The Happiness Advantage
After spending twelve years at Harvard University, Shawn Achor has become one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. I’ve learned much from studying his work in positive psychology. Achor studies the workplace but I think his findings can be extended to schools and home life.
According to Achor, most of us have the formula for happiness scientifically backward. Most of us follow a model of: if you work harder, you will be more successful,and then you will be happy. Achor has spent over a decade of research proving this model wrong. We first need to train our brains to be happy at work, school, home,and so forth, and then we will move toward greater success and happiness. We can’t wait for happiness. We have to initiate happiness. It is a proactive model: I work toward being happy in the circumstances I am currently in, rather than assume that one day I will be happy once I hit a certain milestone. To start, we need to cling to optimism and our support systems. In fact, 75% of our success is predicted not by intelligence, but by our optimism, social support network and the ability to manage energy and stress in a positive way.
Lucky for us, Achor gives us 5 tools in our toolbox to happiness with daily activities that correlate with positive change:
1. Jot down three things that we are grateful for.
2. Write a positive message to someone in your social support network.
3. Meditate at your desk or kitchen table for two minutes.
4. Exercise for 10 minutes.
5. Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.
Achor’s research makes it clear that increasing happiness improves your chances of success. We have to stop thinking that if we just reach the next achievement (better job, better house, lose weight, and so on) then we will finally be happy. This is false thinking. We mush develop new habits, like the ones listed above, nurture our loved ones, and think more positively about stress and then we will begin to achieve the happiness we so desire. This will lead to the happiness advantage that has been proven scientifically to lead to greater success in our lives overall.
So…
EACH DAY!