What can one do to permanently increase one's baseline happiness (subjective well-being)?
Going off the findings in this paper, it seems that one's baseline level of happiness can be increased and maintained at a (weakly) significant level by &quot;continual effort and engagement in  some  intentional  process&quot; (Sheldon &amp; Lyubomirsky, 2006, pg. 59), which the authors refer to as &quot;activity-based changes&quot;. Examples given include, starting to exercise, beginning a new project, or gaining a new perspective.
This as opposed to circumstance-based changes which deliver only minimal, short-lived increases in happiness, such as getting a raise, or buying a new car.
I feel it is important to note that this is only one paper which uses a short time frame of only 6 months to measures changes in happiness. However, it seems then that to achieve lasting increases in our happiness set point, we are better off working on ourselves than our surroundings.