Mental Subtraction of Positive Events (Greater Good in Action)

Time Required

15 minutes. Try to make time to do this practice once per week, focusing on a different positive event each week. It might help to do this practice at the same time each week—before bed each Sunday evening, perhaps, or at lunch every Friday.

How to Do It

Take a moment to think about a positive event in your life, such as an educational or career achievement, the birth of a child, or a special trip you took.
Think back to the time of this event and the circumstances that made it possible.
Consider the ways in which this event may never have happened—for example, if you hadn’t happened to learn about a certain job opening at the right moment.
Write down all of the possible events and decisions—large and small—that could have gone differently and prevented this event from occurring.
Imagine what your life would be like now if you hadn’t enjoyed this positive event and all the fruits that flowed from it.
Shift your focus to remind yourself that this event actually did happen and reflect upon the benefits it has brought you. Now that you have considered how things might have turned out differently, appreciate that these benefits were not inevitable in your life. Allow yourself to feel grateful that things happened as they did.

Why You Should Try It

It’s easy to take the good things in life for granted, but research suggests that the more we stop to appreciate what we have, the happier and healthier we are. This exercise is designed to help you increase feelings of gratitude for positive events in your life by visualizing what your life would be like without them. By getting a taste of their absence, you should be able to appreciate their presence in your life more deeply—without actually having to lose them for real.

It’s like being in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life—or Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi,” where "you don't know what you've got till it's gone.”

Why It Works

Mental subtraction counteracts our tendency to take positive events in our lives as givens. When we consider the circumstances that led to an event, we may be surprised by how unlikely that event actually was, and how lucky we were that it happened as it did. While it can be painful to think about not having experienced an important positive event, this scenario provides a negative contrast against which our current situation can be favorably compared.

Evidence That It Works

Koo, M., Algoe, S. B., Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2008). It's a wonderful life: Mentally subtracting positive events improves people's affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1217-1224.

Participants were asked to think about what their lives would have been like had a positive event never happened; other participants either simply thought about the event or thought about how it was not surprising that the event had happened. The participants who practiced “mental subtraction”—they considered their lives without the positive event—reported feeling more positive states and more gratitude than the other participants did.

For More

For a variation on this practice in which you consider life without an important person in your life, consider this version of the “mental subtraction” practice, which is intended not only to increase feelings of gratitude but to strengthen a close relationship as well.

Comments
and Reviews

Julia Scott March 18, 2024

Trying to subtract the positive events is like taking away my existence because all those events is an essential part of what makes, me, me.

Eileen Carlile October 18, 2023

I haven’t experienced most of he events described. It made me feel even lower than the regular people who would come to this site for guidance. I am on a worse, more hopeless level of existing.

Julio Samperio June 30, 2021

Melanie Amy Martinez May 3, 2021

Becky Navarro March 12, 2021

Siempre es bueno tomarnos unos momentos para analizar los buenos y malos momentos, considero que ambos son buenos ya que los malos no siempre son negativos ya que te dejan una enseñanza y siempre que se aprende es algo positivo , en los buenos tomarse el momento y agradecer por cada pequeño escalón que se logra subir en lo personal desde el continuar superándome en mis estudios , el que estoy formando una familia el que estoy en el trabajo que me encanta y tomarse ese momento de ver lo positivo es un impulso para continuar.

Luis Martinez March 11, 2021

Excelente reflexión que nos hace recordar en primera instancia lo bella que es la vida y como plus las cosas buenas que nos pone en el camino, el momento mas feliz de mi vida y que no cambiaria por nada es el nacimiento de mi hijo, algo que, aunque quieras, jamás podrás olvidar.

Other Practices Like This

Pathway to Happiness Program

Self-Compassion Break

A healthier way to deal with stressful situations.

Casual

Meaningful Photos

A creative way to build happiness and meaning in life.

Moderate

Pathway to Happiness Program

Random Acts of Kindness

How to feel happier by doing things for others.

Moderate

Exciting Activities for Couples

Spice up your relationship by trying something new.

Moderate

Julia Scott March 18, 2024

Trying to subtract the positive events is like taking away my existence because all those events is an essential part of what makes, me, me.
Eileen Carlile October 18, 2023

I haven’t experienced most of he events described. It made me feel even lower than the regular people who would come to this site for guidance. I am on a worse, more hopeless level of existing.
Julio Samperio June 30, 2021
Melanie Amy Martinez May 3, 2021
Becky Navarro March 12, 2021

Siempre es bueno tomarnos unos momentos para analizar los buenos y malos momentos, considero que ambos son buenos ya que los malos no siempre son negativos ya que te dejan una enseñanza y siempre que se aprende es algo positivo , en los buenos tomarse el momento y agradecer por cada pequeño escalón que se logra subir en lo personal desde el continuar superándome en mis estudios , el que estoy formando una familia el que estoy en el trabajo que me encanta y tomarse ese momento de ver lo positivo es un impulso para continuar.
Luis Martinez March 11, 2021

Excelente reflexión que nos hace recordar en primera instancia lo bella que es la vida y como plus las cosas buenas que nos pone en el camino, el momento mas feliz de mi vida y que no cambiaria por nada es el nacimiento de mi hijo, algo que, aunque quieras, jamás podrás olvidar.