According to our study of mental health struggles, only 26% of people dealing with mental struggles feel comfortable talking about it with their partner. In other words, 3 out of 4 people struggling with an issue of mental health are not comfortable discussing it with their partner.

Even though your partner may not be showing signs of mental health issues, there’s still a strong chance that they will benefit from a therapy session.

Would you consider gifting your partner a therapy session for Christmas this year?

About this data: We surveyed 5,521 people and found that almost 90% of people struggle with mental health issues. These results led us to start publishing interviews with people struggling with issues of mental health. This year, we published over 100 interviews and are sharing all the data behind these interviews here on Tracking Happiness.

Therapy is most helpful for anxiety and depression

At the point of writing, I’ve interviewed 108 people, of which 57 were helped by therapy (53%).

No other treatment comes close in its effectiveness as therapy does. Therapy is what helps most people overcome their mental struggles. In addition to therapy, here are other ways people are finding help in overcoming their struggles:

• Therapy (helped 57 of 108 people)
• Self-improvement (helped 47 of 108 people)
• Support from friends, partners, family, etc (helped 38 out of 108 people)
• Self-Care (helped 31 of 108 people)
• Reinventing yourself (helped 27 of 108 people)
• Medication (helped 25 out of 108 people)

Therapy is the most effective treatment for mental health struggles, based on 108 interviews.

What I’ve learned from these 108 interviews is interesting: Therapy is especially effective for people struggling with specific mental struggles.

For example, therapy is especially effective at helping people overcome depression.

Out of the 108 people I’ve interviewed so far, exactly half of them struggled with depression. 33 of these people shared how they were helped by therapy.

Mark was the 9th person I interviewed, and belongs to this group:

“I was embarrassed by my feelings and didn’t want anyone to know how much pain I was in, so I often put on a brave face. Even on my worst days, I tried to make it look like everything was okay when I felt anything but deep down.”

When I asked him for his best piece of advice, he answered:

“I advise someone struggling to reach out for help and support. It can feel overwhelming, but it’s important to remember that you are not alone. There are people around you who care about your well-being and want to help. Whether it’s a close friend, family member, or professional therapist, it is important to talk to someone and share your struggles.”

Out of the 108 people I’ve interviewed, therapy turned out to be of even more help to those who struggled with anxiety.

Sharanya was the 103rd person I interviewed. Therapy helped her overcome anxiety even though her first 3 shots at therapy weren’t successful:

“I had tried therapy once, way back in early 2019, but didn’t find it helpful. I tried it again in 2020 and early 2021 but did not find it very helpful. I felt like I was summarizing what was happening in my life to someone, that’s it.”

She eventually found a therapist that helped her overcome her anxiety:

“I’ve been in therapy for almost 2 years now, with weekly therapy sessions and daily medication. I can now confidently say that I have the ability to tackle whatever life throws at me and hope that I don’t experience a drawn-out phase of struggle like before.”

What about online therapy?

Interestingly enough, none of the people I’ve interviewed have been helped by online therapy.

Lots of online therapy platforms do their best to convince others that online therapy is just as helpful as in-person therapy. With lower costs, no commute and flexible scheduling, there are plenty of benefits to this type of therapy.

Interestingly, none of the people I’ve interviewed have been helped by online therapy. All the 57 interviewed people who were helped by therapy were helped by actual in-person therapy.

The gift of therapy

If you’re looking for the perfect Christmas gift this year, maybe this will convince you that therapy might be the best gift.

Now, I understand that giving someone a certificate for 1 free hour of therapy might come across as an insult.

How would your partner react if you gave them the certificate and said: “Here, babe, Merry Christmas”? I bet you would at least get some raised eyebrows.

But why is that, really?

It’s because there still is a big stigma on therapy as if it’s something to be ashamed of. This is obviously directly correlated to the existing mental health stigma. As for that, my goal with these interviews is to help destigmatize both these issues by sharing as many stories as possible.

Like this article? Let me know in the comments below!

Want more like this? Keep an eye on the blog as I’m publishing more articles like these!

Want to help destigmatize mental health issues with your story? I would love to publish your interview and have a positive impact on the world together. Learn more here.

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post Is Therapy The Best Christmas Gift For Your Partner This Year? appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

We recently compiled 721 survey responses and found that:

• People believe that about 50% of someone’s success is determined by their talent.
• 75% of people consider themselves to be talented.
• Believing in your own talent likely makes you 15% happier.
• You’re happier when you think talent has nothing to do with success.

These observations, and many more, are covered in this in-depth analysis of our study.

How much does talent determine an individual’s success?

We asked 721 respondents the following questions:

• On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you believe talent determines an individual’s success?

This resulted in the following answers:

The average answer amongst all 721 respondents was 4.84. This means that, on average, people believe that about 50% of someone’s success is determined by their talent.

But upon further inspection, you can see that the answers varied a lot among the respondents.

More than 10% of our respondents answered that talent doesn’t determine success at all (they answered 1/10).

Whereas 1.25% of our respondents answered that someone’s success is completely determined by their talent (they answered 10/10).

We performed this survey to learn more about growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. How does your opinion of talent and personal growth influence your opinion and happiness?

We used the answers to this first question to gauge whether or not our respondents had a growth mindset or a fixed mindset.

Fixed mindsets and growth mindsets

A growth mindset is a belief that you are capable of developing your skills and that your capabilities are not fixed. In other words, if there’s something that you cannot do now, then a growth mindset makes you think that you can become good at it in the future, no matter how much work it takes.

Whereas a fixed mindset makes you believe that your skills are fixed and that if you’re not talented, you won’t be able to develop your skills to become proficient at something.

