If I was to ask you to, right now, name five things that are going wrong, you’d probably have an immediate answer:
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You didn’t sleep well last night
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You have a big deadline coming up
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You have a lingering ache in your back
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You’re frustrated with a colleague at work
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You’re stressed about how to pay for a big upcoming expense
And if I was then to ask you to, right now, name five things that are going well, you probably wouldn’t have an immediate answer. You’d have to really stop and think about it. You might even struggle to come up with five things.
That’s because your brain has a negativity bias. At every moment, it is nudging you to pay more attention towards what is going wrong. From an evolutionary perspective, this is very smart: it protects you from danger. From a well-being perspective, this is very frustrating: it prevents you from seeing all of the good in your life.
Thanks to this bias, you often miss what’s going right—ignoring it, taking it for granted, or simply missing the opportunity to extract greater happiness from it. In fact, studies have found that most of us have more positive daily events than difficult ones, but because of this bias, it doesn’t feel this way.
That’s why one of the most important happiness skills is learning how to take control of your attention. That's what makes it possible to focus on what you want to see—not just what your brain wants you to see.
At any moment in your day, you can practice this skill. Here’s how:
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At least once per day, pause whatever you’re doing.
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Notice what your attention is focused on at that moment.
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Consciously move your attention to something around that you that is positive, beautiful, or good. (Start small: the food you’re eating, a cup of tea, the sunshine.)
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Keep your attention on it for at least 10-20 seconds. As you do, try to allow yourself to really appreciate its goodness and soak it in.
When you’re done, you might notice a change in your mood: you feel calmer, excited, or happier. And you might even notice that the world around you changes, too. For when we focus our attention on one thing that’s good, suddenly, we start to see so many other good things around us, too. Gratitude expands.