“For untold generations, we have been led to believe that happiness orbited around success. That if we work hard enough, we will be successful, and only if we are successful will we become happy. The opposite is true.” – Shawn Achor
If you knew there was a secret to becoming happier – wouldn’t you want to know it?
And more importantly wouldn't you want to implement it into your life?
I was under the illusion that some people are just born happier than others or have a knack of looking on the bright side but that is not the full story.
Happiness like everything else is something we can develop for ourselves.
We have been led to believe that Happiness will come when we achieve the next level of success in our lives whether that is getting your dream “home” “job” “partner” “weight” but what we find is that when we reach the level of success that we have set for ourselves we move the goalposts and its on to the next thing. The bottom line is that “If Happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there”
Ultimately We have a choice to be Happy or not regardless of our circumstances – which is quite an eye opener. This doesn’t mean that we don’t work towards improving our lives – the evidence points to us being more successful in all our endeavours if we approach them from a Happy state. It is an act of un-conditional self-love to learn the 5 step Happiness Formula and put them into practice in our daily lives. For a more in depth look at un-conditional self-love checkout Laura’s recent Blog post Here
The exercises listed below that have been proven to increase happiness levels are simple enough and fun to do but not always easy to be faithful to because of our resistance to change and the excuses we make – too tired, not enough time, more important things to be doing and the list goes on!
The 5 Step Happiness Formula
Identifying and writing down 3 things we are grateful for each day
Doing 2 random acts of Kindnesses each day and/or noticing kindnesses performed by others
Doing some form of exercise daily – this exercise can be as simple as walking on the spot
Doing a meditative practice for 15 minutes daily and
“Reliving” and writing down the details of an experience within the last 24 hours that we enjoyed.
Achor goes on to suggest that we make gratitude a communal activity as this raises social knowledge and social connection. It is fair to say that having experienced Covid lockdowns and isolation we all have a much greater appreciation of the importance of our social connections.
So What’s Stopping Us?
We have been led to believe from a very early age that we are the way we are and that change is not possible. We have been taught that our Genes dictate who we are. As a result most of us don’t believe change is possible and even it is possible it is too hard but the research is pointing to the huge benefits available to us of making small changes to our daily routines.
Why would you want to be Happier ?
It has been shown that People who are Happy perform better in every area of their lives.
Shawn Achor’s research demonstrated that when our brains are in a happy positive state we perform significantly better than when we are in neutral or negative.
The research demonstrates that Happy People are:
31% more productive
39% more likely to live longer and
Sales People increase performance by 37%
Most of us feel Happy some of the time but isn’t it great to know that there is a formula to being Happy more of the time and it is our choice whether we implement it or not.
Remembering what Haanel has repeatedly said in the Master Keys “Knowledge does not apply itself” Are YOU willing to give them a go and start by putting one of these 5 simple habits into practice to reap the grand reward of BEING HAPPY?
To your Happiness and success.