Feature article: Happier people make things happen
(article adapted from Tracy Tagliati, The Thiagi Group)
Happy, satisfied people are more successful and more open to new experiences. So if you want to develop smart, open-minded and creative people, you could start by increasing their happiness. Increase your happiness with one of 10 happiness–generating activities.
Happy people are more successful. Research shows a high correlation between happiness and desirable results in such areas as sociability, energy, charitable behavior, cooperation, popularity, getting married, staying married, networking, friendship, social support, flexibility, productivity, effective leadership, effective negotiation skills, resiliency, immune systems, health, and longer life. Barbara Fredrickson (2005) and others have demonstrated that increasing happiness results in a person’s ability to make more effective use of intellectual, physical, and social resources. Happiness makes your mind more expansive, tolerant, and creative. It makes you more open to new ideas and new experiences.
So if you want to develop smart, open-minded, and creative people, you may want to begin by increasing their happiness.
What Exactly Is Happiness?
The thesaurus has a confusing array of synonyms for happiness: bliss, cheerfulness, contentment, enjoyment, euphoria, gladness, mirth, nirvana and zest. The wide range of definitions of these words do not help us get a clear understanding of what happiness is all about. To add to this confusion, until recently psychologists preferred to avoid happiness in favor of more politically acceptable terms such as quality of life and life satisfaction.
We prefer Tal Ben Shahar’s definition of happiness as the overall experience of pleasure and meaning. In this definition, pleasure refers to the present benefit of enjoyment while meaning refers to the future benefit of purpose. Martin Seligman goes a step further and identifies three time-based elements of happiness: - Satisfaction, contentment, pride, and serenity related to one’s past
- Bodily pleasures and being engaged in activities that we like related to the present
- Optimism, hope, confidence, trust, and faith related to the future
Can We Really Increase Our Happiness?
Before we explore happiness activities, let us ask a prior question: Can we increase our level of happiness?
Currently, there is general acceptance among researchers of the conclusion by Sonja Lyubomisrsky who hypothesize that a person’s happiness level is governed by three major factors: - a genetically determined set point for happiness
- circumstantial factors
- voluntary activities and practices
First, the bad news: There is strong evidence (primarily from studies of identical twins separated at birth) that the tendency toward experiencing happiness is a inherited characteristic. Sonja Lyubomisrsky suggests that this hereditary factor (labeled as happiness set point) may account for as much as 50 percent of our capacity to experience happiness. This is why people who are elated after winning a lottery or depressed after suffering from a paraplegic injury return to their set point levels of happiness a few months after the incident.
More bad news: Most circumstances that surround your life do not affect your level of happiness. As conventional wisdom suggests, money cannot buy happiness. Christopher Peterson points out that there is no correlation between happiness and such circumstantial factors as age, gender, education, social class, income, having children, intelligence, or physical attractiveness. There is only a moderate connection between happiness and other circumstantial factors such as number of friends, being married, religiousness, leisure activities, physical health, and extraversion. Sonja Lyubomisrsky estimates that these factors contribute to only about 10 percent of our capacity for happiness.
Here is the good news: After accounting for the 50 percent impact of the hereditary set point and 10 percent for life circumstances, there is still about 40 percent of our capacity to experience happiness that is still under the control of our voluntary activities and thoughts. This is where happiness activities enter the picture. Based on the practices of philosophical and religious sages through the ages and modern experimental research by positive psychologists, these activities have been shown to directly affect our capacity to experience happiness.
Happiness Activities
Here are brief summaries of 10 happiness activities, all of which have been experimentally validated. These activities are primarily based on the books and reports of Sonja Lyubomirski, Christopher Peterson, Marin Seligman, and Tal Ben Shahar:
1. Best Possible Selves
This is an exercise for increasing your optimism. Think about and visualize what you will be doing and what you would have accomplished one year, five years, and ten years from now. Write down details of these fantasies to capture positive pictures of your best future. Repeat this activity once every month.
2. Comparing Fun and Philanthropy
Think of fun activities that you would enjoy (such as eating ice cream or playing card games with friends). Select one of these activities. Now think of activities that would be helpful to others (such as volunteering to baby sit for your neighbor or picking up trash in a playground). Select one of these activities and set aside two days for performing them. On the first day, flip a coin to select whether you would do the fun activity or the philanthropic activity. Do the other activity on the next day. After completing both activities, think of your reactions: how you felt during and after completing each type of activity.
3. Gift of Time
Give someone a gift of the most valuable asset you have: your time. Spend time for your friend and with your friend. Do not keep track of how much time you are spending. Do not tell your friend that you are spending time with him or her. Spend as much time as needed to create an impact.
4. Gratitude Letter
Think of different people in your life (such as your teachers and childhood friends) who have helped you. Write a gratitude letter to a one of these people. Don’t make this a short thank-you note, but create a heartfelt outpouring of your gratitude for the different ways in which this person has helped you. Be specific in identifying what this person did for you and how you benefitted from these acts of kindness. Have a meeting with this person and read the letter. Or read the letter over the telephone. If this is not possible, mail the letter to the person. Repeat this activity for a different person each month.
5. Gratitude Journal
At the end of each day, identify three good things that happened to you. Jot down these things (for which you are grateful) in a daily journal. Make this a ritual before going to sleep at the end of each day.
6. Hardship Debrief
Think of a crisis that you faced or a loss that you endured. Write down details of this incident, including all things that caused you pain and suffering. Without disregarding or downplaying the painful aspects of this incident, think of some positive outcomes. Consider how this crisis made you stronger, more resilient, and more appreciative of other things in your life. Think of the new doors that have opened when some door closed on you during this crisis.
7. Have a Good Day
Take this usually mindless remark seriously. For the next two weeks (or the next month), rate how good each day was. Identify patterns among your good days and discover the factors that contributed to your positive feelings about those days. Then deliberately set about planning and achieving a great day.
8. Let Someone Else Shine
When you are working with someone else or with a team, do your best to support your partner or teammates. Without calling attention to what you are doing, help the other people take a major role in accomplishing the goal and feeling good about themselves. Be generous and genuine in publicly giving credit and praising others for their contributions.
9. Meaning, Pleasure, and Enjoyment
Make a list of activities and goals that are meaningful to you (things that increase your sense of purpose). Make another list of items that are pleasant (things that increase your enjoyment). Finally, make a list of your strengths (things you are good at). Compare these three lists and discover overlapping items. Use the information to create your Calling Specification (similar to a Job Specification). Plan to spend your work and family time incorporating various aspects of this specification.
10. Signature Strengths
Use a valid online instrument to identify your strengths. Take the free VIA (Values in Action) Survey at http://www.viastrengths.org/ and receive personalized feedback on your top five signature strengths of character (from among a list of 24 strengths). (More than a million people from around the world have taken this survey, which was developed by Seligman and Peterson.) Alternatively, buy a copy of the book, StrengthFinder 2.0 (by Tom Rath, published by the Gallup Press) and take the online assessment associated with it. Receive personalized feedback about your top five strengths (from among 34 themes). Write down your top strengths and refer to them frequently. Discovering your strengths is the first step in leading a more engaged life.
Once you have identified your signature strengths as suggested above, reflect on each one of them. Select one of your strengths and brainstorm strategies for using that strength in new and different ways. Then spend a day (or a week) maximizing the application of this strength. Repeat the process with each of your other strengths.
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