We set out to perform this study in order to learn more about how these mindsets influence a person’s mental health and happiness.

75% of respondents consider themselves to be talented

We asked our respondents if they felt they were talented:

• Do you consider yourself to be a talented individual?

So the majority of people do consider themselves to be somewhat talented.

Only 25% of people consider themselves to be “talentless”.

People who believe themselves to be talented are more likely to think that talent is a requirement for success.

• On average, the people who don’t consider themselves talented answered 3.94 on a scale from 1 to 10.
• On the other hand, people who think they are talented answered 5.13 on average.

Interestingly, there were no respondents in our survey who considered themselves to be “talentless” while believing that someone’s talent fully determines their success.

So even though these people consider themselves to be untalented, they don’t believe that it stops them from being successful.

How happy are our respondents?

As with all of our surveys, we are ultimately looking to determine if there is a correlation between a person’s happiness and the answers they’ve given us.

So as always, we asked our respondents the following question about their happiness:

• If you look back at the last year of your life, how would you rate your happiness on a scale from 1 to 10?

This resulted in an average happiness rating of 6.18.

Believing in your own talent is linked to happiness

Remember, 75% of people consider themselves to be talented.

We compared the average happiness rating of those who believe in their talent with those who don’t.

It appears that when someone believes in their own talent, they are more likely to be happy. In fact, people who believe in their talent are 15% happier than people who don’t.

So what about the belief that talent is a requirement for success?

Your opinion of talent and success is linked to your happiness

When analyzing the answers to our first question, we divided our respondents into 3 groups:

• Those who believe talent is a requirement for success.
• Those who believe talent helps but isn’t a requirement.
• Those who believe that talent has nothing to do with success.

The question we asked was:

• On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you believe talent determines an individual’s success?

When a respondent answered 8, 9, or 10, the person was divided in the first group. When a respondent answered 1, 2, or 3, the person was divided in the last group. The remaining respondents were divided in the middle group.

The respondents who believe that talent has nothing to do with someone’s success are the happiest.

The group of respondents who believe that talent is a requirement for success are 6% less happy than the group that doesn’t believe in talent.

Commentary from the team:

Hugo Huijer, Founder of Tracking Happiness

When you look at someone who’s extraordinarily skilled at something, you don’t see how many hours of work he or she put in. Millions of people around the world saw Lionel Messi win the World Cup, but they didn’t see the years of boring repetitive practice that went into building his skill.

It’s easy to believe that there is talent involved here, but is that truly the case?

Our study suggests that believing that success requires talent puts you at a disadvantage. When you believe that talent is a prerequisite for success, you are in a way giving up control and responsibility.

Talent, or “the gift” is generally considered to be something you’re born with. And if you don’t have it, and you believe that it’s a requirement for success, you are essentially limiting yourself by believing you cannot be successful.

Whether this is a result of correlation or causation remains unclear. Nonetheless, our study proves that someone’s belief in talent says something about their mindset and happiness.

Methodology

Our survey consists of 721 respondents spread across the world. 68.4% of respondents were female, whereas 28.6% were female. The remainder of respondents answered either genderfluid or “Prefer not to say”.

Survey responses were collected between December 2, 2022, and July 10th, 2023.

Responses were collected by engaging with subscribers of Tracking Happiness through a series of email newsletters.

Illegitimate responses such as duplicate responses or responses with missing data were filtered from the results. The survey responses were completely anonymized. No personal names or email addresses were collected.

Fair use and redistribution

Tracking Happiness grants you permission to reuse, host, or repost the graphics and images from this article. When doing so, we ask that you kindly attribute the authors by linking to Tracking Happiness or this page.

The post Believing in (Your Own) Talent Makes You Happier: Survey of 721 Respondents appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

If you’re looking for a specific happiness fact or topic, please use the search function (ctrl + F) or the table of contents below!

63 facts about happiness in general

154 facts about behavior and happiness

30 facts about mental traits and happiness

76 facts about social happiness

22 facts about confidence and happiness

34 facts about negativity and happiness

10 facts about kindness and happiness

30 facts about mindfulness and happiness

10 facts about journaling and happiness

14 facts about passion and purpose and happiness

7 facts about health and happiness

38 facts about work and happiness

22 facts about exercise and happiness

8 facts about social media and happiness

10 facts about diet and happiness

4 facts about nature and happiness

6 facts about goals and happiness

19 miscellaneous facts about happiness

By the way: If you want to start feeling better and more productive, I’ve condensed the information of 100’s of our articles into a 10-step mental health cheat sheet here.

This Cheat Sheet Will Help You Be Happier and More Productive

Thrive under stress and crush your goals with these 10 unique tips for your mental health.

Download The Free Cheat Sheet

If there’s a happiness fact that you would have liked to see, please let me know in the comments below! I aim to keep this page as fresh and updated as I can!

Hugo Huijer Author

Founder of Tracking Happiness, with over 100 interviews and a focus on practical advice, our content extends beyond happiness tracking. Hailing from the Netherlands, I’m a skateboarding enthusiast, marathon runner, and a dedicated data junkie, tracking my happiness for over a decade.

The post 557 Unique Happiness Facts, According to Science appeared first on Tracking Happiness.

Here are the top 5 publications with the most happiness studies in our database:

1. NCBI: 98 happiness studies
2. APA: 50 happiness studies
3. Science Direct: 37 happiness studies
4. Sage journals: 36 happiness studies
5. Research Gate: 36 happiness studies

This page is updated every month with the latest studies and observations.

If you’re looking for a happiness study from a specific publication, please use the search function (ctrl + F) or the table of contents below!

63 studies about happiness in general

146 studies about behavior and happiness

29 studies about mental traits and happiness

76 studies about social happiness