I recently watched an episode of ‘Super Soul Sunday’ on Oprah’s network OWN and thought the interview with Shawn Achor to be very enlightening.
He basically stated many things many of us intuitively already know but he backs it up with studies. He has done research on the connection between happiness and success. A professor at Harvard, he taught the post popular class at Harvard on positive psychology.
He says, as the ancient Greeks said, “Happiness is the joy you feel striving for your potential”. Happiness is not about pleasure. Pleasure comes and goes. Nothing wrong with pleasure, but it is a fleeting thing. This is why I like to use the word JOY more than happiness. In my view, JOY is food for the soul – it lasts forever and touches us on our deepest level.
Here are five things he says can make you happier:
- Write down three things you’re grateful for every morning.
- Journal for five minutes a day about one positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours. Write down every detail you can.
- Meditation
- Random act of kindness over the course of the day, for example, write a 1-2 sentence email to someone thanking them.
- Exercise. We know this! What I found interesting is that he states when you exercise, you create a pattern in your brain, and a belief that your behavior matters. He said that they have found through their research that the belief that your behavior matters – optimism — is one of the key predictors of success.
Forget trying to be successful in order to be happy. It is the other way around, he says. When you are happy, you are more successful.
May we all continue to strive for true happiness!
Popi