The world around us can easily become chaotic. Life and work are moving fast and can often bring stress and undue pressure even for the most composed and organised ones among us. Many think that the harder they work the more successful they will become and hence the happier their lives will be. While there is a direct correlation between success and happiness, we all know that success does not always bring happiness. But does happiness increase your chances of success?
Most people I come across are generally happy and positive but not enough people pursue happiness. Research has shown that people are more successful when they are happy and positive. This is because happy people are more likely to behave in ways that lead to success. If therefore, our ability to achieve success somewhat depends on happiness, will we be more inclined to pursue it? Shawn Achor offers us the Happiness Advantage. In his book, he describes 7 principles of positive psychology that may help us perform better and achieve success. Here are 3 of them:
- The positivity factor – This encompasses what Achor calls the Happiness Advantage. A positive brain does have a biological advantage because happiness is characterised by emotions of joy, hope, inspiration, serenity, pride, love etc. all of which fuel creativity and innovation. The happier we are, the more motivated we are to do the things that help us achieve our goals and consequently make us successful.
ACTION: Figure out the things that bring you joy, hope, inspiration, serenity, love, pride and surround yourself with those things.
- How do you see the world?- A glass is either half full or half empty. It just depends on your outlook – positive or negative. We are able to significantly change our outcomes based on our perception of the situations we find ourselves in. I was once told the tale of a man who tried to escape captivity. He had scaled nine fences in a bid to reach freedom. After the ninth fence he managed to convince himself there was no way out and proceeded to scale the nine fences back to captivity. Well it turns out there was only one more fence he needed to scale to reach his freedom!
ACTION: Change your mind-set. You can empower yourself to experience life differently by changing the meaning that you give to things and situations you find yourself in.
- Train Your Brain To See The Opportunities – Our brains are programmed to act in patterns that we create. If we respond to an event, time and time again in a certain way, then we create a pattern for our brains to follow. The “tetris effect” is the notion that you can retrain your brain to spot patterns of possibility instead of impossibility and to seek out opportunity instead of weaknesses.
ACTION: Consciously look for opportunities in everyday life. Do it consistently for one month and your brain will naturally adjust itself.
“Happiness is not the lack of troubles, it’s the capacity to deal with them” – Author unknown
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