You may have seen the new TED talk by Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work, you may not have. I do encourage you to watch the entire thing (it’s 12 minutes long…so brace yourself, busy people!), but I’ve summed it up in the following post (as well as taking ideas from other research).
Happiness isn’t on the other side of success
Does the phrase, “I will be happy if I can just do/have/be…” sound familiar?
It does to me, and I’m betting that it rings a bell to a lot of you – perhaps you think it to yourself, perhaps you hear others say it. What scientific research is now showing is that if an individual feels dissatisfied in the present, that they are not only less likely to achieve their goals, but if they do – they will not be likely to experience happiness. They just change the goalposts and feel ‘less than’ compared to a new standard. For example: If you work all year to get a new promotion, you hate your current job and expect all things to be better once you get the promotion. There are a few things happening here:
a) You are creating a mental habit of ruminating on the negatives – this is not easy to shake
b) You may become less appealing to your employer – there’s a saying “work for the job you want, rather than the job you have”. BE the employee that everyone would want working with/for THEM.
c) Once you get to your success, you will move your goal targets to the next ‘thing’ and may not appreciate the benefits.
It’s very important to set goals – that’s what our whole business is about! However, it is equally important to look for and value the life and blessings that you have NOW – train your brain to be positive and even more positive opportunities tend to flow your way. Now, this may sound a bit ‘hippy’, but the scientific link between Positive Psychology and Success is growing stronger and stronger every day. Try some of these things for 21 days and perhaps you will be able to notice the difference:
– Writing 3 things that you are grateful for each day
– Meditating or sitting in silence, focusing on one thing
– Journalling
– Exercise
– Random Acts of Kindness
LLUMI Australia 