! Catherine is a G-W author for our Health Skills for Middle School and Health Skills for High School. Check out her tips for prioritizing happiness—great reminders for both educators and students!
For the last few months, I’ve been doing something entirely new: I am working out with a personal trainer once a week. This idea was prompted in part by my recognition that strength training is a crucial part of healthy aging, but also in part by my acknowledgement that good intentions were not actually leading me to do any strength training.
So I found a local gym and I now spend an hour a week focusing intensely on getting stronger. These sessions mostly consist of Mike, my trainer, telling me to lift some weight, me saying, “There’s no way I can lift that,” and him assuring me that I actually can.
Sometimes it turns out he’s right; other times it turns out that I’m right.
I’m definitely feeling stronger, which is great.
Most importantly, what I’ve learned from this experience is that at least for me, getting stronger was not going to happen on my own. I’ve had good intentions about strength training for a while, but those good intentions were not leading to any actual changes in my behavior.
What I needed to do was to make getting stronger a priority: finding a gym, buying personal training sessions, making weekly appointments with a trainer.
This is me on Day #1 of personal training!
This simple example illustrates what empirical research in psychology demonstrates about the importance of actually prioritizing things we care about accomplishing. Many of us might recognize we’d like to feel happier, much like I recognized I should work on strength training. But the key question is whether we are actually prioritizing feeling happier.
And as it turns out, people vary considerably in how much they tend to deliberately structure their lives to build in spending time on things that make them happy.
Researchers in one study asked participants - adults ages 21 to 87 - to answer a series of questions that basically assess how much they focus on pursuing happiness in their daily lives. These questions included:
- A priority for me is experiencing happiness in everyday life.
- I structure my day to maximize my happiness
- My major decisions in life are influenced by how much I might experience positive emotions.
Study participants also completed surveys assessing their overall experience of positive and negative emotions, life satisfaction, and symptoms of depression.
Their findings provide clear evidence that making the choice to prioritize happiness is smart for us all. People who intentionally prioritized happiness felt more positive emotions - hope, joy, contentment - and fewer negative emotions - sadness, stress, anger. They also were higher in life satisfaction and had fewer symptoms of depression.
What I love about these findings is that they point to a pretty simple strategy we can all use in our daily lives to feel better: we can decide that happiness matters and we can structure our lives accordingly.
-
First, think about what actually makes you happy - what do you really enjoy doing? Knitting? Golfing? Cooking? Watching movies? Gardening? Simply reflecting on what types of activities you find most enjoyable is a crucial first step.
-
Second, make a deliberate point of scheduling those activities into your daily life. Find a day and time, and literally put it on your calendar. That could be playing tennis on Saturday mornings, reading a book for 20 minutes every night at 10 pm, or planning dinner with friends once a month.
Here’s my personal takeaway from these findings: I’ve done a great job of strength training over the last few months because I’ve actually scheduled it (thanks to needing to coordinate with my trainer). But I’ve done a much less good job of scheduling in something else I love - reading fiction - and my goal is now to put reading also on my calendar.
Looking for ways to increase happiness in your life? If you’re attending the 2026 SHAPE America conference, Catherine Sanderson will be this year’s keynote speaker and will share practical tips to apply to your life! Join us on March 17 for Finding Happiness: Ten Science-Backed Strategies for Educators. A book signing and photo opportunity will immediately follow.
Not attending the conference, but interested in bringing science-based strategies like these into your health education courses? Catherine is also the author of G-W’s Health Skills for Middle School and Health Skills for High School, which provide health education knowledge that can contribute to a lifetime of wellness. Free Previews are available! Contact your local G-W Educational Consultant to learn more.
Let’s work together to encourage healthy living!
Photo Credits:
Photo 1: Courtesy of Catherine Sanderson
